“Unless the gods deceive my mind,
That man is forging fetters for himself.”
Theognis of Megara (-570–-485 BC) Greek lyric poet active in approximately the sixth century BC
Source: Elegies, Lines 539-540, as translated by Dorothea Wender.
“It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”
Source: Reflections on the Revolution in France
Last update June 3, 2021. History
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Do you have more details about the quote "It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forg…" by Edmund Burke?
Edmund Burke270
Anglo-Irish statesman 1729–1797Related quotes
Booker T. Washington (1856–1915) African-American educator, author, orator, and advisor
"The Problems of the Colored Race in the South," lecture, Hamilton Club, Chicago (10 December 1895) http://web.archive.org/20071031084051/www.historycooperative.org/btw/Vol.4/html/93.html <br class="br">Context: Men may make laws to hinder and fetter the ballot, but men cannot make laws that will bind or retard the growth of manhood.<br>We went into slavery a piece of property; we came out American citizens. We went into slavery pagans; we came out Christians. We went into slavery without a language; we came out speaking the proud Anglo-Saxon tongue. We went into slavery with slave chains clanking about our wrists; we came out with the American ballot in our hands.<br>Progress, progress is the law of nature; under God it shall be our eternal guiding star.
“Good slaves are free, but bad free men are slaves of many passions.”
Bion of Borysthenes (-325–-246 BC) ancient greek philosopher
As quoted by Stobaeus, iii.1.18
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer
Source: Patriotism and Christianity http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Patriotism_and_Christianity (1896), Ch. 17 <br class="br">Context: Only the truth and its expression can establish that new public opinion which will reform the ancient obsolete and pernicious order of life; and yet we not only do not express the truth we know, but often even distinctly give expression to what we ourselves regard as false.<br>If only free men would not rely on that which has no power, and is always fettered — upon external aids; but would trust in that which is always powerful and free — the truth and its expression!
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
"What We Must Do"
1920s, Why I Am Not a Christian (1927)
Context: The whole conception of God is a conception derived from the ancient Oriental despotisms. It is a conception quite unworthy of free men. When you hear people in church debasing themselves and saying that they are miserable sinners, and all the rest of it, it seems contemptible and not worthy of self-respecting human beings. We ought to stand up and look the world frankly in the face. We ought to make the best we can of the world, and if it is not so good as we wish, after all it will still be better than what these others have made of it in all these ages. A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past, or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men.
“In so far as the mind sees things in their eternal aspect, it participates in eternity.”
Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher
Source: Spinoza in der europäischen Geistesgeschichte
George Mason (1725–1792) American delegate from Virginia to the U.S. Constitutional Convention
Letter to the Committee of Merchants in London (6 June 1766) http://www.virginia1774.org/GMMerchants.html
Tobias Smollett (1721–1771) 18th-century poet and author from Scotland
Ode to Independence, antistrophe 3.