29 Quotes by Edwin A. Abbott

All this very plausible reasoning does not convince me, as it has not convinced the wisest of our Statesmen, that our ancestors erred in laying it down as an axiom of policy that the toleration of Irregularity is incompatible with the safety of the State.

If a man with a triangular front and a polygonal back were allowed to exist and to propagate a still more Irregular posterity, what would become of the arts of life? Are the houses and doors and churches in Flatland to be altered in order to accommodate such monsters?

Spaceland, whose appreciation has, with unexpected celerity, required a.

For why should the thirst for knowledge be aroused, only to be disappointed and punished?

Thus ended my first attempt to convert a pupil to the Gospel of Three Dimensions.

Only is often used ambiguously for alone. “The rest help me to revenge myself; you only advise me to wait.” This ought to mean, “you only advise, instead of helping;” but in similar sentences “you only” is often used for “you alone.

I looked, and, behold, a new world!

Yet mark his perfect self-contentment, and hence learn his lesson, that to be self-contented is to be vile and ignorant, and that to aspire is better than to be blindly and impotently happy.

True,” said the Sphere; “it appears to you a Plane, because you are not accustomed to light and shade and perspective; just as in Flatland a Hexagon would appear a Straight Line to one who has not the Art of Sight Recognition. But in reality it is a Solid, as you shall learn by the sense of Feeling.” He.