Source: The Jewels of Aptor (1962), Chapter X (p. 133)
Context: A lesson which history should have taught us thousands of years ago was finally driven home. No man can wield absolute power over other men and still retain his own mind. For no matter how good his intentions are when he takes up the power, his alternate reason is that freedom, the freedom of other people and ultimately his own, terrifies him. Only a man afraid of freedom would want this power, who could conceive of wielding it. And that fear of freedom will turn him into a slave of this power.
“The worst lesson that can be taught a man is to rely upon others and to whine over his sufferings.”
"How Not To Better Social Conditions" in Review of Reviews (January 1897), p. 39 https://books.google.com/books?id=J2FAAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA39 · Full text online (with at least two typos — in the last sentence of the article) as "How Not To Help Our Poor Brother" http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/images/research/speeches/trhnthopb.pdf
1890s
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Theodore Roosevelt 445
American politician, 26th president of the United States 1858–1919Related quotes
World Wildlife Fund: British National Appeal Banquet, London (1962)
The Environmental Revolution: Speeches on Conservation, 1962–77 (1978)
Context: For conservation to be successful it is necessary to take into consideration that it is a characteristic of man that he can only be relied upon to do anything consistently which is in his own interest. He may have occasional fits of conscience and moral rectitude but otherwise his actions are governed by self-interest. It follows then that whatever the moral reasons for conservation it will only be achieved by the inducement of profit or pleasure.
“A Nation of Wheels”, p. 131.
The Teachings of Don. B: Satires, Parodies, Fables, Illustrated Stories, and Plays of Donald Barthelme (1992)
“Themistocles said to Antiphales, "Time, young man, has taught us both a lesson."”
Life of Themistocles
Source: god is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
“He had learned the worst lesson that life can teach - that it makes no sense.”
Source: American Pastoral