Stobaeus, Florilegium, XL, VI, 24, as reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of Quotations (1897), p. 515.
2000s, 2002, State of the Union address (January 2002)
“We must powder our wigs; that is why so many poor people have no bread.”
VIII, 25
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book VIII
Speech to Devonshire Conservatives (January 1892), as quoted in The Marquis of Salisbury (1892), by James J. Ellis, p. 185
Variant: The only true lasting benefit which the statesman can give to the poor man is so to shape matters that the greatest possible liberty for the exercise of his own moral and intellectual qualities should be offered to him by law.
As quoted in Salisbury — Victorian Titan (1999) by Andrew Roberts
1890s
Context: We must learn this rule, which is true alike of rich and poor — that no man and no class of men ever rise to any permanent improvement in their condition of body or of mind except by relying upon their own personal efforts. The wealth with which the rich man is surrounded is constantly tempting him to forget the truth, ad you see in family after family men degenerating from the position of their fathers because they live sluggishly and enjoy what has been placed before them without appealing to their own exertions. The poor man, especially in these days, may have a similar temptation offered to him by legislation, but this same inexorable rule will work. The only true lasting benefit which the statesman can give to the poor man is so to shape matters that the greatest possible opportunity for the exercise of his own moral and intellectual qualities shall be offered to him by the law; and therefore it is that in my opinion nothing that we can do this year, and nothing that we did before, will equal in the benefit that it will confer upon the physical condition, and with the physical will follow the moral too, of the labouring classes in the rural districts, that measure for free education which we passed last year. It will have the effect of bringing education home to many a family which hitherto has not been able to enjoy it, and in that way, by developing the faculties which nature has given to them, it will be a far surer and a far more valuable aid to extricate them from any of the sufferings or hardships to which they may be exposed than the most lavish gifts of mere sustenance that the State could offer.
“A good End cannot sanctifie evil Means; nor must we ever do Evil, that Good may come of it.”
537-539
Fruits of Solitude (1682), Part I
Context: A good End cannot sanctifie evil Means; nor must we ever do Evil, that Good may come of it. Some Folks think they may Scold, Rail, Hate, Rob and Kill too; so it be but for God's sake. But nothing in us unlike him, can please him.
Debating Edward Teller, in The Nuclear Bomb Tests...Is Fallout Overrated? : Fallout and Disarmament KQED-TV, San Francisco http://osulibrary.oregonstate.edu/specialcollections/coll/pauling/peace/papers/1958p2.1.html (20 February 1958).
1940s-1960s
Context: We must not have a Nuclear war. We must begin to solve international disputes by the application of man's power of reason in a way that is worthy of the dignity of man. We must solve them by arbitration, negotiation, and the development of international law, the making of international agreements that will do justice to all nations and to all peoples and will benefit all nations and to all people. Now is the time to start.
“To enrich God, man must become poor; that God may be all, man must be nothing.”
The Essence of Christianity (1841)
