“Circumstances are the rulers of the weak, but they are the instruments of the wise.”
John C. Maxwell (1947) American author, speaker and pastor
Book Sometimes you win Sometimes you Learn
Source: The Second Sex
“Circumstances are the rulers of the weak, but they are the instruments of the wise.”
John C. Maxwell (1947) American author, speaker and pastor
Book Sometimes you win Sometimes you Learn
“Man is weak and when he makes strength his profession he is even weaker.”
Antonio Porchia (1885–1968) Italian Argentinian poet
El hombre es débil y cuando ejerce la profesíon de fuerte es más débil.
Voces (1943)
Richard Feynman book QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter
Source: QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter (1985), p. 15
Arthur Schopenhauer book Parerga and Paralipomena
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Counsels and Maxims
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager and filmmaker
Diary of an Unknown (1988), On Invisibility
Context: Man seeks to escape himself in myth, and does so by any means at his disposal... unnable to withdraw into himself, he disguises himself. Lies and inaccuracy give him a few moments of comfort, the trifling feeling of escape experienced at a masked ball. He distances himself from that which he feels and sees. He invents. He transfigures. He mythifies. He creates. He fancies himself an artist. He imitates, in his small way, the painters he claims are mad.
Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman
Source: Something More, A Consideration of the Vast, Undeveloped Resources of Life (1920), p. 29
Context: Ethically and morally, man has also made progress. From the earliest dawn of recorded history strong men made slaves of the weak. Primitive man regarded woman much as he did a slave or an animal, an instrument through which his comfort and pleasure might be increased. Contrast the former custom of exposing infants, the aged, and the helpless to the elements or to wild beasts, when their presence became a burden, with the present practice of erecting orphans' homes, homes for the aged, and asylums for the helpless.
Han Fei (-279–-232 BC) Chinese philosopher
國無常強,無常弱。奉法者強則國強,奉法者弱則國弱。
Source: "On Having Standards", in Han Feizi: Basic Writings (2003)
Nassim Nicholas Taleb book The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010), p. 94