Adam Ferguson

Also known as Reverend Adam Ferguson

Family

Also known as Reverend Adam Ferguson

Notable quotes

“The attainments of the parent do not descend in the blood of his children, nor is the progress of man to be considered as a physical mutation of the species.”
— PART I, SECTION I.
“Mankind have always wandered or settled, agreed or quarrelled, in troops and companies.”
— PART I, SECTION III.
“Men are to be estimated, not from what they know, but from what they are able to perform.”
— PART I, SECTION V.
“Man, in his animal capacity, is qualified to subsist in every climate.”
— PART III, SECTION I.
“Every step and every movement of the multitude, even in what are termed enlightened ages, are made with equal blindness to the future; and nations stumble upon establishments, which are indeed the result of human action, but not the execution of any human design.”
— PART III, SECTION II.
“Theory consists in referring particular operations to the principles, or general laws, under which they are comprehended; or in referring particular effects to the causes from which they proceed.”
— Introduction, Section IV, Of Theory, p. 7.

Quotes via Wikiquote (CC BY-SA), each with its original source.