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Were I so tall to reach the pole,
Or grasp the ocean with my span,
I must be measured by my soul;
The mind's the standard of the man.
--
"False Greatness" in Horae Lyricae Book II (1706). Compare: "I do not distinguish by the eye, but by the mind, which is the proper judge of the man", Seneca, On a Happy Life (L'Estrange's Abstract), chap. i; "It is the mind that makes the man, and our vigour is in our immortal soul", Ovid, Metamorphoses, xiii.

 

Isaac Watts

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