Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter LXXI: On the supreme good
“I ask not for any crown
But that which all may win;
Nor try to conquer any world
Except the one within.”
Last update June 3, 2021.
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Do you have more details about the quote "I ask not for any crown
But that which all may win;
Nor try to conquer any world
Except the one within." by Louisa May Alcott?
Louisa May Alcott 174
American novelist 1832–1888Related quotes
Emile Coué
(1857–1926) French psychologist and pharmacist
Quoted in: Paul G. Thomas (1979) Psychofeedback: practical psychocybernetics. p. 84.
The Go-Between (1953)
Orson Scott Card
(1951) American science fiction novelist
Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, The Crystal City (2003), Chapter 17 “Foundation” (p. 334).
John Quincy Adams
(1767–1848) American politician, 6th president of the United States (in office from 1825 to 1829)
The Wants of Man, stanza 22 (25 September 1841)
Context: I want the seals of power and place,
The ensigns of command,
Charged by the people's unbought grace,
To rule my native land.
Nor crown, nor scepter would I ask
But from my country's will,
By day, by night, to ply the task
Her cup of bliss to fill.
Variant: “You remember winning, don’t you? A battle won, somewhere?”
“No,” said the old man, deep under. “I don’t remember anyone winning anywhere any time. War’s never a winning thing, Charlie. You just lose all the time, and the one who loses last asks for terms. All I remember is a lot of losing and sadness and nothing good but the end of it. The end of it, Charles, that was a winning all to itself, having nothing to do with guns.
Source: Dandelion Wine (1957), p. 85
Thomas Henry Huxley
(1825–1895) English biologist and comparative anatomist
1880s, Agnosticism (1889)
Context: Agnosticism is not properly described as a "negative" creed, nor indeed as a creed of any kind, except in so far as it expresses absolute faith in the validity of a principle which is as much ethical as intellectual. This principle may be stated in various ways, but they all amount to this: that it is wrong for a man to say that he is certain of the objective truth of any proposition unless he can produce evidence which logically justifies that certainty. This is what agnosticism asserts; and, in my opinion, it is all that is essential to agnosticism. That which agnostics deny and repudiate as immoral is the contrary doctrine, that there are propositions which men ought to believe, without logically satisfactory evidence; and that reprobation ought to attach to the profession of disbelief in such inadequately supported propositions. The justification of the agnostic principle lies in the success which follows upon its application, whether in the field of natural or in that of civil history; and in the fact that, so far as these topics are concerned, no sane man thinks of denying its validity.
Benjamin N. Cardozo
(1870–1938) United States federal judge
Pages 12-13
Other writings, The Nature of the Judicial Process (1921)
Context: There is in each of us a stream of tendency, whether you choose to call it philosophy or not, which gives coherence and direction to thought and action. Judges cannot escape that current any more than other mortals. All their lives, forces which they do not recognize and cannot name, have been tugging at them — inherited instincts, traditional beliefs, acquired convictions; and the resultant is an outlook on life, a conception of social needs. … In this mental background every problem finds it setting. We may try to see things as objectively as we please. None the less, we can never see them with any eyes except our own.
