The sun should not set upon our anger, neither should he rise upon our confidence. We should freely forgive, but forget rarely. I will not be revenged, and I owe to my enemy; but I will remember, and this I owe to myself.
Charles Caleb "C. C." Colton (1780-1832) English cleric, writer, aphorist
Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Vol. 1, § 35 (1820)
(Source)
SYPHAX: Young men soon give and soon forget affronts;
Old age is slow in both.Joseph Addison (1672-1719) English essayist, poet, statesman
Cato, Act 2, sc. 5, l. 136ff (1713)
(Source)
I have seen descriptions of Paradise sufficient to make all sensible people give up their hopes of it: some make the happy shades play incessantly on the flute; others condemn them to the torture of an everlasting promenade; while others, who represent them as dreaming on high of their mistresses below, are of opinion that a period of a hundred millions years is not sufficient to overcome a taste for the pains of love.
[J’ai vu des descriptions du paradis, capables d’y faire renoncer tous les gens de bon sens: les uns font jouer sans cesse de la flûte ces ombres heureuses; d’autres les condamnent au supplice de se promener éternellement; d’autres enfin, qui les font rêver là-haut aux maîtresses d’ici-bas, n’ont pas cru que cent millions d’années fussent un terme assez long pour leur ôter le goût de ces inquiétudes amoureuses.]
Charles-Lewis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755) French political philosopher
Persian Letters [Lettres Persanes], Letter 126, Rica to *** (1721) [tr. Davidson (1891)]
(Source)
(Source (French)). Alternate translations:
I have seen descriptions of paradise capable of disgusting all men of right understanding: some represent the happy shades incessantly playing on the flute: others condemn them to the punishment of eternally walking about: others again will have those above to be always musing on their mistresses here below, not thinking a hundred millions of years term long enough to make them lose the relish of these amorous inquietudes.
[tr. Ozell (1760 ed.), # 123]
I have read descriptions of Paradise, capable of disgusting every sensible person. The happy shades, according to the fancy of some, are continually playing on the flute, others condemn them to the punishment of eternally walking about; others in short make those above to be always raving after their mistresses here below, not thinking a hundred millions of years long enough to make them get quit of their amorous inquietudes.
[tr. Floyd (1762), # 125]
I have read descriptions of Paradise that would lead all sensible people to renounce it at once: some persons would have the happy shades play eternally on the flute; others condemn them to the torture of a never ending promenade; others who make them dream in heaven of their mistresses on earth, have expressed their belief that even a hundred millions of years would not be long enough to take from them the zest for amatory excitements.
[tr. Betts (1897), # 125]
I have seen descriptions of paradise that would have made any sensible person reject it. Some would have the joyous shades play incessantly upon the flute; others would condemn them to the torture of an eternal promenade; others, who would have them dream on high of their mistresses down below, have assumed that even in a hundred million years they will not lose their taste for such uneasy affairs.
[tr. Healy (1964), # 125]
I have seen descriptions of paradise that would make any man of sense avid going there. Some say the happy spirits in the afterlife engage in an endless bout of flute playing; others that it is an interminable walking about. Others depict them as endlessly dreaming about their mistresses down here, apparently thinking that a hundred million years is too short a time for us to lose our taste for these amorous adventures.
[tr. MacKenzie (2014)]
“Home” is any four walls that enclose the right person.
Helen Rowland (1875-1950) American journalist and humorist
Reflections of a Bachelor Girl (1909)
(Source)
GARCIN: I died too soon. I wasn’t allowed time to — to do my deeds.
INEZ: One always dies too soon — or too late. And yet one’s whole life is complete at that moment, with a line drawn neatly under it, ready for the summing up. You are — your life, and nothing else.
One reason that the task of inventing manners is so difficult is that etiquette is folk custom, and people have emotional ties to the forms of their youth. That is why there is such hostility between generations in times of rapid change; their manners being different, each feels affronted by the other, taking even the most surface choices for challenges.
Judith Martin (b. 1938) American author, journalist, etiquette expert [a.k.a. Miss Manners]
Common Courtesy, “On Etiquette as Language, Weapon, Custom, and Craft” (1985)
(Source)
The surprising surprises once; but the admirable is admired more and more.
[Ce qui étonne, étonne une fois; mais ce qui est admirable est de plus en plus admiré.]
Joseph Joubert (1754-1824) French moralist, philosopher, essayist, poet
Pensées [Thoughts], ch. 23 “Des Qualités de l’Écrivain [Of the Qualities of Writers]” ¶ 164 (1850 ed.) [tr. Lyttelton (1899), ch. 22, ¶ 77]
(Source)
(Source (French)). Alternate translations:
What astonishes astonishes once, but what is admirable is more and more admired.
[tr. Calvert (1866), ch. 15]
That which astonishes, astonishes once; but whatever is admirable becomes more and more admired.
[tr. Attwell (1896), ¶ 370]
The surprising astonishes once; but the admirable is admired more and more.
[tr. Collins (1928), ch. 22]
CALVIN’S DAD: It’s funny … when I was a kid, I thought grown-ups never worried about anything. I trusted my parents to take care of everything, and it never occurred to me that they might not know how. I figured that once you grew up, you automatically knew what to do in any given scenario. I don’t think I would have been in such a hurry to reach adulthood if I’d know the whole thing was going to be ad-libbed.
Bill Watterson (b. 1958) American cartoonist
Calvin and Hobbes (1989-05-10)
(Source)
After their house has been burgled.
Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.
Jane Jacobs (1916-2006) American-Canadian journalist, author, urban theorist, activist
The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Part 2, ch. 12 (1961)
(Source)
Kisses kept are wasted;
Love is to be tasted.
There are some you love, I know;
Be not loath to tell them so.
Lips go dry and eyes grow wet
Waiting to be warmly met,
Keep them not in waiting yet;
Kisses kept are wasted.Edmund Vance Cooke (1866-1932) Canadian poet
“Kisses Kept Are Wasted,” ll. 1-9, Little Songs for Two (1909)
(Source)
That is just the way with Memory; nothing that she brings to us is complete. She is a willful child; all her toys are broken. I remember tumbling into a huge dust-hole when a very small boy, but I have not the faintest recollection of ever getting out again; and if memory were all we had to trust to, I should be compelled to believe I was there still.
Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) English writer, humorist [Jerome Klapka Jerome]
Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, “On Memory” (1886)
(Source)
First published in Home Chimes (1885-09-26).
ADRIANA: A wretched soul bruised with adversity
We bid be quiet when we hear it cry,
But were we burdened with like weight of pain,
As much or more we should ourselves complain.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Comedy of Errors, Act 2, sc. 1, l. 34ff (2.1.34-37) (1594)
(Source)
In great actions men show themselves as they ought to be, in small actions as they are.
[Dans les grandes choses, les hommes se montrent comme il leur convient de se montrer; dans les petites, ils se montrent comme ils sont.]
Nicolas Chamfort (1741-1794) French writer, epigrammist (b. Nicolas-Sébastien Roch)
Products of Perfected Civilization [Produits de la Civilisation Perfectionée], Part 1 “Maxims and Thoughts [Maximes et Pensées],” ch. 1, ¶ 52 (1795) [tr. Hutchinson (1902), “The Cynic’s Breviary”]
(Source)
(Source (French)). Alternate translations:
In great matters men show themselves as they ought; in little, as they are.
[tr. Mathers (1926)]
In affairs of importance, men show themselves at their best advantage; in small matters they are seen as they are.
[tr. Merwin (1969)]
In great things, men show themselves as they want to be seen; and in little ones they show themselves as they are.
[tr. Siniscalchi (1994)]
In important matters, men display themselves as they want to be seen; in minor matters as they really are.
[tr. Parmée (2003), ¶45]
The walls of books around me, dense with the past, formed a kind of insulation against the present world and its dangers. I hated to get up.
Ross Macdonald (1915-1983) American-Canadian author [pseud. of Kenneth Millar]
The Chill, ch. 8 (Lew Archer) (1963)
(Source)
Often misquoted in the third person ("The walls of books around him ...")
So Life’s year begins and closes;
Days, though short’ning, still can shine;
What though youth gave love and roses,
Age still leaves us friends and wine.
If well thou hast begun, go on fore-right
It is the end that crowns us, not the fight.
Old wine, and an old friend, are good provisions.
George Herbert (1593-1633) Welsh priest, orator, poet.
Jacula Prudentum, or Outlandish Proverbs, Sentences, &c. (compiler), # 136 (1640 ed.)
(Source)
Put not oph till to-morrow what can be enjoyed to-day.
[Put not off till tomorrow what can be enjoyed today.]
Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist, aphorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Everybody’s Friend, Or; Josh Billing’s Encyclopedia and Proverbial Philosophy of Wit and Humor, ch. 148 “Affurisms: Ink Brats” (1874)
(Source)
One should guard against preaching to the young man success in the customary sense as the aim of life. For a successful man is he who receives a great deal from this fellowmen, usually incomparably more than corresponds to his service to them. The value of a man, however, should be seen what he gives. and not in what he is able to receive.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) German-American physicist
Speech (1936-10-15), Convocation of University of New York, Albany [tr. Arronet]
(Source)
Collected in "On Education" (1936), Out of My Later Years, ch. 9 (1950).
If you look at someone and see no reasonable probability you’ll ever have a positive or instructive interaction with them, block now and move on.
Ken White (b. c. 1969) American constitutional and criminal attorney, prosecutor, blogger
Twitter (2022-09-13)
(Source)
Commonly known as "The Popehat Rule" (after White's Twitter account handle). An earlier version reads:
Block early, block often, block whenever you feel "I think I would enjoy not knowing this person.
[Twitter (2022-06-23)]
This should not be confused with Popehat's Rule of Goats or Law of Goats, e.g.:
He who fucks goats, either as part of a performance or to troll those he deems has overly delicate sensibilities, is simply a goatfucker.
[Urban Dictionary, "Popehat's Law of Goats"]
If you fuck goats because it upsets people you hate, you're still a goatfucker. Nobody cares that you're an insincere goatfucker.
[Twitter (2017-02-19)]
The Rule of Goats: even if you say you're only fucking goats ironically, you're still a goatfucker.
[Twitter (2017-04-30)]
If you kiss a goat, even if you say you’re doing it ironically, you’re still a goat-kisser.
["Is Alex Jones an extreme conspiracy theorist or a giant troll?" Los Angeles Times (2017-04-11) (Paraphrased "for this family newspaper")]
Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labor by taking up another.
Anatole France (1844-1924) French poet, journalist, novelist, Nobel Laureate [pseud. of Jaques-Anatole-François Thibault]
The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard, Part 2, ch. 4 “The Little Saint-George,” “June 3” (1881)
(Source)
If the young aspirant is not rich enough for Parliament, and is deterred by the basilisks or otherwise from entering on Law or Church, and cannot altogether reduce his human intellect to the beaverish condition, or satisfy himself with the prospect of making money, — what becomes of him in such case, which is naturally the case of very many, and ever of more? In such case there remains but one outlet for him, and notably enough that too is a talking one: the outlet of Literature, of trying to write Books.
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish essayist and historian
Latter-Day Pamphlets, # 5 “Stump-Orator” (1850-05-01)
(Source)
Old Custom, without Truth, is but an old Errour.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English physician, preacher, aphorist, writer
Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs (compiler), # 3710 (1732)
(Source)
It is customary to suppose that, if a belief is widespread, there must be something reasonable about it. I do not think this view can be held by anyone who has studied history. Practically all the beliefs of savages are absurd. In early civilizations there may be as much as one percent for which there is something to be said. In our own day …. But at this point I must be careful. We all know that there are absurd beliefs in Soviet Russia. If we are Protestants, we know that there are absurd beliefs among Catholics. If we are Catholics, we know that there are absurd beliefs among Protestants. If we are Conservatives, we are amazed by the superstitions to be found in the Labour Party. If we are Socialists, we are aghast at the credulity of Conservatives. I do not know, dear reader, what your beliefs may be, but whatever they may be, you must concede that nine-tenths of the beliefs of nine-tenths of mankind are totally irrational. The beliefs in question are, of course, those which you do not hold.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“Is There a God?” (1952)
(Source)
Essay commissioned by Illustrated magazine in 1952, but never published there. First publication in Russell, Last Philosophical Testament, 1943-68 (1997) [ed. Slater/Köllner].
These statements were, as he felt even in making them, not only gratuitous, but utterly unconvincing, but he had arrived at that condition in which a man discovers with terror the unsuspected amount of mendacity latent in his system.
F. Anstey (1856-1934) English novelist and journalist (pseud. of Thomas Anstey Guthrie)
The Brass Bottle, ch. 9 “Persicos Odi, Puer, Apparatus” (1900)
(Source)
Originally published in The Strand Magazine (1900-04).
Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.
The Bible (The New Testament) (AD 1st - 2nd C) Christian sacred scripture
1 Peter 4:10 [NIV (2011 ed.)]
(Source)
Alternate translations:
As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.
[KJV (1611)]
Each one of you has received a special grace, so, like good stewards responsible for all these different graces of God, put yourselves at the service of others.
[JB (1966)]
Each one, as a good manager of God's different gifts, must use for the good of others the special gift he has received from God.
[GNT (1976)]
Each one of you has received a special grace, so, like good stewards responsible for all these varied graces of God, put it at the service of others.
[NJB (1985)]
And serve each other according to the gift each person has received, as good managers of God’s diverse gifts.
[CEB (2011)]
Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received.
[NRSV (2021 ed.)]
Sometimes, with luck, we find the kind of true friend, male or female, that appears only two or three times in a lucky lifetime, one that will winter us and summer us, grieve, rejoice, and travel with us.
Barbara Holland (1933-2010) American author
One’s Company: Reflections on Living Alone, ch. 3 “Friends” (1992)
(Source)
“How wonderful to be alive,” he thought. “But why does it always hurt?”
Boris Pasternak (1890-1960) Russian poet, novelist, and literary translator
Doctor Zhivago [До́ктор Жива́го], Part 1, ch. 1 “The Five O’Clock Express,” sec. 4 [Nika] (1955) [tr. Hayward & Harari (1958), US ed.]
(Source)
Alternate translations:
"How wonderful to be alive," he thought. "But why does it always have to be so painful?"
[tr. Hayward & Harari (1958), UK ed.]
"How good it is in this world!" he thought. "But why does it always come out so painful?"
[tr. Pevear & Volokhonsky (2010)]
May I join you in the doghouse, Rover?
I wish to retire till the party’s over.Ogden Nash (1902-1971) American poet
“Children’s Party,” ll. 1-2, Many Long Years Ago (1945)
(Source)
EXPERIENCE, n. The wisdom that enables us to recognize as an undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced.
Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) American writer and journalist
“Experience,” The Cynic’s Word Book (1906)
(Source)
Included in The Devil's Dictionary (1911). Originally published in the "Devil's Dictionary" column in the San Francisco Wasp (1884-06-07).
Foolish people, I say, then, who have never experienced much of either, will tell you that mental distress is far more agonizing than bodily. Romantic and touching theory! so comforting to the love-sick young sprig who looks down patronizingly at some poor devil with a white starved face and thinks to himself, “Ah, how happy you are compared with me!” — so soothing to fat old gentlemen who cackle about the superiority of poverty over riches. But it is all nonsense — all cant. An aching head soon makes one forget an aching heart. A broken finger will drive away all recollections of an empty chair. And when a man feels really hungry he does not feel anything else.
Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) English writer, humorist [Jerome Klapka Jerome]
Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, “On Eating and Drinking” (1886)
(Source)
Old Age, tho’ despised, is coveted by all Men.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English physician, preacher, aphorist, writer
Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs (compiler), # 3795 (1732)
(Source)
If he is poor who is full of Desires, nothing can equal the Poverty of the Ambitious and the Covetous.
[S’il est vrai que l’on soit pauvre par toutes les choses que l’on désire, l’ambitieux et l’avare languissent dans une extrême pauvreté.]Jean de La Bruyère (1645-1696) French essayist, moralist
The Characters [Les Caractères], ch. 6 “Of Gifts of Fortune [Des Biens de Fortune],” § 49 (6.49) (1688) [Browne ed. (1752)]
(Source)
(Source (French)). Alternate translations:
If he is only poor who desires much, and is always in want; the Ambitious and the Covetous languish in extreme Poverty.
[Bullord ed. (1696)]
If a Man is poor, by all the things which he longs for, the Ambitious and Covetous languish in extreme Poverty.
[Curll ed. (1713)]
If a man be poor who wishes to have everything, then an ambitious and a miserly man languish in extreme poverty.
[tr. Van Laun (1885)]
If it is true that poverty consists in desiring a great many things, the ambitious man and the miser suffer from extreme poverty.
[tr. Stewart (1970)]
So, yes, Raymond, I do believe in evil. But the only evil I’ve seen, the only evil I believe in, wears a human face. I don’t know whether or not there’s a hell somewhere else, but I have seen an awful lot of people trying to create a homemade version right here.
J. Michael (Joe) Straczynski (b. 1954) American screenwriter, producer, author [a/k/a "JMS"]
Tribulations, “A Quiet Guy” [Susan Randall] (2005)
(Source)
The greatest artists have never been men of taste. By never sophisticating their instincts they have never lost the awareness of the great simplicities, which they relish both from appetite and from the challenge these offer to skill in competition with popular art.
Jacques Barzun (1907-2012) French-American historian, educator, polymath
The Energies of Art: Studies of Authors Classic and Modern, “Whirligig: Last Words on Berlioz” (1956)
(Source)
LEONATO: No, no, t’is all men’s office to speak patience
To those that wring under the load of sorrow;
But no man’s virtue nor sufficiency,
To be so moral, when he shall endure
The like himself.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Much Ado About Nothing, Act 5, sc. 1, l. 29ff (5.1.29-33) (1598)
(Source)
When he was a boy, he’d read books about great military campaigns, and visited museums and had looked with patriotic pride at the paintings of famous cavalry charges, last stands, and glorious victories. It had come as rather a shock, when he later began to participate in some of these, to find that the painters had unaccountably left out the intestines. Perhaps they just weren’t very good at them.
A dramatist is one who believes that the pure event, an action involving human beings, is more arresting than any comment that can be made upon it. On the stage it is always now; the personages are standing on that razor edge, between the past and the future, which is the essential character of conscious being; the words are rising to their lips in immediate spontaneity. […] The theater is supremely fitted to say: “Behold! These things are.”
When one is past, another care we have:
Thus woe succeeds a woe, as wave a wave.
Keepe good men company, and you shall be of the number.
George Herbert (1593-1633) Welsh priest, orator, poet.
Jacula Prudentum, or Outlandish Proverbs, Sentences, &c. (compiler), # 120 (1640 ed.)
(Source)
Education is that which remains, if one has forgotten everything else he learned in school.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) German-American physicist
(Misattributed)
(Source)
Einstein cites this (as he agrees with it) as coming from a "wit" in a speech (1936-10-15), Convocation of University of New York, Albany [tr. Arronet]. Collected in "On Education" (1936), Out of My Later Years, ch. 9 (1950).
Reverence for Human Worth, earnest devout search for it and encouragement of it, loyal furtherance and obedience to it: this, I say, is the outcome and essence of all true “religions,” and was and ever will be.
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish essayist and historian
Latter-Day Pamphlets, # 3 “Downing Street” (1850-04-01)
(Source)
It takes a grate deal of money tew make a man ritch, but it don’t take but little virtew.
[It takes a great deal of money to make a man rich, but it doesn’t take but little virtue.]
Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist, aphorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Everybody’s Friend, Or; Josh Billing’s Encyclopedia and Proverbial Philosophy of Wit and Humor, ch. 144 “Affurisms: Gnats” (1874)
(Source)
When I come to my own beliefs, I find myself quite unable to discern any purpose in the universe, and still more unable to wish to discern one. Those who imagine that the course of cosmic evolution is slowly leading up to some consummation pleasing to the Creator, are logically committed (though they usually fail to realize this) to the view that the Creator is not omnipotent or, if He were omnipotent, He could decree the end without troubling about means.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“Is There a God?” (1952)
(Source)
Essay commissioned by Illustrated magazine in 1952, but never published there. First publication in Russell, Last Philosophical Testament, 1943-68 (1997) [ed. Slater/Köllner].
Never get a reputation for a small perfection, if you are trying for fame in a loftier area; the world can only judge by generals, and it sees that those who pay considerable attention to minutiæ, seldom have their minds occupied with great things. There are, it is true, exceptions; but to exceptions the world does not attend.
Edward George Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873) English novelist and politician
The Disowned, ch. 2 [Talbot] (1828)
(Source)
See La Rochefoucauld.
Candour’s the cement of friendship.
F. Anstey (1856-1934) English novelist and journalist (pseud. of Thomas Anstey Guthrie)
The Brass Bottle, ch. 1 “Horace Ventimore Receives a Commission” [Ventimore] (1900)
(Source)
Originally published in The Strand Magazine (1900-02).
The great misfortune, the root of all the evil to come, was the loss of faith in the value of personal opinions. People imagined that it was out of date to follow their own moral sense, that they must all sing the same tune in chorus, and live by other people’s notions, the notions which were being crammed down everybody’s throat.
Boris Pasternak (1890-1960) Russian poet, novelist, and literary translator
Doctor Zhivago [До́ктор Жива́го], Part 2, ch. 13 “Opposite the House of Caryatids,” sec. 14 [Yury] (1955) [tr. Hayward & Harari (1958), UK ed.]
(Source)
Alternate translations:
The main misfortune, the root of all evil to come, was loss of the confidence in the value of one's own opinion. People imagined that it was out of date of follow their own moral sense, that they must all sing in chorus, and live by other people's notions, notions that were crammed down everybody's throat.
[tr. Hayward & Harari (1958), US ed.]
The main trouble, the root of the future evil, was loss of faith in the value of one’s own opinion. People imagined that the time when they followed the urgings of their moral sense was gone, that now they had to sing to the general tune and live by foreign notions imposed on everyone.
[tr. Pevear & Volokhonsky (2010)]
It is always easy as well as agreeable for the inferior ranks of mankind to claim merit from the contempt of that pomp and pleasure which fortune has placed beyond their reach. The virtue of the primitive Christians, like that of the first Romans, was very frequently guarded by poverty and ignorance.
Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) English historian
The Decline And Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 2, ch. 15 (1781)
(Source)
See La Rochefoucauld.
EVANGELIST, n. A bearer of good tidings, particularly (in a religious sense) such as assure us of our own salvation, and the damnation of our neighbors.
Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) American writer and journalist
“Evangelist,” The Cynic’s Word Book (1906)
(Source)
Included in The Devil's Dictionary (1911). Originally published in the "Devil's Dictionary" column in the San Francisco Wasp (1884-05-24).
The original entry in the Wasp concluded: “The evangelists proper are Matthew, Mark, Luke and John; the evangelists improper are the parsons."
You cannot be a slave of two masters; you will hate one and love the other; you will be loyal to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
The Bible (The New Testament) (AD 1st - 2nd C) Christian sacred scripture
Luke 16:13 [GNT (1976)]
(Source)
Alternate translations:
No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
[KJV (1611)]
No one can be the slave of two masters: he will either hate the first and love the second, or treat the first with respect and the second with scorn. You cannot be the slave both of God and of money.
[JB (1966)]
No one can be the slave of two masters: he will either hate the first and love the second, or be attached to the first and despise the second. You cannot be the slave both of God and of money.
[NJB (1985)]
No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be loyal to the one and have contempt for the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.
[CEB (2011)]
No one can serve two masters, for a slave will either hate the one and love the other or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.
[NRSV (2021 ed.)]
If it be true that a man is rich who wants nothing, a wise man is a very rich man.
[S’il est vrai que l’on soit riche de tout ce dont on n’a pas besoin, un homme fort riche, c’est un homme qui est sage.]Jean de La Bruyère (1645-1696) French essayist, moralist
The Characters [Les Caractères], ch. 6 “Of Gifts of Fortune [Des Biens de Fortune],” § 49 (6.49) (1688) [tr. Van Laun (1885)]
(Source)
(Source (French)). Alternate translations:
If he is only rich who wants nothing, a very wise Man is a very rich Man.
[Bullord ed. (1696)]
If a Man is rich, by all which he does not want, a wise Man is a very rich Man.
[Curll ed. (1713)]
If he is rich who wants nothing, a very wise Man is a very rich Man.
[Browne ed. (1752)]
If it is true that wealth consists in having few wants, the wise man is a very wealthy man.
[tr. Stewart (1970)]
A banquet is probably the most fatiguing thing in the world except ditch-digging.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Dictation (1907-07-30)
(Source)
In Benjamin Griffin and Harriet Elinor Smith, eds., Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 3 (pub. 2015).
Also recorded in Bernard DeVoto, ed., Mark Twain in Eruption, "The Last Visit to England," ch. 1 "White and Red" (1940). DeVoto identifies it coming from the dictations of July-August 1907.
A shy man means a lonely man — a man cut off from all companionship, all sociability. He moves about the world, but does not mix with it. Between him and his fellow-men there runs ever an impassable barrier — a strong, invisible wall that, trying in vain to scale, he but bruises himself against. He sees the pleasant faces and hears the pleasant voices on the other side, but he cannot stretch his hand across to grasp another hand. He stands watching the merry groups, and he longs to speak and to claim kindred with them. But they pass him by, chatting gayly to one another, and he cannot stay them. He tries to reach them, but his prison walls move with him and hem him in on every side. In the busy street, in the crowded room, in the grind of work, in the whirl of pleasure, amid the many or amid the few — wherever men congregate together, wherever the music of human speech is heard and human thought is flashed from human eyes, there, shunned and solitary, the shy man, like a leper, stands apart. His soul is full of love and longing, but the world knows it not. The iron mask of shyness is riveted before his face, and the man beneath is never seen.
Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) English writer, humorist [Jerome Klapka Jerome]
Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, “On Being Shy” (1886)
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LEONATO:For, brother, men
Can counsel, and speak comfort to that grief
Which they themselves not feel.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Much Ado About Nothing, Act 5, sc. 1, l. 22ff (5.1.22-24) (1598)
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