“With unrivalled activity.. [he] concentrated the most varied and most complicated functions of government in his own person. He himself watched over the distribution of grain, selected the jurymen, founded the colonies.. regulated the highways and concluded building-contracts, led the discussions of the senate, settled the consular elections - in short; he accustomed the people to the fact that one man was the foremost in all things, and threw the lax and lame administration of the senatorial college into the shade by the vigour and dexterity of his personal rule.”

— Theodor Mommsen

Vol. 4, Translated by W.P. Dickson.
On Gaius Gracchus.
The History of Rome - Volume 4: Part 2

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Theodor Mommsen 65

German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, po… 1817–1903

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“He accustomed the people to the fact that one man was the foremost in all things, and threw the lax and lame administration of the senatorial college into the shade by the vigour and dexterity of his personal rule. ]]”

Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist and writer

He knew neither the art of gaining his antagonists, nor that of keeping his own party in subjection
Vol. 3, Translated by W.P. Dickson.
On Gaius Marius
The History of Rome - Volume 3

“The Sunna and path of the Prophet constitute a proof of the necessity for establishing government. First, he himself established a government, as history testifies. He engaged in the implementation of laws, the establishment of the ordinances of Islam, and the administration of society. He sent out governors to different regions; both sat in judgment himself and appointed judges; dispatched emissaries to foreign states, tribal chieftains, and kings; concluded treaties and pacts; and took command in battle. In short, he fulfilled all the functions of government. Second, he designated a ruler to succeed him, in accordance with divine command. If God Almighty, through the Prophet, designated a man who was to rule over Muslim society after him, this is in itself an indication that government remains a necessity after the departure of the Prophet from this world. Again, since the Most Noble Messenger promulgated the divine command through his act of appointing a successor, he also implicitly stated the necessity for establishing a government.”

Ruhollah Khomeini (1902–1989) Religious leader, politician

Islam and Revolution, Writings and Declarations of Imam Khomeini, Translated and Annotated by Hamid Algar, Mizan Press, Berkley, pp. 41.
Islamic government

“Man’s main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is. The most important product of his effort is his own personality.”

Erich Fromm (1900–1980) German social psychologist and psychoanalyst

Source: Man for Himself (1947), Ch. 4 "Problems of Humanistic Ethics"

“Unless he is prepared to try his new theories and processes on himself, as has been done here, there is little likelihood that he will ever see them applied, for he will find that, of all people, builders are most set in their ways and hardest to move from their accustomed ruts.”

Ernest Flagg (1857–1947) American architect

Introduction
Small Houses: Their Economic Design and Construction (1922)

“He will always see the most beauty whose affections are the warmest and most exercised, whose imagination is the most powerful, and who has most accustomed himself to attend to the objects by which he is surrounded.”

Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey (1773–1850) British politician

Review of Archibald Alison's Essays on the Nature and Principles of Taste, in the Edinburgh Review (May 1811)

“So far as one understands a man, one is that man. The man of genius takes his place in the above argument as he who understands incomparably more other beings than the average man. Goethe is said to have said of himself that there was no vice or crime of which he could not trace the tendency in himself, and that at some period of his life he could not have understood fully. The genius, therefore, is a more complicated, more richly endowed, more varied man; and a man is the closer to being a genius the more men he has in his personality, and the more really and strongly he has these others within him.”

Otto Weininger book Sex and Character

Einen Menschen verstehen heißt also: auch er sein. Der geniale Mensch aber offenbarte sich an jenen Beispielen eben als der Mensch, welcher ungleich mehr Wesen versteht als der mittelmäßige. Goethe soll von sich gesagt haben, es gebe kein Laster und kein Verbrechen, zu dem er nicht die Anlage in sich verspürt, das er nicht in irgend einem Zeitpunkte seines Lebens vollauf verstanden habe. Der geniale Mensch ist also komplizierter, zusammengesetzter, reicher; und ein Mensch ist um so genialer zu nennen, je mehr Menschen er in sich vereinigt, und zwar, wie hinzugefügt werden muß, je lebendiger, mit je größerer Intensität er die anderen Menschen in sich hat.
Source: Sex and Character (1903), p. 106.

“Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.”

Seneca the Younger (-4–65 BC) Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist

“A man should build a house with his own hands before he calls himself an engineer.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn book One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962)

“When man humbles himself, God cannot restrain His mercy; He must come down and pour His grace into the humble man, and He gives Himself most of all, and all at once, to the least of all.”

Meister Eckhart (1260–1328) German theologian

Sermon III : The Angel's Greeting
Meister Eckhart’s Sermons (1909)
Context: When man humbles himself, God cannot restrain His mercy; He must come down and pour His grace into the humble man, and He gives Himself most of all, and all at once, to the least of all. It is essential to God to give, for His essence is His goodness and His goodness is His love. Love is the root of all joy and sorrow. Slavish fear of God is to be put away. The right fear is the fear of losing God. If the earth flee downward from heaven, it finds heaven beneath it; if it flee upward, it comes again to heaven. The earth cannot flee from heaven: whether it flee up or down, the heaven rains its influence upon it, and stamps its impress upon it, and makes it fruitful, whether it be willing or not. Thus doth God with men: whoever thinketh to escape Him, flies into His bosom, for every corner is open to Him. God brings forth His Son in thee, whether thou likest it or not, whether thou sleepest or wakest; God worketh His own will. That man is unaware of it, is man's fault, for his taste is so spoilt by feeding on earthly things that he cannot relish God's love. If we had love to God, we should relish God, and all His works; we should receive all things from God, and work the same works as He worketh.

“Don Quixote made himself ridiculous; but did he know the most tragic ridicule of all, the inward ridicule, the ridiculousness of a man's self to himself, in the eyes of his own soul?”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), Conclusion : Don Quixote in the Contemporary European Tragi-Comedy
Context: Don Quixote made himself ridiculous; but did he know the most tragic ridicule of all, the inward ridicule, the ridiculousness of a man's self to himself, in the eyes of his own soul? Imagine Don Quixote's battlefield to be his own soul; imagine him to be fighting in his soul to save the Middle Ages from the Renaissance, to preserve the treasure of his infancy; imagine him an inward Don Quixote, with a Sancho at his side, inward and heroic too — and tell me if you find anything comic in the tragedy.

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Theodor Mommsen 65

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