Compare the example of individualised merit, encouraged in/expressed by, that Greek proverb,      ....with this ugly truth [about the nature of most men and women] being expressed in this next quote.



Thucydides (460-400 B.C.) Greek Historian


Suggesting to me, that many, or most of us?, are indeed potential/nascent tyrants,    ....given the appropriate environment ?

No ?

To me, that Thucydides quote describes accurately, how almost all of us, men and women, are transformed by our everyday interaction with this world,       .....from being an almost innocent creature [in childhood],       .....[to some degree,] into being [undoubtedly] a cynical, cruel, and immoral creature.


Dictionary;
cynical = =
1 believing that people are motivated purely by self-interest.     sceptical.     contemptuous; mocking.
2 concerned only with one’s own interests and disregarding accepted standards to achieve them.






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A few more quotes, from another source.....


Isaiah 48:10
Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.


Daniel 12:10
Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand.


Revelation 21:7
He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.
8  But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.

Yadda, your three biblical quotes are the edited rants of people who did not believe they could be wrong.

"A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in."
- Greek proverb

I have to say two things:
- I've done a lot of that but I don't see the society growing great, in fact I see it growing worse
- not only will I not live to sit in the shade of many of them, but some bloody developer will, I know, come along and cut them down.

PS I've just seen with my own eyes such an abomination. The great park of Retford House at Bowral NSW, once the home of the Hordern and Fairfax families, which contained 150 year old trees, many of them, has been levelled and the trees chipped, to make way for a housing development.
We have no respect for heritage in this country.

Abbreviated version:


' You can't fool all of the people all of the time'

"Live fast, die young, and have a good looking corpse." John Derek in the movie Knock On Any Door, wrongly attributed to James Dean.