A Quote by Plato

For a man to conquer himself is the first and noblest of all victories.

Plato

Quote Topics

Conquer First Himself Man Noblest Victories

Quote Author

Plato
Greek - Philosopher
427 BC - 347 BC

For a man to conquer himself is the first and noblest of all victories... The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself; to be conquered by yourself is of all things most shameful and vile.

Plato

If a man should conquer in battle a thousand and a thousand more, and another should conquer himself, his would be the greater victory, because the greatest of victories is the victory over oneself.

Gautama Buddha

Though he should conquer a thousand men in the battlefield a thousand times, yet he, indeed, who would conquer himself is the noblest victor.

Gautama Buddha

Loyalty in time of need is possibly one of the noblest of victories a courtier can win over himself.

Honore de Balzac

There's a victory and defeat-the first and best of victories, the lowest and worst of defeats-which each man gains or sustains at the hands not of another, but of himself.

Plato

There's a victory, and defeat; the first and best of victories, the lowest and worst of defeats which each man gains or sustains at the hands not of another, but of himself.

Plato

For a century, the Arabs tribes gave Islam the first of these victories. Then the rough mountain peoples of North Africa, the Berbers, helped it to conquer Spain and organize Fatimid Egypt.

Fernand Braudel

Greater in battle than the man who would conquer a thousand-thousand men, is he who would conquer just one — himself. Better to conquer yourself than others. When you've trained yourself, living in constant self-control, neither a deva nor gandhabba, nor a Mara banded with Brahmas, could turn that triumph back into defeat.

Gautama Buddha

The good devout man first makes inner preparation for the actions he has later to perform. His outward actions do not draw him into lust and vice; rather it is he who bends them into the shape of reason and right judgement. Who has a stiffer battle to fight than the man who is striving to conquer himself.

Thomas a Kempis

There is little that can withstand a man who can conquer himself.

Louis XIV

To conquer himself is the greatest victory that man can gain.

Ignatius of Loyola

...Man is a marvelous curiosity. When he is at his very very best he is a sort of low grade nickel-plated angel; at his worst he is unspeakable, unimaginable; and first and last and all the time he is a sarcasm. Yet he blandly and in all sincerity calls himself the 'noblest work of God.'

Mark Twain

Neither the victories of the Olympic Games nor those achieved in battles make the man happy. The only victories that make him happy are those achieved against himself. Temptations and tests are combats. You have beaten one, two, many times; still fight. If you defeat at last you will be happy your entire life, as if you have always defeated.

Epictetus

Among the noblest in the land - Though man may count himself the least - That man I honor and revere, Who without favor, without fear, In the great city dares to stand, The friend of every friendless beast.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

A man perfects himself by working. Foul jungles are cleared away, fair seed-fields rise instead, and stately cities; and with the man himself first ceases to be a jungle, and foul unwholesome desert thereby. The man is now a man.