“The path to perfection is difficult to men in every lot; there is no royal road for rich or poor. But difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage.”
"Self-Culture", an address in Boston (September 1838)
Context: The path to perfection is difficult to men in every lot; there is no royal road for rich or poor. But difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict. And how much has it already overcome! Under what burdens of oppression has it made its way for ages What mountains of difficulty has it cleared! And with all this experience, shall we say that the progress of the mass of men is to be despaired of; that the chains of bodily necessity are too strong and ponderous to be broken by the mind; that servile, unimproving drudgery is the unalterable condition of the multitude of the human race?
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William Ellery Channing 71
United States Unitarian clergyman 1780–1842Related quotes
“To be poor without murmuring is difficult. To be rich without being proud is easy.”
Source: The Analects of Confucius
Source: Capital, Vol 1: A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production
“There is no royal road to geometry.”
Non est regia ad Geometriam via.
μὴ εἶναι βασιλικὴν ἀτραπὸν ἐπί γεωμετρίαν, Non est regia [inquit Euclides] ad Geometriam via
Reply given when the ruler Ptolemy I Soter asked Euclid if there was a shorter road to learning geometry than through Euclid's Elements.The "Royal Road" was the road built across Anatolia and Persia by Darius I which allowed rapid communication and troop movement, but use of ἀτραπός (rather than ὁδός) conveys the connotation of "short cut".
The Greek is from Proclus (412–485 AD) in Commentary on the First Book of Euclid's Elements, the Latin translation is by Francesco Barozzi, 1560) the English translation follows Glenn R. Morrow (1970), p. 57 http://books.google.com/books?id=JZEHj2fEmqAC&q=royal#v=snippet&q=royal&f=false.
Attributed
“Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law.”
Source: The Traveller (1764), Line 386.
“3895. Poor men seek meat for their Stomach; rich Men Stomach for their Meat.”
Compare Poor Richard's Almanack (1735) : The poor man must walk to get meat for his stomach, the rich man to get a stomach to his meat.
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)
Pauvre et libre plutôt que riche et asservi. Bien entendu les hommes veulent être et riches et libres et c’est ce qui les conduit quelquefois à être pauvres et esclaves.
Notebooks (1942–1951)
1960s, The Quest for Peace and Justice (1964)