
“I may not believe in myself, but I believe in what I'm doing.”
at length I cried,
Tired of the painful task.
The fairy quietly replied,
And said "You must not ask."
My Fairy
Useful and Instructive Poetry (1845)
“I may not believe in myself, but I believe in what I'm doing.”
Source: Second Speech on Conciliation with America (1775)
Source: Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974), Ch. 1 : Why State of Nature Theory?; Political Philosophy, p. 6
Context: Some anarchists have claimed not merely that we would be better off without a state, but that any state necessarily violates people's moral rights and hence is intrinsically immoral. Our starting point then, though nonpolitical, is by intention far from nonmoral. Moral philosophy sets the background for, and boundaries of, political philosophy. What persons may and may not do to one another limits what they may do through the apparatus of a state, or do to establish such an apparatus.
Source: The Chronicles of Prydain (1964–1968), Book IV: Taran Wanderer (1967), Chapter 16
“She may guess what I should perform in the wet, if I do so much in the dry.”
Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part I, Book III, Ch. 11.
"Do We Live Again?" an interview with Edison, as quoted in Mr. Edison's New Argument from Design" in The Illustrated London News (3 May 1924).
1920s
Source: No Way Out (2002), Ch. 1: The Unrational Philosophy of U.G. Krishnamurti
"Doing What I Know" (song)
Song lyrics
Source: Gilbert O'Sullivan, "Doing What I Know" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlkC9AFrSNU (song on YouTube)
“My duty is not affected by what others may or may not do to discharge their own.”
quote from Honor Harrington
"Honorverse", On Basilisk Station (1993)