“Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.”
1930s, Address to the Governing Board of the Pan American Union (1939)
Context: There is no fatality which forces the Old World towards new catastrophe. Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds. They have within themselves the power to become free at any moment.
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Franklin D. Roosevelt 190
32nd President of the United States 1882–1945Related quotes
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
(1956) 6th President of the Islamic Republic of Iran
Paragraphs 6-7
2006, Letter to George W. Bush, 2006
“A mind enclosed in language is in prison.”
Simone Weil
(1909–1943) French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist
“Ordinary men died, men of iron were taken prisoner: I only brought back with me men of bronze.”
Napoleon I of France
(1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French
Statement of 1812, quoted in Napoleon's Cavalry and its Leaders (1978) by David Johnson
Les hommes ordinaires ont succombé, disait-il; les hommes de fer ont été faits prisonniers; je ne ramène avec moi que les hommes de bronze.
Mémoires du colonel Combe sur les campagnes de Russie 1812, de Saxe 1813, de France 1814 et 1815. Paris 1853. p. 184 books.google https://books.google.de/books?id=KhlYAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA184
Clarence Darrow
(1857–1938) American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union
Voltaire (1916)
Context: Voltaire was not the first or last man to convert a prison into a hall of fame. A prison is confining to the body, but whether it affects the mind, depends entirely upon the mind.
It was while in prison that he changed his name from the one his father gave him — Arouet — to the one he has made famous throughout all time — Voltaire. He said, "I was very unlucky under my first name. I want to see if this one will succeed any better."
Ian Brady
(1938–2017) British serial killer, perpetrator of the Moors murders
Article, Evening Standard, Tue 25 June 2013, pp.1-4
“If a captive mind is unaware of being in prison, it is living in error.”
Simone Weil
(1909–1943) French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist
Source: Simone Weil : An Anthology (1986), Human Personality (1943), p. 69
Context: If a captive mind is unaware of being in prison, it is living in error. If it has recognized the fact, even for the tenth of a second, and then quickly forgotten it in order to avoid suffering, it is living in falsehood. Men of the most brilliant intelligence can be born, live and die in error and falsehood. In them, intelligence is neither a good, nor even an asset. The difference between more or less intelligent men is like the difference between criminals condemned to life imprisonment in smaller or larger cells. The intelligent man who is proud of his intelligence is like a condemned man who is proud of his large cell.
Nelson Mandela
(1918–2013) President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist
Refusing to bargain for freedom after 21 years in prison, as quoted in TIME (25 February 1985)
1980s
