“Tis strange how the heart can create
Or colour from itself its fate;
We make ourselves our own distress,
We are ourselves our happiness.”

—  Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Canto IV
The Troubadour (1825)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Tis strange how the heart can create Or colour from itself its fate; We make ourselves our own distress, We are ours…" by Letitia Elizabeth Landon?
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon 785
English poet and novelist 1802–1838

Related quotes

Aldous Huxley photo

“We are not our own any more than what we possess is our own. We did not make ourselves, we cannot be supreme over ourselves. We are not our own masters.”

Aldous Huxley book Brave New World

Source: Brave New World

Immanuel Kant photo

“Morality is not properly the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.”

Immanuel Kant book Critique of Practical Reason

Critique of Practical Reason (1788)

“By engaging in a delusive quest for happiness, we bring only suffering upon ourselves. In our frantic search for something to quench our thirst, we overlook the water all around us and drive ourselves into exile from our own lives.”

Sharon Salzberg (1952) American writer
Sophia Loren photo

“I firmly believe we can make our own miracles if we believe strongly enough in ourselves and our mission on earth.”

Sophia Loren (1934) Italian actress
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“Communication is in itself civilization; we wear away our own prejudices only by contact with those of others. We are forced into making allowances, by seeing how much we need that they should be made for ourselves.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Monthly Magazine

Benjamin Franklin photo

“In the Colonies we issue our own money. It is called Colonial Scrip. We issue it in proper proportion to the demands of trade and industry to make the products pass easily from the producers to the consumers. In this manner, creating for ourselves our own paper money, we control its purchasing power, and we have no interest to pay no one.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …

Quoted in Money and Men by Robert McCann Rice (1941) but no prior source is extant.
Misattributed

Corrie ten Boom photo

“Happiness isn't something that depends on our surroundings… It's something we make inside ourselves.”

Corrie ten Boom (1892–1983) Dutch resistance hero and writer
Henry Miller photo

“We create our fate every day… most of the ills we suffer from are directly traceable to our own behavior.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist
Carl Sagan photo

“For the first time, we have the power to decide the fate of our planet and ourselves.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

<!-- 05 min 20 sec — does not seem correct.… I haven't reviewed full program, but believe it might come later in the edition I have been scanning through... 2016·11·08 -->
Cosmos: A Personal Voyage (1990 Update), The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean [Episode 1]
Context: For the first time, we have the power to decide the fate of our planet and ourselves. This is a time of great danger, but our species is young, and curious, and brave. It shows much promise.

Rabindranath Tagore photo

“We at once feel that cruelty to him is cruelty to ourselves, to make him small is stealing from our own humanity…”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Sādhanā : The Realisation of Life http://www.spiritualbee.com/spiritual-book-by-tagore/ (1916)
Context: Of course man is useful to man, because his body is a marvellous machine and his mind an organ of wonderful efficiency. But he is a spirit as well, and this spirit is truly known only by love. When we define a man by the market value of the service we can expect of him, we know him imperfectly. With this limited knowledge of him it becomes easy for us to be unjust to him and to entertain feelings of triumphant self-congratulation when, on account of some cruel advantage on our side, we can get out of him much more than we have paid for. But when we know him as a spirit we know him as our own. We at once feel that cruelty to him is cruelty to ourselves, to make him small is stealing from our own humanity...

Related topics