“Man has three ways of acting wisely. First, on meditation; that is the noblest. Secondly, on imitation; that is the easiest. Thirdly, on experience; that is the bitterest.”
The Analects, as reported in Chambers Dictionary of Quotations (1997), p. 279.
Attributed
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Confucius 269
Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher -551–-479 BCRelated quotes
Stobaeus, Florilegium, XL, VI, 24, as reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of Quotations (1897), p. 515.
The Rights of the Colonists (1772)
Context: Among the natural rights of the Colonists are these: First, a right to life; Secondly, to liberty; Thirdly, to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can. These are evident branches of, rather than deductions from, the duty of self-preservation, commonly called the first law of nature.
Source: A Discourse on the Love of Our Country (1789), p. 34
On the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in America (written in 1726), reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "Westward the star of empire takes its way", Epigraph to Bancroft's History of the United States; "What worlds in the yet unformed Occident / May come refin'd with th' accents that are ours?", Samuel Daniel, Musophilus (1599), Stanza 163.
According to W. Cleon Skousen, the first four empires are the Neo-Babylonian Empire, the Persian Empire, the Macedonian Empire, and the (Western, Eastern, and Holy) Roman Empire (Gospel Diamond Dust, Volume Two, Verity Publishing, 1998).
1790s, The Age of Reason, Part III (1807)
Source: Transmission: A Meditation for the New Age (1983)