“I have wedded the cause of human improvement, staked on it my fortune, my reputation and my life.”
Frances Wright (1795–1852) American activist
Self-written epitaph on her tombstone in Spring Grove Cemetery, Cincinnati Ohio (c. 1850)
“Do you think I take any pleasure in this dog's life, in seeing and causing death in people unknown to me, in losing friends and acquaintances daily, in seeing my reputation ceaselessly exposed to the caprices of fortune, in spending the whole year with uneasiness and apprehension, in continually risking my life and my fortune? I certainly know the value of tranquility, the charms of society, the pleasures of life, and I like to be happy as much as anybody. Although I desire all these good things, I will not buy them with baseness and infamy. Philosophy teaches us to do our duty, to serve our country faithfully at the expense of our blood and of our repose, to commit our whole being to it.”
Letters of Voltaire and Frederick the Great (New York: Brentano's, 1927), trans. Richard Aldington, letter 141 from Frederick to Voltaire (1759-07-02)
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Frederick II of Prussia36
king of Prussia 1712–1786Related quotes
Jani Allan (1952) South African columnist and broadcaster
Speaking in 1995 in an SABC interview about a change of philosophy following her libel case against Channel 4. http://70.84.171.10/~etools/newsbrief/1995/news0103 <br class="br">Other
Gillian Anderson (1968) American-British film, television and theatre actress, activist and writer
Hal Boedeker (January 21, 2006) "Agent of Change - Gillian Anderson , who found fulfilling work in England after `The X-Files,' returns to TV in a PBS miniseries", The Orlando Sentinel, p. E1.
2000s
Stendhal book The Charterhouse of Parma
Quand je devrais acheter cette vie de délices et cette chance unique de bonheur par quelques petits dangers, où serait le mal? Et ne serait-ce pas encore un bonheur que de trouver ainsi une faible occasion de lui donner une preuve de mon amour?
Source: La Chartreuse de Parme (The Charterhouse of Parma) (1839), Ch. 20
Japanese Death Poems. Compiled by Yoel Hoffmann. ISBN 978-0-8048-3179-6; Quoted in: Lawrence Winkler. Samurai Road. 2016. p. 25
Al Capone (1899–1947) American gangster
As quoted in How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936) by Dale Carnegie, p. 26
“Do you know the only thing that gives me pleasure? It's to see my dividends coming in.”
John D. Rockefeller (1839–1937) American business magnate and philanthropist
Remark to a neighbor, quoted by John Lewis in Cosmopolitan (1908)