“What one has, one ought to use; and whatever he does, he should do with all his might.”
Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman
“It is not that one ought not to do just what one pleases; it is simply that one cannot do other than what each of us has to do, has to be. The only way out is to refuse to do what has to be done, but this does not set us free to do something else just because it pleases us. In this matter we only possess a negative freedom of will, a noluntas.”
We can quite well turn away from our true destiny, but only to fall a prisoner in the deeper dungeons of our destiny. … Theoretic truths not only are disputable, but their whole meaning and force lie in their being disputed, they spring from discussion. They live as long as they are discussed, and they are made exclusively for discussion. But destiny — what from a vital point of view one has to be or has not to be — is not discussed, it is either accepted or rejected. If we accept it, we are genuine; if not, we are the negation, the falsification of ourselves. Destiny does not consist in what we feel we should like to do; rather is it recognised in its clear features in the consciousness that we must do what we do not feel like doing.
Source: The Revolt of the Masses (1929), Chapter XI: The Self-Satisfied Age
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José Ortega Y Gasset85
Spanish liberal philosopher and essayist 1883–1955Related quotes
Jean Paul Sartre book Saint Genet
Original: (fr) L’important n’est pas ce qu’on fait de nous mais ce que nous faisons nous-même de ce qu’on a fait de nous.
Source: Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952), p.55
Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist
From 1980s onwards, Only Integrity is Going to Count (1983)
Context: I never try to tell anybody else what to do, number one. And number two, I think that's what the individual is all about. Each one of us has something to contribute. This really depends on each one doing their own thinking, but not following any kind of rule that I can give out, any command. We're all on the frontier, we're all in a great mystery — incredibly mysterious. Each one possesses exactly what each one is working out, and what each one works out relates to their particular set of circumstances of any one day, or any one place around the world.
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) American art collector and experimental writer of novels, poetry and plays
"Poetry and Grammar"
Lectures in America (1935)
“Freedom is what we do with what is done to us.”
Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …
Variant: Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you.
Antonio Llidó (1936–1974) Spanish priest
From the last letter received by his family on September 1974 http://www.memoriayjusticia.cl/english/en_focus-llido.html.
Alan Keyes (1950) American politician
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Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 106.