Wer den Daumen auf dem Beutel hat, der hat die Macht.
Speech to North German Reichstag (21 May 1869), Stenographische Berichte p. 1017 (left) http://books.google.de/books?id=wm9HAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA1017
1860s
Wer den Daumen auf dem Beutel hat, hat die Macht.
Rede im Norddeutschen Reichstag, 21. Mai 1869, Stenographische Berichte S. 1017 linke Spalte books.google.de/ http://books.google.de/books?id=wm9HAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA1017
Variant: Wer den Daumen auf dem Beutel hat, der hat die Macht.
“Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.”
“He sets a thief to guard his purse
Who trusts a dial with his hours”
The Golden Ass (1999)
Context: He sets a thief to guard his purse
Who trusts a dial with his hours
Or bids a sand-glass bleed away his nights,
His days, his loves, his pleasures and his powers.
The burthen of his years
Is Time's soft footfall, Time's soft
Falling
Through his joys and tears.
“Blessed, unquestionably, is he who has it in his power to do evil, yet does it not.”
Fifth Day, Novel XLII (trans. W. K. Kelly)
L'Heptaméron (1558)
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 210.
Original: (it) L'individuo che approfitta del potere che ha per imporre esclusivamente gli interessi a suo vantaggio, è un fallito assolutamente privo di coraggio e valore.
Source: prevale.net
Motto, Hyperion, book i.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still.”
Variant: He who conquers others is strong; He who conquers himself is mighty.
This Business of Living (1935-1950)
