
“Words are good servants but bad masters.”
As quoted by Laura Huxley, in conversation with Alan Watts about her memoir This Timeless Moment (1968), in Pacifica Archives #BB2037 [sometime between 1968-1973])
A Man From Lebanon: Nineteen Centuries Afterward
Jesus, The Son of Man (1928)
Context: Master, master singer,
Master of words unspoken,
Seven times was I born, and seven times have I died
Since your last hasty visit and our brief welcome.
And behold I live again,
Remembering a day and a night among the hills,
When your tide lifted us up.
“Words are good servants but bad masters.”
As quoted by Laura Huxley, in conversation with Alan Watts about her memoir This Timeless Moment (1968), in Pacifica Archives #BB2037 [sometime between 1968-1973])
“Who is master of Bohemia is master of Europe.”
Reported as frequently quoted but unverified in Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations (1989), which states, "it cannot be found in the official writings and pronouncements of Bismarck. It is possible that he said it, and it was passed on orally rather than being recorded, or that he expressed the sentiment in other terms and the idea took this form as others tried to quote him".
Disputed
“The master is himself an animal, and needs a master.”
Sixth Thesis
Variant translations:
Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.
Out of timber so crooked as that from which man is made nothing entirely straight can be built.
From such crooked wood as that which man is made of, nothing straight can be fashioned.
Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View (1784)
Context: The master is himself an animal, and needs a master. Let him begin it as he will, it is not to be seen how he can procure a magistracy which can maintain public justice and which is itself just, whether it be a single person or a group of several elected persons. For each of them will always abuse his freedom if he has none above him to exercise force in accord with the laws. The highest master should be just in himself, and yet a man. This task is therefore the hardest of all; indeed, its complete solution is impossible, for from such crooked wood as man is made of, nothing perfectly straight can be built. That it is the last problem to be solved follows also from this: it requires that there be a correct conception of a possible constitution, great experience gained in many paths of life, and — far beyond these — a good will ready to accept such a constitution. Three such things are very hard, and if they are ever to be found together, it will be very late and after many vain attempts.
“The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house.”
essay "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House", in Sister Outsider
Renew America rally in Alabama, April 29, 2000. http://renewamerica.us/archives/speeches/00_04_29alrenew.htm.
2000
“Free election of masters does not abolish the masters or the slaves.”
“A Man who is Master of Patience, is Master of everything else.”
Political, Moral, and Miscellaneous Reflections (1750), Miscellaneous Thoughts and Reflections
“But the Harp called out quite loud: Master! Master!”
English Fairy Tales (1890), Preface to English Fairy Tales, Jack and the Beanstalk
“An apprentice is a master in dreams. A master is an apprentice even in dreams.”
To Become.
Oluşmak (To Become) Aphorisms (Pan Publishing House, Istanbul, 2011)