I have the capacity of being more wicked than any example that man could set me.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that human potential for wrongdoing is immense, possibly surpassing existing examples of wickedness.
James Clerk Maxwell reflects on the inherent capacity within individuals to commit acts of wickedness. He implies that, while one may look to examples of evil behavior in society, one's potential for malevolence can be even greater than those instances, indicating a deep understanding of human nature and the moral choices we face.
In practice
In a philosophical discussion about morality and ethics, this quote may be used to illustrate the duality of human nature.
Science appears to us with a very different aspect after we have found out that it is not in lecture rooms only, and by means of the electric light projected on a screen, that we may witness physical phenomena, but that we may find illustrations of the highest doctrines of science in games and gymnastics, in travelling by land and by water, in storms of the air and of the sea, and wherever there is matter in motion.
... that, in a few years, all great physical constants will have been approximately estimated, and that the only occupation which will be left to men of science will be to carry these measurements to another place of decimals.
Very few of us can now place ourselves in the mental condition in which even such philosophers as the great Descartes were involved in the days before Newton had announced the true laws of the motion of bodies.
What's the go of that? What's the particular go of that?
I have also a paper afloat, with an electromagnetic theory of light, which, till I am convinced to the contrary, I hold to be great guns.
If we betake ourselves to the statistical method, we do so confessing that we are unable to follow the details of each individual case, and expecting that the effects of widespread causes, though very different in each individual, will produce an average result on the whole nation, from a study of which we may estimate the character and propensities of an imaginary being called the Mean Man.
To be curious about that which is not one's concern while still in ignorance of oneself is ridiculous.
He who repeats what he does not understand is no better than an ass that is loaded with books.
In his commerce with men I mean him to include- and that principally- those who live only in the memory of books. By means of history he will frequent those great souls of former years. If you want it to be so, history can be a waste of time; it can also be, if you want it to be so, a study bearing fruit beyond price.
Not to be able to stop thinking is a dreadful affliction, but we don't realize this because almost everyone is suffering from it, so it is considered normal. This incessant mental noise prevents you from finding that realm of inner stillness that is inseparable from Being.
It's in the act of making things that we figure out who we are.
I know who I am. And after all these years, there's a victory in that.
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