“That to live by one man's will became the cause of all men's misery.”

Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie (1594), Book I, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

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 "That to live by one man's will became the cause of all men's misery." by Richard Hooker?
Richard Hooker photo
Richard Hooker 6
English bishop and Anglican Divine 1554–1600

Related quotes

Thomas Hardy photo
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry photo

“To be a man is to be responsible: to be ashamed of miseries you did not cause; to be proud of your comrades' victories; to be aware, when setting one stone, that you are building a world.”

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900–1944) French writer and aviator

Variant: I would not give a fig for anybody's contempt for death. If its roots are not sunk deep in an acceptance of responsibility, this contempt for death is the sign either of an impoverished soul or of youthful extravagance.
Source: Terre des Hommes (1939), Ch. II : The Men
Context: To be a man is, precisely, to be responsible. It is to feel shame at the sight of what seems to be unmerited misery. It is to take pride in a victory won by one's comrades. It is to feel, when setting one's stone, that one is contributing to the building of the world.
There is a tendency to class such men with toreadors and gamblers. People extol their contempt for death. But I would not give a fig for anybody's contempt for death. If its roots are not sunk deep in an acceptance of responsibility, this contempt for death is the sign either of an impoverished soul or of youthful extravagance.

Michel De Montaigne photo

“Writing does not cause misery. It is born of misery.”

Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman

Attributed

Mark Manson photo
John Updike photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo

“The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.”

Wilhelm Stekel (1868–1940) Austrian physician and psychologist

Cited by a character in J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye (1951) as a statement of Stekel, this has often been attributed to Salinger, and may actually be a paraphrase by him of a statement of the German writer Otto Ludwig (1813-1865) which Stekel himself quotes in his writings:
Das Höchste, wozu er sich erheben konnte, war, für etwas rühmlich zu sterben; jetzt erhebt er sich zu dem Größern, für etwas ruhmlos zu leben.
The highest he could raise himself to was to die gloriously for something; now he rises to something greater: to live humbly for something.
Gedanken Otto Ludwigs : Aus seinem Nachlaß ausgewählt und herausgegeben von Cordelia Ludwig (1903) p. 10 http://archive.org/stream/gedankenottolud00ludwgoog#page/n39/mode/2up; this is quoted by Stekel in "Die Ausgänge der psychoanalytischen Kuren" in Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse : Medizinische Monatsschrift für Seelenkunde (1913), p. 188 http://archive.org/stream/ZB_III_1913_4_5_k#page/n19/mode/2up, and in Das liebe Ich : Grundriss einer neuen Diätetik der Seele (1913), page 38 http://books.google.de/books?id=PgFAAAAAIAAJ&q=r%C3%BChmlich.
Misattributed

Jerome David Salinger photo

“The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.”

Jerome David Salinger (1919–2010) American writer

Quoted by Salinger as a statement of the psychoanalyst Wilhelm Stekel in The Catcher in the Rye, this has often been attributed to Salinger, and it may actually be a paraphrase by him of a statement of the German writer Otto Ludwig (1813-1865) which Stekel himself quotes in his writings:
Das Höchste, wozu er sich erheben konnte, war, für etwas rühmlich zu sterben; jetzt erhebt er sich zu dem Größern, für etwas ruhmlos zu leben.
The highest he could raise himself to was to die gloriously for something; now he rises to something greater: to live humbly for something.
Gedanken Otto Ludwigs : Aus seinem Nachlaß ausgewählt und herausgegeben von Cordelia Ludwig (1903), p. 10 http://archive.org/stream/gedankenottolud00ludwgoog#page/n39/mode/2up; this is quoted by Stekel in "Die Ausgänge der psychoanalytischen Kuren" in Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse : Medizinische Monatsschrift für Seelenkunde (1913), p. 188 http://archive.org/stream/ZB_III_1913_4_5_k#page/n19/mode/2up, and in Das liebe Ich : Grundriss einer neuen Diätetik der Seele (1913), page 38 http://books.google.de/books?id=PgFAAAAAIAAJ&q=r%C3%BChmlich.
Disputed

William James photo

“We are all ready to be savage in some cause. The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of the cause.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

Letter to E.L. Godkin (24 December 1895)
1890s

Ludovico Ariosto photo

“For it would be indeed a foolish plan,
Two living men to lose for one dead man.”

Che sarebbe pensier non troppo accorto,
Perder duo vivi per salvar un morto.
Canto XVIII, stanza 189 (tr. B. Reynolds)
Orlando Furioso (1532)

Related topics