quote · Legacy record
The globe has been circumnavigated, but no man ever yet has; you may survey a kingdom and note the result in maps, but all the savants in the world could not produce a reliable map of the poorest human personality. And the worst of all this is, that love and friendship may be the outcome of a certain condition of knowledge; increase the knowledge, and love and friendship beat their wings and go. Every man’s road in life is marked by the graves of his personal likings. Intimacy is frequently the road to indifference; and marriage a parricide.
The globe has been circumnavigated, but no man ever yet has; you may survey a kingdom and note the result in maps, but all the savants in the world could not produce a reliable map of the poorest human personality. And the worst of all this is, that love and friendship may be the outcome of a certain condition of knowledge; increase the knowledge, and love and friendship beat their wings and go. Every man’s road in life is marked by the graves of his personal likings. Intimacy is frequently the road to indifference; and marriage a parricide.
Approximate author period: c. 1848 AD · industrial
Meaning not yet available
An individual explanation has not yet been added. We do not substitute a generic description for an interpretation of these particular words.
Begin with source-checked readings and explanations ↗Attribution & collection notes
- Author or tradition
- Alexander Smith
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin. - Historical period
- Approximate author period: c. 1848 AD · industrial
author lifetime midpoint (1830–1867)
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken. - Recorded source
- My Commonplace Book (third English edition,1921) (1921 AD)
Page 264 · printed citation: Alexander Smith (The Importance of a Man to Himself). · compiler notes excluded
A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.