“I gave my life to become the person I am right now. Was it worth it?”
Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer
Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666)
Context: Now, therefore, they began to praise, to commend and to speak well of me, both to my face, and behind my back. Now, I was, as they said, become godly; now I was become a right honest man. But, oh! when I understood that these were their words and opinions of me, it pleased me mighty well. For though, as yet, I was nothing but a poor painted Hypocrite, yet I loved to be talked of as one that was truly godly. I was proud of my Godliness, and, indeed, I did all I did, ether to be seen of, or to be well spoken of, by Man.<!--p. 16
“I gave my life to become the person I am right now. Was it worth it?”
Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer
Fyodor Dostoyevsky book Notes from Underground
Part 1, Chapter 1 (page 8)
Notes from Underground (1864)
Wilhelm II, German Emperor (1859–1941) German Emperor and King of Prussia
Conversation with Lord Stamfordham (25 May 1913), quoted in John Rohl, 'Germany', in Keith Wilson (ed.), Decisions for War 1914 (London: University College London Press, 1995), pp. 43-44
1910s
Kancha Ilaiah (1952) Indian scholar, activist and writer
Quoted in "Caste discrimination: Invisible but omnipresent" in The Indian Express (01 February 2016) http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/caste-discrimination-invisible-but-omnipresent/.
“I became a man by becoming a public man.”
Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist
Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez (1982)