Echoes

Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little.

Power and violence are opposites; where the one rules absolutely, the other is absent. Violence appears where power is in jeopardy, but left to its own course it ends in power's disappearance.

Of all men's miseries the bitterest is this: to know so much and to have control over nothing.

Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.

Mastering others is strength. Mastering yourself is true power.

There is no man in the world free from trouble or anguish, though he were King or Pope.

Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable; procures success to the weak, and esteem to all.

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.

This disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and powerful, and to despise or, at least, neglect persons of poor and mean conditions, though necessary both to establish and to maintain the distinction of ranks and the order of society, is, at the same time, the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments.

All authority is in the throne; and what is the throne? This wooden frame covered with velvet? No, I am the throne.

Conquering the world on horseback is easy; it is dismounting and governing that is hard.

The rich in all societies may be thrown into two classes. The first is of those who are powerful as well as rich, and conduct the operations of the vast political machine. The other is of those who employ their riches wholly in the acquisition of pleasure. As to the first sort, their continual care and anxiety, their toilsome days and sleepless nights, are next to proverbial. These circumstances are sufficient almost to level their condition to that of the unhappy majority; but there are other circumstances which place them in a far lower condition. Not only their understandings labour continually, which is the severest labour, but their hearts are torn by the worst, most troublesome, and insatiable of all passions, by avarice, by ambition, by fear and jealousy. No part of the mind has rest. Power gradually extirpates from the mind every humane and gentle virtue. Pity, benevolence, friendship, are things almost unknown in high stations.

Do just once what others say you can't do, and you will never pay attention to their limitations again.

Do the thing, and you shall have the power; but they who do not do the thing have not the power.

Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.

I'm as strong as a bull moose and you can use me to the limit.

All the excesses, all the violence, and all the vanity of great men, come from the fact that they know not what they are: it being difficult for those who regard themselves at heart as equal with all men... For this it is necessary for one to forget himself, and to believe that he has some real excellence above them, in which consists this illusion that I am endeavoring to discover to you.

O neglectful Nature, wherefore art thou thus partial, becoming to some of thy children a tender and benignant mother, to others a most cruel and ruthless stepmother? I see thy children given into slavery to others without ever receiving any benefit, and in lieu of any reward for the services they have done for them they are repaid by the severest punishments.

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.

The lion who breaks the enemy's ranks is a minor hero compared to the lion who overcomes himself.

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.

Perseverance and spirit have done wonders in all ages.

Should it be proved that woman is naturally weaker than man, from whence does it follow that it is natural for her to labour to become still weaker than nature intended her to be? Arguments of this cast are an insult to common sense, and savour of passion. The divine right of husbands, like the divine right of kings, may, it is to be hoped, in this enlightened age, be contested without danger, and though conviction may not silence many boisterous disputants, yet, when any prevailing prejudice is attacked, the wise will consider, and leave the narrow-minded to rail with thoughtless vehemence at innovation.

Tyrants and sensualists are in the right when they endeavour to keep women in the dark, because the former want only slaves, and the latter a play-thing.

The world breaks everyone, and afterward, many are strong at the broken places.