George MacDonald (1824–1905) Scottish journalist, novelist
Willie's Question
The Disciple and Other Poems (1867)
“Before a man can do things there must be things he will not do.”
— Mencius
Eugene H. Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, IVP, start of Ch 2.
Attributed
Source: Also quoted elsewhere and attributed to Mencius as "Only when there are things a man will not do is he capable of doing great things," again with no source.
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Mencius18
Chinese philosopher -372–-289 BCRelated quotes
“Every man must do two things alone; he must do his own believing and his own dying..”
Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation
“Perhaps not willingly, but pain can make a man do things he wouldn't willingly do.”
Anne Bishop (1955) American fiction writer
Source: Daughter of the Blood
Carlos Castaneda book The Wheel of Time
Source: The Wheel of Time: Shamans of Ancient Mexico, Their Thoughts About Life, Death and the Universe], (1998), Quotations from "Tales of Power" (Chapter 10)
“For the things we have to learn before we can do, we learn by doing.”
Aristotle book Nicomachean Ethics
Book II, 1103a.33: Cited in: Oxford Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (2005), 21:9
Nicomachean Ethics
Source: The Nicomachean Ethics
Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist
Song lyrics, Infidels (1983), License to Kill
“Man will do many things to get himself loved; he will do all things to get himself envied.”
Mark Twain book Following the Equator
Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar, Ch. XXI
Following the Equator (1897)
Variant: Man will do many things to get himself loved, he will do all things to get himself envied.