“When I was a boy, I thought myself a man. Now that I am a man, I find myself a boy.”
Thomas Young (scientist) (1773–1829) English polymath
as quoted by Horatio B. Williams, Thomas Young, The Man and Physician, J. Opt. Soc. Am. 20, 35-49 (1930).
On being welcomed on arrival in Great Yarmouth, in his home county [citation needed]
1790s
“When I was a boy, I thought myself a man. Now that I am a man, I find myself a boy.”
Thomas Young (scientist) (1773–1829) English polymath
as quoted by Horatio B. Williams, Thomas Young, The Man and Physician, J. Opt. Soc. Am. 20, 35-49 (1930).
Charles Lindbergh (1902–1974) American aviator, author, inventor, explorer, and social activist
Autobiography of Values (1978)
Context: I grow aware of various forms of man and of myself. I am form and I am formless, I am life and I am matter, mortal and immortal. I am one and many — myself and humanity in flux. I extend a multiple of ways in experience in space. I am myself now, lying on my back in the jungle grass, passing through the ether between satellites and stars. My aging body transmits an ageless life stream. Molecular and atomic replacement change life's composition. Molecules take part in structure and in training, countless trillions of them. After my death, the molecules of my being will return to the earth and sky. They came from the stars. I am of the stars.
“I am a poor man and have nothing else to give, but I offer you myself”
Aeschines (-389–-314 BC) Attic orator; statesman
Diogenes Laërtius, Lives of the Philosophers (Regnery, 1969), p. 75
Context: Aeschines said to him, "I am a poor man and have nothing else to give, but I offer you myself," and Socrates answered, "Nay, do you not see that you are offering me the greatest gift of all?"
“No man shall be more exacting of me or my conduct than I am of myself.”
Karl G. Maeser (1828–1901) prominent Utah educator and a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Sentence-Sermons from Brigham Young University Quarterly quoted in The Latter-Day Saints' Millenial Star, Vol. 70 https://books.google.com/books?id=eItJAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA452&lpg=PA452&dq=He+that+cheats+another+is+a+knave;+but+he+that+cheats+himself+is+a+fool.&source=bl&ots=WBAQiPjQX6&sig=WLEdKN2_kXPXj8jZALKCp2dguaQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjXmNeF_7HMAhUH42MKHdySDgsQ6AEILzAE#v=onepage&q=fool&f=false
Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881) Russian author
Personal correspondence (1839), as quoted in Dostoevsky: His Life and Work (1971) by Konstantin Mochulski, as translated by Michael A. Minihan, p. 17
Context: To study the meaning of man and of life — I am making significant progress here. I have faith in myself. Man is a mystery: if you spend your entire life trying to puzzle it out, then do not say that you have wasted your time. I occupy myself with this mystery, because I want to be a man.
“I am the poor man's poet; because I am poor myself and I have known what it is to be in love. Not being able to pay them in presents, I pay my mistresses in poetry.”
Pauperibus vates ego sum, quia pauper amavi;
Cum dare non possem munera, verba dabam.
Ovid book Ars amatoria
Book II, lines 165–166 (tr. J. Lewis May)
Ars Amatoria (The Art of Love)
Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881) Russian author
Personal correspondence (1839), as quoted in Dostoevsky: His Life and Work (1971) by Konstantin Mochulski, as translated by Michael A. Minihan, p. 17
General
Robert A. Heinlein book The Number of the Beast
Source: The Number of the Beast (1980), Chapter XXVI : The Keys to the City, p. 249
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
Reply to delegation from the National Union League approving and endorsing "the nominations made by the Union National Convention at Baltimore." New York Times, Herald, and Tribune (10 June 1864) Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 7 http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=lincoln;rgn=div1;view=text;idno=lincoln7;node=lincoln7%3A852 <br class="br">To a delegation of the National Union League who congratulated him on his nomination as the Republican candidate for President, June 9, 1864. As given by J. F. Rhodes—Hist. of the U. S. from the Compromise of 1850, Volume IV, p. 370. Same in Nicolay and Hay Lincoln's Complete Works, Volume II, p. 532. Different version in Appleton's Cyclopedia. Raymond—Life and Public Services of Abraham Lincoln, Chapter XVIII, p. 500. (Ed. 1865) says Lincoln quotes an old Dutch farmer, "It was best not to swap horses when crossing a stream". <br class="br">Variant: I do not allow myself to suppose that either the convention or the League, have concluded to decide that I am either the greatest or the best man in America, but rather they have concluded it is not best to swap horses while crossing the river, and have further concluded that I am not so poor a horse that they might not make a botch of it in trying to swap. note <br class="br">Source: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=lincoln;rgn=div1;view=text;idno=lincoln7;node=lincoln7%3A852 Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 7