“The strong man is strongest when alone.”
Tell, Act I, sc. iii, as translated by Sir Thomas Martin
Wilhelm Tell (1803)
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Friedrich Schiller 111
German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright 1759–1805Related quotes
“You see, the point is that the strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone.”
Dr. Stockmann, Act V
An Enemy of the People (1882)
Essay 3, Aphorism 14
On the Genealogy of Morality (1887)
“The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.”
This is also sometimes quoted as "The millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty".
1770s, "Give me liberty, or give me death!" (1775)
Context: They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot?
Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of Liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.
“And when a strong man is sweet, even Goddesses look down from Mount Olympus.”
The Mummy or Ramses the Damned (1989)
On Charles Evans Hughes, in November 1909, as quoted in Taft and Roosevelt : The intimate letters of Archie Butt (1930) by Archibald Willingham Butt, p. 224; this has sometimes been paraphrased: "Failure to accord credit to anyone for what he may have done is a great weakness in any man."
