The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)
“The true perfection of man lies not in what man has, but in what man is.”
Source: The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)
Context: For the recognition of private property has really harmed Individualism, and obscured it, by confusing a man with what he possesses. It has led Individualism entirely astray. It has made gain not growth its aim. So that man thought that the important thing was to have, and did not know that the important thing is to be. The true perfection of man lies, not in what man has, but in what man is. Private property has crushed true Individualism, and set up an Individualism that is false. It has debarred one part of the community from being individual by starving them. It has debarred the other part of the community from being individual by putting them on the wrong road and encumbering them.
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Oscar Wilde 812
Irish writer and poet 1854–1900Related quotes
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(-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher
Diogenes Laertius
Ibid., p. 150
The Book of Disquiet
Original: O homem perfeito do pagão era a perfeição do homem que há; o homem perfeito do cristão a perfeição do homem que não há; o homem perfeito do budista a perfeição de não haver homem.
Fausto Cercignani
(1941) Italian scholar, essayist and poet
This quote is itself quoting Floyd 'Red Crow' Westerman in the film Grey Owl (1999)
Examples of self-translation (c. 2004), Quotes - Zitate - Citations - Citazioni
“It’s what a man thinks is true which controls his actions, not what is really true.”
Michael Kurland
(1938) American writer
Source: Tomorrow Knight (1976), Chapter 13 (p. 138)
“Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true.”
Francis Bacon
(1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author
“Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?”
Source: Lyrical Ballads (1798–1800), Lines Written in Early Spring, st. 6 (1798).
Confucius
(-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher
Source: The Analects, Chapter III
William Godwin
(1756–1836) English journalist, political philosopher and novelist
Context: It has an unhappy effect upon the human understanding and temper, for a man to be compelled in his gravest investigation of an argument, to consider, not what is true, but what is convenient. The lawyer never yet existed who has not boldly urged an objection which he knew to be fallacious, or endeavoured to pass off a weak reason for a strong one. Intellect is the greatest and most sacred of all endowments; and no man ever trifled with it, defending an action to-day which he had arraigned yesterday, or extenuating an offence on one occasion, which, soon after, he painted in the most atrocious colours, with absolute impunity. Above all, the poet, whose judgment should be clear, whose feelings should be uniform and sound, whose sense should be alive to every impression and hardened to none, who is the legislator of generations and the moral instructor of the world, ought never to have been a practising lawyer, or ought speedily to have quitted so dangerous an engagement.
The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer vol. 1, p. 370 (1803)