“Impurity is caused by attitude, not events.”

— Seneca the Younger

Phaedra line 735; translation by Emily Wilson
Tragedies

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Seneca the Younger225

Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist -4–65 BC

Jeff Davis

“The advantage of pure, and the disadvantage of impure air are experienced each time we breathe, and all who understand the causes of disease know that an impure atmosphere is most unfavourable to the enjoyment of health, and an efficient cause to shorten human existence within the natural life of man. It is therefore most desirable that decisive measures should be devised and generally adopted to ensure to all a pure atmosphere, in which to live during their lives.”

Robert Owen (1771–1858) Welsh social reformer

3rd Part
The Book of the New Moral World (1836-1844)

“Success or failure in business is caused more by mental attitude even than by mental capacity.”

Walter Dill Scott (1869–1955) President of Northwestern university and psychologist

Source: Increasing Human Efficiency in Business, 1911, p. 134

“An event is not triggered by a chain of being, but by a field of causes spreading horizontally, like creeping tide.”

Kevin Kelly (1952) American author and editor

Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995)

“The origin of certain superstitions is often connected to the intention of attributing adverse events to specific causes.”

Fausto Cercignani (1941) Italian scholar, essayist and poet

Examples of self-translation (c. 2004), Quotes - Zitate - Citations - Citazioni

“I do not believe that the desires of young boys cause catastrophic events. The actions of humans do.”

Melina Marchetta Finnikin of the Rock

Source: Finnikin of the Rock

“I have no way of knowing whether the events that I am about to narrate are effects or causes.”

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature

Source: Collected Fictions

“Every event has had its cause, and nothing, not the least wind that blows, is accident or causeless.”

Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American writer

Source: My Several Worlds (1954), p. 52 - 53
Context: Every event has had its cause, and nothing, not the least wind that blows, is accident or causeless. To understand what happens now one must find the cause, which may be very long ago in its beginning, but is surely there, and therefore a knowledge of history as detailed as possible is essential if we are to comprehend the present and be prepared for the future. Fate, Mr. Kung taught me, is not the blind superstition or helplessness that waits stupidly for what may happen. Fate is unalterable only in the sense that given a cause, a certain result must follow, but no cause is inevitable in itself, and man can shape his world if he does not resign himself to ignorance.

“Tolerating a wrong attitude toward another person causes you to follow the spirit of the devil, no matter how saintly you are.”

Oswald Chambers (1874–1917) British missionary

“As for those who condemned these operations looked at the event [9/11] in isolation and failed to connect them to past events and did not look at the causes that lead to this result. So their point of view is narrow.”

Osama bin Laden (1957–2011) founder of al-Qaeda

Al - Jazeera Broadcast Tape - On 9/11 and the American reaction http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dls5JTD-uG0 (The date of this tape is not provided, though it seems to be 2002 or 2003, but could be as early as October 2001.) <br class="br">2000s

“Impurity is caused by attitude, not events.”

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Seneca the Younger225

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