
Modern India and the Indians, 1878. in Shourie, Arun (1994). Missionaries in India: Continuities, changes, dilemmas. New Delhi : Rupa & Co, 1994
Clive Foss, The Tyrants: 2500 Years of Absolute Power and Corruption, London: Quercus Publishing, 2006, ISBN 1905204965 , p. 131
Contemporary witnesses
Modern India and the Indians, 1878. in Shourie, Arun (1994). Missionaries in India: Continuities, changes, dilemmas. New Delhi : Rupa & Co, 1994
Moncure Daniel Conway, in The Sacred Anthology (Oriental) : A Book of Ethnical Scriptures 5th edition (1877), p. 386; this statement appears beneath an Arabian proverb, and Upton Sinclair later attributed it to the Qur'an, in The Cry for Justice : An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest (1915), p. 475.
Misattributed
“Theology, sir, is a fortress; no crack in a fortress may be accounted small.”
John Hale
The Crucible (1953)
“The best possible fortress is—not to be hated by the people.”
Variant: Variant translation: The best fortress which a prince can possess is the affection of his people.
Source: The Prince (1513), Ch. 20: 'Are fortresses, and many other things to which princes often resort advantageous or hurtful?'
“A weak enemy in the fortress is more fearsome than the strongest outside.”
Ein schwacher Feind in der Festung ist fürchterlicher als der stärkste von außen.
Ardinghell and the Blessed Islands (1787).
“I built the fortress of my character with all the bricks that pulled me.”
From the Aphorisms http://www.prevale.net/aphorisms.html page of the official website of Prevale
Original: (it) Ho costruito la fortezza del mio carattere con tutti i mattoni che mi hanno tirato addosso.
“He learned the arts of riding, fencing, gunnery,
And how to scale a fortress - or a nunnery.”