WISE WORDS
Francis Bacon (1561-1626), “Of Suspicion”:
“There is nothing makes a man suspect much, more than to know little”.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626), “Of Suspicion”:
“There is a superstition in avoiding superstition”.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626), “Memorial Of Access”:
“I would live to study, and not study to live”.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626), “Advancement In Learning”:
“It is in life as it is in ways, the shortest way is commonly the foulest, and surely the fairer way is not much about”.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626), “Of Youth And Age”:
“Young men are fitter to invent than to judge, fitter for execution than for counsel, and fitter for new projects than for settled business”.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626), “De Digntate Et Augmentis Scientiarium”:
“Silence is the virtue of fools”.
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), Journal:
“Speech is human, silence is divine, yet also brutish and dead: therefore we must learn both arts”.
Charles Caleb Colton (1780?-1832), “Lacon”, Vol. I:
“When you have nothing to say, say nothing”.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-82):
“Sorrow and silence are strong, and patient endurance is godlike”.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626), “Of Beauty”:
“Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set”.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626), “Of Great Place”:
“Severity breedeth fear, but roughness breedeth hate. Even repoofs from authority ought to be grave, and not taunting”.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626), “Of Nature In Men”:
“Nature is often hidden, sometimes overcome, seldom extinguished”.
William Blake (1857-1827), On Art And Artists:
“The errors of a wise man make your rule, Rather than the perfections of a fool”.
Julius Caesar (102?-44 B.C.):
“Fere libenter hominess id quod volunt credunt” (Men willingly believe what they wish).
Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773), May 8, 1750:
“Knowledge may give weight, but accomplishments give lustre, and many more people see than weigh”.
Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773), July 20, 1749:
“Idleness is only the refuge of weak minds”.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626), “Of Unity in Religion”:
“All colours will agree in the dark”.
(Pointless?).
Francis Bacon (1561-1626), “Apothegms”:
“Cosmus duke of Florence was wont to say of perfidious friends; “That we read that we ought to forgive our enemies; but we do not read that we ought to forgive our friends””.
Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield (1804-81), Coningsby:
“Youth is a blunder; Manhood a struggle; Old Age a regret”.
William Cowper (1743-1809), Mutual Forbearance:
“Some people are more nice than wise”.
William Gifford (1756-1826):
“Virtue alone is true nobility”.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626), “Of Adversity”:
“Prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue”.
John Ruskin (1819-1900):
“There is no wealth but life”.
Lord John Russell (1792-1878):
“A proverb is one man’s wit and all men’s wisdom”.
Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield (1804-81), Endymion:
“Time is the great physician”.
Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield (1804-81), Lothair:
“You know who the critics are? The men who have failed in literature and art”.
Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield (1804-81), Sybil:
“Little things affect little minds”.
Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953):
“A lost thing could I never find,
Nor a broken thing mend”.
Samuel Butler 1835-1902):
“Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises”.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626), “Of Seditions And Troubles”:
“The remedy is worse than the disease”.
Charles Caleb Colton (1780?-1832):
“Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man can answer”.
Jean De La Fontaine (1621-95), “Le Chêne et la Roseau”:
“Je plie et ne romps pas” (I bend and I break not).
Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931), Newspaper Interview. Life (1932):
“Genius is one per cent. inspiration and ninety-nine per cent. perspiration”.
Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield (1804-81), At Salthill (Oct 5, 1864):
“Never take anything for granted”.
Horace (65-8 B.C.):
“Vis consili exprers mole ruit sua” (Force without mind falls by its own weight).
Ben Johnson (1573-1637):
“For a good poet’s made as well as born”.
Abraham Lincoln (1809-645), Attr. Words in a speech at Clinton (Sept 8, 1858). N.W. Stephenson, Autobiography of A. Lincoln (1927):
“You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you can not fool all the people all of the time”.
Owen Merdith (Edward Robert Bulwer, Earl Of Lytton); 1831-91), Clytemnestra:
“There’s nothing certain in man’s life but this:
That he must lose it”.
Jean Baptiste Poquelin (Molière; 1622-73):
“Un sot savant est sot plus qu’un sot ignorant” (An erudite fool is a greater fool than an ignorant fool).
Michel Eyquem Montaigne (1533-92):
“La plus grande chose du monde c’est de savoir être à soi” (The greatest thing in the world is to know how to be sufficient unto oneself).
Duc De La Rochfoucauld (1613-80):
“L’hypocrite est un homage que le vice rend à la vertu” (Hypocrisy is homage paid to virtue).
Duc De La Rochfoucauld (1613-80), Maximes:
“C’est une grande habileté que de savoir cacher son habileté” (The height of cleverness is to be able to conceal it).
Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-92):
“Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control,
These three alone lead life to sovereign power”.
Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-92):
“Because right is right, to follow right
Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence”.
John Donne (1571?-1631):
“For truth has such a face and such a mien
As to be lov’d needs only to be seen”.
Henry David Thoreau (1817-62):
“It is characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things”.
Francis Quarles (1592-1644):
“Be wisely worldly, be not worldly wise”.
Ovid (43-B.C. – A.D. 18?):
“Tempus edax rerum” (Time the devourer of all things).
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946), Afterthoughts (1931):
“There are two things to aim at in life: first, to get what you want; and, after that, to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second”.
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-94), “The Adventure Of The Hansom Cab”:
“Is there anything in life so disenchanting as attainment?”.
Suetonius (120 A.D.), “Divus Augustus”:
“Festina lente” (Σπεΰδε βραδέως, Hasten slowly)”.
Luc De Clapier, Maarquis De Vauvenargues (1715-47), Réflexions et Maximes:
“Les grandes pensées viennent du coeur” (Great thoughts come from the heart).
Henry David Thoreau (1817-62), Where I Lived, And What I Lived For:
“Simplify, simplify”.
HUMAN NATURE
Charles Caleb Colton (1780?-1832):
“Man is an embodied paradox, a bundle of contradictions”.
George Colman (1762-1836):
“His heart runs away with his head”.
Who Wants A Guinea?
Francis Bacon (1561-1626), Of Death:
“There is no passion in the mind of man so weak, but it mates and masters the fear of death…Revenge triumphs over death. Love slights it; honour aspireth to it; grief flieth to it”.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626), Letter to the Earl of Essex (1598):
“Opportunity makes a thief”.
George Crabbe (1754-1832):
“Habit with him was all the test of truth,
‘It must be right: I’ve done it from my youth’”.
Very wrong mostly!
Daniel Defoe (1661?-1731), Serious Reflections Of Robinson Crusoe:
“Necessity makes an honest man a knave”.
Edward John Phelps (18822-1900), Speech at Mansion House (Jan 24, 1899):
“The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything”.
Alexander Pope (1688-1744):
“Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never is, but always to be blest”.
James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), Ten O’Clock:
“Nature is usually wrong”.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), “Caesar And Cleopatra”, Act III:
“When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty”.
John Webster (1580?-1625?), The White Devil:
“Cowardly dogs bark loudest”.
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-94):
“Youth is the time to go flashing from one end of the world to the other both in mind and body; to try the manners of different nations; to hear the chimes at midnight; to see sunrise in town and navigate the metaphysics, write halting verses, run a mile to see a fire, and wait all day long in the theatre to applaud ‘Hernani’”.
Robert Smith Surtees (1803-64), The Analysis Of The Hunting Field (1846):
“More people are flattered into virtue than bullied out of vice”.
Robert Smith Surtees (1803-64), Ask Mamma (1858):
“The only infallible rule we know is, that the man who is always talking about being a gentleman never is one”.
Edmund Waller (1606-87), To the Countess of Upper Ossory (Aug 16, 1776):
“This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel”.
Richard Whately, Archbishop Of Dublin (1787-1863), Apophthegms:
“It is a folly to expect men to do all that they may reasonably be expected to do”.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745):
“There’s none so blind as they that won’t see”.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745):
“The most positive men are the most credulous”.
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