“When a man has no reason to trust himself, he trusts in luck.”
E. W. Howe (1853–1937) Novelist, magazine and newspaper editor
Source: Shantaram
“When a man has no reason to trust himself, he trusts in luck.”
E. W. Howe (1853–1937) Novelist, magazine and newspaper editor
Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate
Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say (2000)
“A fool sees himself as another, but a wise man sees others as himself.”
Dogen (1200–1253) Japanese Zen buddhist teacher
Source: How to Cook Your Life: From the Zen Kitchen to Enlightenment
François de La Rochefoucauld book Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims
L'homme croit souvent se conduire lorsqu'il est conduit; et pendant que par son esprit il tend à un but, son coeur l'entraîne insensiblement à un autre.
Maxim 43.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America
1800s, First Inaugural Address (1801)
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
1850s, Speech at Peoria, Illinois (1854)
Context: "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread." At the hazard of being thought one of the fools of this quotation, I meet that argument — I rush in — I take that bull by the horns. I trust I understand and truly estimate the right of self-government. My faith in the proposition that each man should do precisely as he pleases with all which is exclusively his own lies at the foundation of the sense of justice there is in me. I extend the principle to communities of men as well as to individuals. I so extend it because it is politically wise, as well as naturally just: politically wise in saving us from broils about matters which do not concern us. Here, or at Washington, I would not trouble myself with the oyster laws of Virginia, or the cranberry laws of Indiana. The doctrine of self-government is right, — absolutely and eternally right, — but it has no just application as here attempted. Or perhaps I should rather say that whether it has such application depends upon whether a negro is not or is a man. If he is not a man, in that case he who is a man may as a matter of self-government do just what he pleases with him.
But if the negro is a man, is it not to that extent a total destruction of self-government to say that he too shall not govern himself. When the white man governs himself, that is self-government; but when he governs himself and also governs another man, that is more than self-government — that is despotism. If the negro is a man, why then my ancient faith teaches me that "all men are created equal," and that there can be no moral right in connection with one man's making a slave of another.
Robert Sarah (1945) Roman Catholic bishop
The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise (2017)
Franz Kafka book The Zürau Aphorisms
50
The Zürau Aphorisms (1917 - 1918)
Context: Man cannot live without a permanent trust in something indestructible in himself, though both the indestructible element and the trust may remain permanently hidden from him. One of the ways in which this hiddenness can express itself is through faith in a personal god.