Circumstances rule men; men do not rule circumstances.
Interpretation
Men are often governed by their situations rather than by their own decisions.
This quote by Herodotus suggests that people are often constrained by their circumstances, implying that external factors often have more control over individuals than their own will or decisions. It emphasizes the power of context and environment in shaping human behavior and actions, illustrating the idea that individuals cannot always assert control over the various challenges and situations they face in life.
In practice
During a motivational speech on resilience, referencing this quote can illustrate how external situations can impact our choices.
The Scythians take kannabis seed, creep in under the felts, and throw it on the red-hot stones. It smolders and sends up such billows of steam-smoke that no Greek vapor bath can surpass it. The Scythians howl with joy in these vapor-baths, which serve them instead of bathing, for they never wash their bodies with water.
The man who has planned badly, if fortune is on his side, may have had a stroke of luck; but his plan was a bad one nonetheless.
Men trust their ears less than their eyes.
Great deeds are usually wrought at great risks.
The worst pain a man can have is to know much and be impotent to act.
All men's gains are the fruit of venturing.
In mystical traditions, it is one's own readiness that makes experiences exoteric or esoteric. The secret isn't that you're not being told. The secret is that you're not able to hear.
Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.
Misled by fancy's meteor ray, By passion driven; But yet the light that led astray Was light from heaven.
Science is unflinchingly deterministic, and it has begun to force its determinism into morals. On some shining tomorrow a psychoanalyst may be put into the box to prove that perjury is simply a compulsion neurosis, like beating time with the foot at a concert or counting the lampposts along the highway.
No one may pride himself at being more than an individual, and no one despondently think that he is not an individual.
I believe that we must maintain pride in the knowledge that the actions we take, based on our own decisions and choices as individuals, link directly to the magnificent challenge of transforming human history.
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