“He has served me too well;
By increasing my power he has stolen it away:
He is now my subject only so long as he pleases.
He who allows me to rule is in fact my master.”
Prusias, act II, scene i.
Nicomède (1651)
Original
Il m'a trop bien servi; Augmentant mon pouvoir, il me l'a tout ravi: II n'est plus mon sujet qu'autant qu'il le veut être. Et qui me fait régner en effet est mon maître.
Nicomède (1651)
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Pierre Corneille 81
French tragedian 1606–1684Related quotes
“He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still.”
Variant: He who conquers others is strong; He who conquers himself is mighty.
“My old man never liked me. He gave me my allowance in traveler's checks.”
Source: It's Not Easy Bein' Me: A Lifetime of No Respect But Plenty of Sex and Drugs (2004), p. 13
1860s, Allow the humblest man an equal chance (1860)
Context: These natural and apparently adequate means all failing, what will convince them? This, and this only; cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right. And this must be done thoroughly — done in acts as well as in words. Silence will not be tolerated — we must place ourselves avowedly with them. Douglas's new sedition law must be enacted and enforced, suppressing all declarations that Slavery is wrong, whether made in politics, in presses, in pulpits, or in private. We must arrest and return their fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure. We must pull down our Free State Constitutions. The whole atmosphere must be disinfected of all taint of opposition to Slavery, before they will cease to believe that all their troubles proceed from us. So long as we call Slavery wrong, whenever a slave runs away they will overlook the obvious fact that he ran because he was oppressed, and declare he was stolen off. Whenever a master cuts his slaves with the lash, and they cry out under it, he will overlook the obvious fact that the negroes cry out because they are hurt, and insist that they were put up to it by some rascally abolitionist.
Memoirs of J. Casanova de Seingalt (1894)
As paraphrased and quoted in "The Scoreboard: Clemente's Only Regret? One Pennant" by Les Biederman, in The Pittsburgh Press (Sunday, March 31, 1968), Sec. 4, Pg. 3
Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1968</big>
Context: The best advice and most help he ever received came from Buster Clarkson, an American player, when he was in Puerto Rico."I played for his team and I was just a kid," Clemente recalled. "He insisted the other players allow me to take batting practice and he helped me. He put a bat behind my foot and made sure I didn't drag my foot. Willie Mays also helped me. He told me not to allow the pitchers to show me up. He suggested I get mean and if the pitchers knocked me down, get up and hit the ball. Show them."
“When he was at the height of his ascendancy, he ordered his chair to be placed on the sea-shore as the tide was coming in. Then he said to the rising tide, "You are subject to me, as the land on which I am sitting is mine, and no one has resisted my overlordship with impunity. I command you, therefore, not to rise on to my land, nor to presume to wet the clothing or limbs of your master."”
Quod cum in maximo uigore floreret imperii, sedile suum in littore maris cum ascenderet statui iussit. Dixit autem mari ascendenti: "Tu mee dicionis es, et terra in qua sedeo mea est, nec fuit qui inpune meo resisteret imperio. Impero igitur tibi ne in terram meam ascendas, nec uestes uel membra dominatoris tui madefacere presumas."
Book VI, §1, pp. 366-9.
Historia Anglorum (The History of the English People)
Wer sich nicht mit Politik befaßt, hat die politische Parteinahme, die er sich sparen möchte, bereits vollzogen: er dient der herrschenden Partei.
Sketchbook 1946-1949
To the messenger summoning him to see Henry VIII. http://www.tudorplace.com.ar/Bios/ThomasWolsey(Cardinal).htm.