Adam Ferguson Quotes
Adam Ferguson was an 18th-century Scottish Enlightenment philosopher and historian, often regarded as one of the founders of modern sociology. His 1767 work An Essay on the History of Civil Society offered an early account of social organisation as the unintended outcome of human action, and analysed the conditions of liberty, civic virtue, and the dangers of commercial modernity. The quotes below are attributed to Adam Ferguson, organized by topic.
Browse Adam Ferguson by topic
Adam Ferguson on Freedom
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Attributed to Adam Ferguson:
“Liberty is a right which every individual must be ready to vindicate for himself.”
Adam Ferguson on Knowledge
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“Mankind have always wandered or settled, agreed or quarrelled, in troops and companies.”
PART I, SECTION III. -
“PART I, SECTION III.”
Mankind have always wandered or settled, agreed or quarrelled, in troops and companies. -
“We are fond of distinctions; we place ourselves in opposition, and quarrel under the denominations of faction and party, without any material subject of controversy.”
PART I, SECTION IV. -
“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. -
“PART III, SECTION I.”
Man, in his animal capacity, is qualified to subsist in every climate. -
“…if we intend to pursue the history of our species in its further attainments, we may soon enter on subjects which will confine our observation to more narrow limits. The genius of political wisdom and civil arts appears to have chosen his seats in particular tracts of the earth, and to have selected his favourites in particular races of men.”
PART III, SECTION I.
Adam Ferguson on Love
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“Love is an affection which carries the attention of the mind beyond itself, and is the sense of a relation to some fellow creature as to its object.”
PART I, SECTION II.
Adam Ferguson on Nature
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“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.
Adam Ferguson on Politics
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Attributed to Adam Ferguson:
“Mankind, in following the present sense of their minds, in striving to remove inconveniencies, or to gain apparent and contiguous advantages, arrive at ends which even their imagination could not anticipate.”
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Attributed to Adam Ferguson:
“Society is more than a mere convenience; it is the natural element in which our faculties most truly develop.”
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Attributed to Adam Ferguson:
“If nations actually borrow from their neighbours, they probably borrow only what they are nearly in a condition to have invented themselves.”
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Attributed to Adam Ferguson:
“The boasted refinements of polished ages are not divested of danger.”
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Attributed to Adam Ferguson:
“Without the rivalship of nations, and the practice of war, civil society itself could scarcely have found an object, or a form.”
Adam Ferguson on Time
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“The history of mankind is confined within a limited period, and from every quarter brings an intimation that human affairs have had a beginning.”
PART II, SECTION I.
Adam Ferguson on Virtue
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Attributed to Adam Ferguson:
“It is in the nature of man, when properly disciplined, to be sober, frugal, industrious, and honest.”