“Men are anxious to improve their circumstances, but are unwilling to improve themselves.”

—  James Allen , book As a Man Thinketh

Source: As a Man Thinketh

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Men are anxious to improve their circumstances, but are unwilling to improve themselves." by James Allen?
James Allen photo
James Allen 47
British philosophical writer 1864–1912

Related quotes

John C. Maxwell photo

“Most people would rather change their circumstances to improve their lives when instead they to change themselves to improve their circumstances.”

John C. Maxwell (1947) American author, speaker and pastor

Book Sometimes you win Sometimes you Learn

Stephanie Pearl-McPhee photo

“I recognize that knitting can improve my mood in trying circumstances”

Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (1968) Canadian writer

Source: At Knit's End: Meditations for Women Who Knit Too Much

Henry David Thoreau photo

“While civilization has been improving our houses, it has not equally improved the men who are to inhabit them”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

Source: Where I Lived, and What I Lived For

André Maurois photo

“Almost all men improve on acquaintance.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Friendship

William Winwood Reade photo

“All men indeed cannot be poets, inventors or philanthropists; but all men can join in that gigantic and godlike work, the progress of creation. Whoever improves his own nature improves the universe of which he is a part.”

William Winwood Reade (1838–1875) British historian

Source: The Martyrdom of Man (1872), Chapter IV, "Intellect"

Tryon Edwards photo

“People never improve unless they look to some standard or example higher and better than themselves.”

Tryon Edwards (1809–1894) American theologian

Source: A Dictionary of Thoughts, 1891, p. 156.

Theodore Dalrymple photo

“The bravest and most noble are not those who take up arms, but those who are decent despite everything; who improve what it is in their power to improve, but do not imagine themselves to be saviours. In their humble struggle is true heroism.”

Theodore Dalrymple (1949) English doctor and writer
Thomas Paine photo

“Man cannot, properly speaking, make circumstances for his purpose, but he always has it in his power to improve them when they occur…”

Thomas Paine book Rights of Man

Part 1.3 Rights of Man
1790s, Rights of Man, Part I (1791)

Bertolt Brecht photo

“Art and science coincide insofar as both aim to improve the lives of men and women.”

Bertolt Brecht A Short Organum for the Theatre

A Short Organum for the Theatre (1949)
Context: Art and science coincide insofar as both aim to improve the lives of men and women. The latter normally concerns itself with profit, the former with pleasure. In the coming age, art will fashion our entertainment out of new means of productivity in ways that will simultaneously enhance our profit and maximize our pleasure.

Related topics