Giovanni Boccaccio book The Decameron
Sempre non può l' uomo un cibo, ma talvolta desidera di variare.
Seventh Day, Sixth Story
The Decameron (c. 1350)
Big Dreams http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/big-dreams-2/ <br class="br">From the poems written in English
Giovanni Boccaccio book The Decameron
Sempre non può l' uomo un cibo, ma talvolta desidera di variare.
Seventh Day, Sixth Story
The Decameron (c. 1350)
Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer
"To the Indianapolis Clergy." The Iconoclast (Indianapolis, IN) (1883)
George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright
"The Living Pictures", The Saturday Review, LXXIX (April 6, 1895), 443, reprinted in Our Theatres in the Nineties (1932). Vol. 1. London: Constable & Co. 79-86
1890s
Yehuda Ashlag (1886–1954) Orthodox Jewish Rabbi and Kabbalist
Assorted Themes, On Thoughts and Desires
Sarada Devi (1853–1920) Hindu religious figure, spiritual consort of Ramakrishna
[Swami Tapasyananda, Swami Nikhilananda, Sri Sarada Devi, the Holy Mother; Life and Conversations, 292]
Henry Melvill (1798–1871) British academic
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 294.
Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher
Journal entry (28 March 1959)
Working and Thinking on the Waterfront (1969)
Context: The significant point is that people unfit for freedom — who cannot do much with it — are hungry for power. The desire for freedom is an attribute of a "have" type of self. It says: leave me alone and I shall grow, learn, and realize my capacities. The desire for power is basically an attribute of a "have-not" type of self. If Hitler had had the talents and the temperament of a genuine artist, if Stalin had had the capacity to become a first-rate theoretician, if Napoleon had had the makings of a great poet or philosopher they would hardly have developed the all-consuming lust for absolute power.
Freedom gives us a chance to realize our human and individual uniqueness. Absolute power can also bestow uniqueness: to have absolute power is to have the power to reduce all the people around us to puppets, robots, toys, or animals, and be the only man in sight. Absolute power achieves uniqueness by dehumanizing others.
To sum up: Those who lack the capacity to achieve much in an atmosphere of freedom will clamor for power.
Abraham Maslow (1908–1970) American psychologist
The Farther Reaches of Human Nature (1971).
1970s and later