“The right-minded man, ever inclined to righteous and lawful deeds, is joyous day and night, and strong, and free from care. But if a man take no heed of the right, and leave undone the things he ought to do, then will the recollection of no one of all his transgressions bring him any joy, but only anxiety and self-reproaching.”

— Democritus

Source Book in Ancient Philosophy (1907), The Golden Sayings of Democritus

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 14, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The right-minded man, ever inclined to righteous and lawful deeds, is joyous day and night, and strong, and free from c…" by Democritus?

Democritus 81

Ancient Greek philosopher, pupil of Leucippus, founder of t…

Related quotes

“No man has need of religion who is self-righteous, who is all he wants to be and all he ought to be.”

Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979) Catholic bishop and television presenter

Source: The Armor of God (1943), Ch. 1, p. 4

“A Man ought to form in his own Mind an exact and clear Idea of what Liberty is. Liberty is the Right of doing whatsoever the Laws allow: And if any one Citizen could do what the Laws forbid, there would be no more Liberty; because others would have an equal Power of doing the same.”

Catherine the Great (1729–1796) Empress of Russia

Item 38
Proposals for a New Law Code (1768)

“But let the individual man lay claim to ever so many rights because Man or the concept man ‘entitles’ him to them, because his being man does it: what do I care for his right and his claim? If he has his right only from Man and does not have it from me, then for me he has no right. His life, for example, counts to me only for what it is worth to me. I respect neither a so-called right of property (or his claim to tangible goods) nor yet his right to the ‘sanctuary of his inner nature’ (or his right to have the spiritual goods and divinities, his gods, remain un-aggrieved). His goods, the sensuous as well as the spiritual, are mine, and I dispose of them as proprietor, in the measure of my — might.”

Max Stirner book The Ego and Its Own

Cambridge 1995, p. 219
The Ego and Its Own (1845)

“We refuse to have our conscience bound by any work or law, so that by doing this or that we should be righteous, or leaving this or that undone we should be damned.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Source: Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (1535), Chapter 2

“Encourage therefore his inquisitiveness all you can, by satisfying his demands, and informing his judgement, as far as it is capable. When his reasons are any way tolerable, let him find the credit and commendation of it, without being laugh'd at for his mistake be gently put into the right; and if he shew a forwardness to be reasoning about things that come in his way, take care, as much as you can, that no body check this inclination in him, or mislead it by captious or fallacious ways of talking with him. For when all is done, this is the highest and most important faculty of our minds, deserves the greatest care and attention in cultivating it: the right improvement, and exercise of our reason being the highest perfection that a man can attain to in his life.”

John Locke book Some Thoughts Concerning Education

Sec. 122
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)

“Man is naturally self-centered and he is inclined to regard expediency as the supreme standard for what is right and wrong.”

Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972) Polish-American Conservative Judaism Rabbi

Source: Who Is Man? (1965), Ch. 5
Context: Man is naturally self-centered and he is inclined to regard expediency as the supreme standard for what is right and wrong. However, we must not convert an inclination into an axiom that just as man's perceptions cannot operate outside time and space, so his motivations cannot operate outside expediency; that man can never transcend his own self. The most fatal trap into which thinking may fall is the equation of existence and expediency.

“Toleration in religion was one of the great rights of man, and a man ought never to be deprived of what was his natural right.”

Charles James Fox (1749–1806) British Whig statesman

Speech in the House of Commons (19 April 1791), quoted in J. Wright (ed.), The Speeches of the Rt. Hon. C. J. Fox in the House of Commons. Volume IV (1815), p. 192.
1790s

“A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

July 14, 1763, p. 121
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I
Source: The Life of Samuel Johnson, Vol 2

“Cause day and night, the lonely stoner seems to free his mind at night, he's all alone through the day and night, the lonely loner seems to free his mind at night”

Kid Cudi (1984) American rapper, singer, songwriter, guitarist and actor from Ohio

-Day 'n' Night
Music

“A guide, on finding a man who has lost his way, brings him back to the right path—he does not mock and jeer at him and then take himself off.”

Epictetus (50–138) philosopher from Ancient Greece

Golden Sayings of Epictetus
Context: A guide, on finding a man who has lost his way, brings him back to the right path—he does not mock and jeer at him and then take himself off. You also must show the unlearned man the truth, and you will see that he will follow. But so long as you do not show it him, you should not mock, but rather feel your own incapacity. (63).

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Democritus 81

Related quotes

Related topics