Truth is the most powerful ...

Truth is the most powerful thing in the world, since even fiction itself must be governed by it, and can only please by its resemblance. The appearance of reality is necessary to make any passion agreeably represented, and to be able to move others we must be moved ourselves, or at least seem to be so, upon some probable grounds.
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 Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury

Quotes from the same author

Pedantry and bigotry are millstones, able to sink the best book which carries the least part of their dead weight. The temper of the pedagogue suits not with the age; and the world, however it may be taught, will not be tutored.
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 Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury
We may have an excellent ear for music, without being able to perform in any kind; we may judge well of poetry, without being poets, or possessing the least of a poetic vein; but we can have no tolerable notion of goodness without being tolerably good.
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 Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury
Nothing affects the heart like that which is purely from itself, and of its own nature; such as the beauty of sentiments, the grace of actions, the turn of characters, and the proportions and features of a human mind.
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 Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury