
“My weaknesses have always been food and men - in that order.”
Act II.
The Good-Natured Man (1768)
“My weaknesses have always been food and men - in that order.”
Source: 1969 - 1980, In: "Ellsworth Kelly: Works on Paper," 1987, p. unknown : 'Notes from 1969'
In a letter following his defeat in the 1830 elections, as quoted in David Crockett: The Man and the Legend (1994) by James Atkins Shackford, p. 133
Context: I would rather be beaten and be a man than to be elected and be a little puppy dog. I have always supported measures and principles and not men. I have acted fearless[ly] and independent and I never will regret my course. I would rather be politically buried than to be hypocritically immortalized.
As quoted in Woman Through the Ages;; (1908) by Emil Reich, p. 155
as taken by Professor Ralph Peck's Legacy Website http://peck.geoengineer.org/words.html#
Fragment 30
Variant translations:
The world, an entity out of everything, was created by neither gods nor men, but was, is and will be eternally living fire, regularly becoming ignited and regularly becoming extinguished.
This world . . . ever was, and is, and shall be, ever-living Fire, in measures being kindled and in measure going out.
That which always was,
and is, and will be everlasting fire,
the same for all, the cosmos,
made neither by god nor man,
replenishes in measure
as it burns away.
Translated by Brooks Haxton
Numbered fragments
Don Alvarez in Act I, Sc. 1; also misquoted as "Reason gains all people by compelling none."
Alzira: A Tragedy (1736)