“Choose the life that is noblest, for custom can make it sweet to thee.”
Epictetus (50–138) philosopher from Ancient Greece
Fragment xx.
Golden Sayings of Epictetus, Fragments
The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî (1870)
Context: Do what thy manhood bids thee do, from none but self expect applause;
He noblest lives and noblest dies who makes and keeps his self-made laws.
All other Life is living Death, a world where none but Phantoms dwell,
A breath, a wind, a sound, a voice, a tinkling of the camel-bell.
“Choose the life that is noblest, for custom can make it sweet to thee.”
Epictetus (50–138) philosopher from Ancient Greece
Fragment xx.
Golden Sayings of Epictetus, Fragments
Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer
Lays of Sorrow No. 2
The Rectory Umbrella
Michael Moorcock (1939) English writer, editor, critic
Book 1, Chapter 1 “Of Love, Death, Battle & Exile” (pp. 144-145)
The Elric Cycle, The Revenge of the Rose (1991)
Robert Herrick book Hesperides
" To Anthea, st. 1 http://www.bartleby.com/106/96.html". <br class="br">Hesperides (1648)
“To all this, his illustrious mind reflects the noblest ornament; he places no part of his happiness in ostentation, but refers the whole of it to conscience; and seeks the reward of a virtuous action, not in the applauses of the world, but in the action itself.”
Ornat haec magnitudo animi, quae nihil ad ostentationem, omnia ad conscientiam refert recteque facti non ex populi sermone mercedem, sed ex facto petit.
Pliny the Younger (61–113) Roman writer
Letter 22, 5.
Letters, Book I
Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress
The Sixteenth Revelation, Chapter 77
Variant: Accuse not thyself overmuch, deeming that thy tribulation and thy woe is all thy fault...
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
1950s, Conquering Self-centeredness (1957)