
“The free man is he who does not fear to go to the end of his thought.”
Moralia: Sayings of Kings and Commanders, Plutarch; English translation by Frank Cole Babbitt
Variant translation by Goodwin:
He that is afraid of scoffs and reproaches is more a coward than he that flies from the enemy.
“The free man is he who does not fear to go to the end of his thought.”
Letter to Josiah Quincy III (14 February 1825)
1820s
As quoted in "Considerations By the Way" in Conduct of Life by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Variant translation: Believe me, a thousand friends suffice thee not; In a single enemy thou hast more than enough
“The man who ran away from the circus to become an accountant”
Linda Smith, 'I see myself as Russia's true believer' http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1745490,00.html, The Guardian, 3 April 2006
“4833. The wise Man draws more Advantage from his Enemies, than a Fool from his Friends.”
Compare Poor Richard's Almanack (1749) : The wise Man draws more Advantage from his Enemies, than the Fool from his Friends.
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)
“He who flatters a man is his enemy. he who tells him of his faults is his maker.”
To troops who had abandoned their lines during the Battle of New Orleans (8 January 1815).
1810s
Einen Menschen verstehen heißt also: auch er sein. Der geniale Mensch aber offenbarte sich an jenen Beispielen eben als der Mensch, welcher ungleich mehr Wesen versteht als der mittelmäßige. Goethe soll von sich gesagt haben, es gebe kein Laster und kein Verbrechen, zu dem er nicht die Anlage in sich verspürt, das er nicht in irgend einem Zeitpunkte seines Lebens vollauf verstanden habe. Der geniale Mensch ist also komplizierter, zusammengesetzter, reicher; und ein Mensch ist um so genialer zu nennen, je mehr Menschen er in sich vereinigt, und zwar, wie hinzugefügt werden muß, je lebendiger, mit je größerer Intensität er die anderen Menschen in sich hat.
Source: Sex and Character (1903), p. 106.