Source: The Wizard
“Hardly any man is clever enough to know all the evil he does.”
Il n'y a guère d'homme assez habile pour connaître tout le mal qu'il fait.
Maxim 269.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)
“It does not matter much what a man hates provided he hates something.”
Hating
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XIV - Higgledy-Piggledy
“Man, when he does not grieve, hardly exists.”
El hombre, cuando no se lamenta, casi no existe.
Voces (1943)
Source: The Alchemist (1988), p. 158.
"Self-Portrait" (1936), p. 5 http://books.google.com/books?id=Q1UxYzuI2oQC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA5#v=onepage&q&f=false
1950s, Out of My Later Years (1950)
“When a man does not know what harbour he is making for, no wind is the right wind.”
errant consilia nostra, quia non habent quo derigantur; ignoranti quem portum petat nullus suus ventus est.
Letter LXXI: On the supreme good, line 3
Alternate translation: If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable. (translator unknown).
Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius)
Context: Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbour he is making for, no wind is the right wind.
“It is a part of the poet's work to show each man what he sees but does not know he sees.”
As quoted in The Reader's Digest Great Encyclopedic Dictionary Special Supplement (1966), p. 2047
