Variant: We are enriched not by what we possess, but by what we can do without.
“To be content with what we possess is the greatest and most secure of riches.”
“We do what we can do means what exactly means, that we do what we can do.”
26 June, 2017
As President, 2017
Source: Vozópuli http://www.vozpopuli.com/espana/Rajoy-Conteste-senor-Barcenas-telefono_2_1048115186.html
“Possessing what we still were unpossessed by,
Possessed by what we now no more possessed.”
Source: The Poetry of Robert Frost
“We do what we have to so we can do what we want to.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 208
2000s, Thus Spake Stallman (2000)
Context: Religious people often say that religion offers absolute certainty about right and wrong; "god tells them" what it is. Even supposing that the aforementioned gods exist, and that the believers really know what the gods think, that still does not provide certainty, because any being no matter how powerful can still be wrong. Whether gods exist or not, there is no way to get absolute certainty about ethics. Without absolute certainty, what do we do? We do the best we can. Injustice is happening now; suffering is happening now. We have choices to make now. To insist on absolute certainty before starting to apply ethics to life decisions is a way of choosing to be amoral.
“As we are human, we can't do what we can't do; as we're neurotic, we can't do what we can.”
The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Neurotics and neurosis
Think Better: An Innovator's Guide to Productive Thinking
“What we acquire with joy, we possess with indifference.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 202
