“I have done all that I came into this world to do. I have worked task work, and have the rest of the day to myself.”
“The superannuated man”
Last Essays of Elia (1833)
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Charles Lamb 85
English essayist 1775–1834Related quotes

Quote from John Constable's letter to Rev. John Fisher (23 October 1821), as quoted in Richard Friedenthal, Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock (Thames and Hudson, London, 1963), p. 41
1820s

Marcelle Marquet, Marquet Fernand Hazan Editions, Paris 1955, p. 6; as quoted in 'Appendix – Marquet Speaks on his Art', in "Albert Marquet and the Fauve movement, 1898-1908", Norris Judd, published 1976, - translation Norris Judd - Thesis (A.B.)--Sweet Briar College, p. 116

Speech to the British and Foreign Bible Society (2 May 1928); published in This Torch of Freedom (1935), pp. 92 - 93
1928

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 124

In an interview with <i>The Idler</i> (1896), as quoted in Aubrey Beardsley : A Biography (1999) by Matthew Sturgis, p. 309

Only the final bold section is connected to Laozi (see Ch. 17 of Tao Te Ching above). The origin of the added first section is unclear.
Misattributed
Variant: A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.
Context: "Go to the people. Live with them. Learn from them. Love them. Start with what they know. Build with what they have. With the best leaders when the work is done, the task accomplished, the people will say, "We have done this ourselves."

as quoted by de:Wolf-Dieter Dube, in Expressionism; Praeger Publishers, New York, 1973, p. 109
undated quotes

On the film The Interpreter, from "Secretary-General's press encounter" (19 April 2005) http://www.un.org/apps/sg/offthecuff.asp?nid=719