“If a man aspires to the highest place, it is no dishonor to him to halt at the second, or even at the third.”
Variant translation: If you aspire to the highest place, it is no disgrace to stop at the second, or even the third, place.
Chapter I, section 4
Orator Ad M. Brutum (46 BC)
Original
Prima enim sequentem honestum est in secundis tertiisque consistere. ([http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/cicero/orator.shtml#3 3])
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Marcus Tullius Cicero 180
Roman philosopher and statesman -106–-43 BCRelated quotes
Sādhanā : The Realisation of Life http://www.spiritualbee.com/spiritual-book-by-tagore/ (1916)
Context: Man is not entirely an animal. He aspires to a spiritual vision, which is the vision of the whole truth. This gives him the highest delight, because it reveals to him the deepest harmony that exists between him and his surroundings. It is our desires that limit the scope of our self-realisation, hinder our extension of consciousness, and give rise to sin, which is the innermost barrier that keeps us apart from our God, setting up disunion and the arrogance of exclusiveness. For sin is not one mere action, but it is an attitude of life which takes for granted that our goal is finite, that our self is the ultimate truth, and that we are not all essentially one but exist each for his own separate individual existence.
1922 Source: Geraldine Taylor. Behind the Ranges: The Life-changing Story of J.O. Fraser. Singapore: OMF International (IHQ) Ltd., 1998, 269.
Source: The Agony and the Ecstasy: A Biographical Novel of Michelangelo
The Architecture of Theories (1891)
Context: The origin of things, considered not as leading to anything, but in itself, contains the idea of First, the end of things that of Second, the process mediating between them that of Third. A philosophy which emphasises the idea of the One, is generally a dualistic philosophy in which the conception of Second receives exaggerated attention: for this One (though of course involving the idea of First) is always the other of a manifold which is not one. The idea of the Many, because variety is arbitrariness and arbitrariness is repudiation of any Secondness, has for its principal component the conception of First. In psychology Feeling is First, Sense of reaction Second, General conception Third, or mediation. In biology, the idea of arbitrary sporting is First, heredity is Second, the process whereby the accidental characters become fixed is Third. Chance is First, Law is Second, the tendency to take habits is Third. Mind is First, Matter is Second, Evolution is Third.
as quoted by [N. Y. Mayall, Biographical memoir. Volume 41, Memoirs of the National Academy of sciences, National Academy of Sciences (U.S.), National Academy of Sciences, 1970, 179]
Attributed
We The Living (1936)
Source: We The Living Last Page