“Unless above himself he can
Erect himself, how poor a thing is man!”
Samuel Daniel (1562–1619) Poet and historian
To the Countess of Cumberland. Stanza 12, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Wie finden wir uns selbst wieder? Wie kann sich der Mensch kennen? Er ist eine dunkle und verhüllte Sache; und wenn der Hase sieben Häute hat, so kann der Mensch sich sieben mal siebzig abziehn und wird noch nicht sagen können: »das bist du nun wirklich, das ist nicht mehr Schale«.
“Schopenhauer as educator,” § 3.1, R. Hollingdale, trans. (1983), p. 129
Untimely Meditations (1876)
“Unless above himself he can
Erect himself, how poor a thing is man!”
Samuel Daniel (1562–1619) Poet and historian
To the Countess of Cumberland. Stanza 12, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet
Fate
1860s, The Conduct of Life (1860)
John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop
Source: Means and Ends of Education (1895), Chapter 1 "Truth and Love"
Annie Besant (1847–1933) British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator
The Seven Principles of Man http://books.google.co.in/books?id=tgEM1XiI74kC&printsec=frontcover, p. 6
Ray Bradbury book Dandelion Wine
Source: Dandelion Wine (1957), p. 142
Context: “I don’t know,” he admitted.
“Well.” She started pouring tea. “To start things off, what do you think of the world?”
“I don’t know anything.”
“The beginning of wisdom, as they say. When you’re seventeen you know everything. When you’re twenty-seven if you still know everything you’re still seventeen.”
“You seem to have learned quite a lot over the years.”
“It is the privilege of old people to seem to know everything. But it’s an act and a mask, like every other act and mask. Between ourselves, we old ones wink at each other and smile, saying, How do you like my mask, my act, my certainty? Isn’t life a play? Don’t I play it well?”
They both laughed quietly.
John Steinbeck book The Winter of Our Discontent
Source: The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), Part One, Chapter III
Norman Cousins (1915–1990) American journalist
Quoted in Peter's Quotations : Ideas for Our Time (1977) by Laurence J. Peter.
Vernon Howard (1918–1992) American writer
The Power of Your Supermind
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager and filmmaker
Vogue (May 1984)