“It is absurd to hold that a man ought to be ashamed of being unable to defend himself with his limbs but not of being unable to defend himself with speech and reason, when the use of reason is more distinctive of a human being than the use of his limbs.”

—  Aristotle , Rhetoric

Book I, 1355b.1
Rhetoric

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update April 14, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "It is absurd to hold that a man ought to be ashamed of being unable to defend himself with his limbs but not of being u…" by Aristotle?
Aristotle photo
Aristotle 230
Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder o… -384–-321 BC

Related quotes

Stefan Zweig photo

“In my youth and comparative inexperience I had always regarded the yearning and pangs of love as the worst torture that could afflict the human heart. At this moment, however, I began to realize that there was another and perhaps grimmer torture than that of longing and desiring: that of being loved against one's will and of being unable to defend oneself against the urgency of another's passion; of seeing another human being seared by the flame of her desire and of having to look impotently, lacking the power, the capacity, the strength to pluck her from the flames. He who is himself crossed in love is able from time to time to master his passion, for he is not the creature but the creator of his own misery; and if a lover is unable to control his passim, he at least knows that he is himself to blame for his sufferings.”

Stefan Zweig book Beware of Pity

Beware of Pity (1939)

Frank Lloyd Wright photo

“By being so far educated beyond his capacity is he unable to learn within himself from nature? Divorced as he is from her, who and what can now be his? Does the so-called free man of democracy merely exploit his sovereignity?”

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) American architect (1867-1959)

A Testament (1957)

“Pythagoras being asked how a man ought to conduct himself towards his country, when it had acted iniquitously with respect to him, replied, as to a mother.”

Stobaeus Ancient Greek anthologist

40
Pythagorean Ethical Sentences

Glen Cook photo

“Beneath my breath I continued my conversation with God. As usual, He did not trouble Himself to defend His Works to me. My fault for being a woman.”

Glen Cook book Water Sleeps

Source: Water Sleeps (1999), Chapter 84 (p. 302)

Gore Vidal photo

“His fault was a common one. He simply did not know what he was; he saw no flaw in himself, a not unusual blindness and preferable, on the whole, to being unable to find any virtue in oneself.”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

Source: 1960s, Julian (1964), Chapter 6

Roy A. Childs, Jr. photo

“Objectivism's philosophy of man begins with the fact that man is a being of volitional consciousness: man is the one animal who has to choose to be conscious, to use his mind. Man is a rational animal, and reason is his only guide to knowledge, reason being that faculty which identifies and integrates the material provided by man's senses.”

Roy A. Childs, Jr. (1949–1992) American libertarian essayist and critic

“The Contradiction in Objectivism,” 1968

“No kingdom can be secured otherwise than by arming the people. The possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave. He, who has nothing, and who himself belongs to another, must be defended by him, whose property he is, and needs no arms. But he, who thinks he is his own master, and has what he can call his own, ought to have arms to defend himself, and what he possesses; else he lives precariously, and at discretion.”

James Burgh book Political Disquisitions

ch III: A Militia, with Navy
Political Disquisitions (1774)

Julian (emperor) photo

“Is it not absurd when a human being tries to find happiness somewhere outside himself, and thinks that wealth and birth and the influence of friends… is of the utmost importance?”

Julian (emperor) (331–363) Roman Emperor, philosopher and writer

As quoted in The Works of the Emperor Julian (1923) by Wilmer Cave France Wright, p. 41
General sources

L. Ron Hubbard photo

“There are conditions worse than being unable to see, and that is imagining one sees.”

L. Ron Hubbard (1911–1986) American science fiction author, philosopher, cult leader, and the founder of the Church of Scientology

Lecture, Scientology and Effective Knowledge (15 July 1957).

Anthony Kennedy photo

“The fetus, in many cases, dies just as a human adult or child would: It bleeds to death as it is torn from limb from limb. The fetus can be alive at the beginning of the dismemberment process and can survive for a time while its limbs are being torn off.”

Anthony Kennedy (1936) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Stenberg v. Carhart, 530 U. S. 914 http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=000&invol=99-830 (28 June 2000) (detailing what he deemed a constitutionally protected alternative to partial-birth abortion).

Related topics