WIST Quotations

Atwood, Margaret -- The Handmaid’s Tale, ch. 34 (1986)

Dave — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 23:49:58 +0000

There is something powerful in the whispering of obscenities, about those in power. There’s something delightful about it, something naughty, secretive, forbidden, thrilling. It’s like a spell, of sorts. It deflates them, reduces them to the common denominator where they can be dealt with.

Margaret Atwood (b. 1939) Canadian writer, literary critic, environmental activist
The Handmaid’s Tale, ch. 34 (1986)
(Source)

Horace -- Epistles [Epistularum, Letters], Book 1, ep. 1 “To Maecenas,” l. 38ff (1.1.38-40) (20 BC) [tr. Creech (1684)]

Dave — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 16:20:26 +0000

The Rash, the Lazy, Lover, none’s so wild,
But may be tame, and may be wisely mild,
If they consult true Vertue’s Rules with care,
And lend to good advice a patient ear.

[Invidus, iracundus, iners, vinosus, amator,
nemo adeo ferus est, ut non mitescere possit,
si modo culturae patientem commodet aurem.]

Horace (65–8 BC) Roman poet, satirist, soldier, politician [Quintus Horatius Flaccus]
Epistles [Epistularum, Letters], Book 1, ep. 1 “To Maecenas,” l. 38ff (1.1.38-40) (20 BC) [tr. Creech (1684)]
(Source)

(Source (Latin)). Other translations:

Th'envyouse, angrye, drunken, slowe, the lover lewde and wylde
None so outeragiouse, but in tyme he maye become full mylde.
If he to good advertisemente will retche his listenyng eare,
And meekely byde with pacience the counsaile he shall heare.
[tr. Drant (1567)]

The Envious, Wrathful, Sluggish, Drunkard, Lover:
No Beast so wild, but may be tam'd, if he
Will unto Precepts listen patiently.
[tr. Fanshawe; ed. Brome (1666)]

The slave to envy, anger, wine, or love,
The wretch of sloth, its excellence shall prove:
Fierceness itself shall hear its rage away.
When listening calmly to the instructive lay.
[tr. Francis (1747)]

The heart with envy cold -- with anger hot,
The libertine, the sluggard and the sot --
No wretch so savage, but, if he resign
His soul to culture, wisdom can refine.
[tr. Howes (1845)]

The envious, the choleric, the indolent, the slave to wine, to women -- none is so savage that he can not be tamed, if he will only lend a patient ear to discipline.
[tr. Smart/Buckley (1853)]

Run through the list of faults; whate'er you be,
Coward, pickthank, spitfire, drunkard, debauchee,
Submit to culture patiently, you'll find
Her charms can humanize the rudest mind.
[tr. Conington (1874)]

However coarse in grain a man may be,
Drone, brawler, makebate, drunkard, debauchee,
A patient ear to culture let him lend,
He's sure to turn out gentler in the end.
[tr. Martin (1881)]

Are you envious, irascible, inert, given to wine or immorality? No person is so savage that he cannot grow milder, provided he lend a patient ear to civilization's culture.
[tr. Elgood (1893)]

The slave to envy, anger, sloth, wine, lewdness -- no one is so savage that he cannot be tamed, if only he lend to treatment a patient ear.
[tr. Fairclough (Loeb) (1926)]

The envious, passionate, slothful, drunken, lewd —
No man so savage but he drops the mood,
Lend he but patient ear to counsel good.
[tr. Murison, ed. Kramer (1936)]

The envious man,
The sorehead, the lazy lout, the drinker, the lover:
No one is such a beast as not to be tamed
By lending a patient ear to moral advice.
[tr. Palmer Bovie (1959)]

Envious, wrathful, lazy, drunken men, lewd lovers too,
none is so thoroughly wild a beast he can't be tamed,
if only he'll lend for cultivation's sake an open ear.
[tr. Fuchs (1977)]

Jealousy,
Anger, laziness, drunkenness, lust: everything
Can be cured, nothing is so wild
That patient teaching will ever fail you.
[tr. Raffel (1983)]

Nobody's so far gone in savagery --
A slave of envy, wrath, lust, drunkenness, sloth --
That he can't be civilized, if he'll only listen
Patiently to the doctor's good advice.
[tr. Ferry (2001)]

Whether he’s envious, choleric, indolent, drunken or lustful --
no one is so unruly that he can’t become more gentle,
if only he listens with care to what his trainer tells him.
[tr. Rudd (2005 ed.)]

Envious, irascible, idle, drunken, lustful,
No man’s so savage he can’t be civilised,
If he’ll attend patiently to self-cultivation.
[tr. Kline (2015)]

Chamfort, Nicolas -- Products of Perfected Civilization [Produits de la Civilisation Perfectionée], Part 1 “Maxims and Thoughts [Maximes et Pensées],” ch. 2, ¶ 118 (1795) [tr. Merwin (1969)]

Dave — Mon, 15 Jan 2024 19:18:56 +0000

The great calamity of the passions is not the torments they cause but the wrongs, the base actions that they lead one to commit, and which degrade men. Without these hindrances the advantages of the passions would far outweigh those of cold reason, which renders no one happy. The passions make a man live, wisdom merely makes him last.

[Le grand malheur des passions n’est pas dans les tourmens qu’elles causent, mais dans les fautes, dans les turpitudes qu’elles font commettre, et qui dégradent l’homme. Sans ces inconvéniens, elles auraient trop d’avantage sur la froide raison, qui ne rend point heureux. Les passions font vivre l’homme, la sagesse le fait seulement durer.]

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. 2, ¶ 118 (1795) [tr. Merwin (1969)]
(Source)

(Source (French)). Alternate translations:

The great evil of the passions does not lie in the torments which they bring upon men, but in the faults and shameful actions they cause him to commit. Were it not for this drawback they would have too great an advantage over cold reason, which can never be productive of happiness. His passions make man live, his wisdom only makes him last.
[tr. Mathers (1926)]

The unfortunate thing about passions is not the misery they make one commit, and which degrade man. Without these disadvantages, they would overpower cold reason, which does not in the least a source of happiness. Passions make men live, wisdom only makes the endure.
[tr. Pearson (1973)]

The great disaster of passions is not the torment they cause, but the debasing errors and depravity into which they lead men. Without these drawbacks, passion would enjoy many advantages over cold reason, which never produces happiness. Passions enable men to live, wisdom merely enables them to survive.
[tr. Dusinberre (1992)]

The great misfortune of passions does not come from the torments that they cause, but from the base things they make a person do, and which degrade him. Without these inconveniences, they would have too many advantages over cold reason, which never makes people happy. Passions make a man live, wisdom and facts only make him endure.
[tr. Siniscalchi (1994)]

~Proverbs and Sayings -- Circassian proverb

Dave — Tue, 03 Jan 2023 23:14:06 +0000

When an ox enters a palace, it doesn’t become a king but the palace turns into a barn.

[Öküz saraya çıkınca kral olmaz. Ama saray ahır olur.]

Proverbs, Sayings, and Adages
Circassian proverb

This "Turkish" (properly Circassian or Adyghe) proverb (source) can be found with a variety of forms and choice of livestock. It was famously used by journalist Sedef Kabaş in early 2022:

A bull does not become king just by entering the palace, but the palace becomes a barn.

Kabas was jailed for supposedly insulting Turkish President Erdoğan with the reference.

Based on Kabas' usage, it was reworked on 23 January 2022 by Elizabeth Bangs, a British academic consultant, with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in mind, and posted on Twitter into a more viral form:

When a clown moves into a palace he does not become a king. The palace becomes a circus.

The clown version is now widely misattributed as a Turkish proverb.

More notes:

Euripides -- Antiope [Αντιοπη], frag. 187 (TGF, Kannicht) [Zethus/ΖΗΘΟΣ] (c. 410 BC) [tr. Wodhall (1809)]

Dave — Tue, 25 Oct 2022 15:14:43 +0000

Whoever, in a prosperous station plac’d,
Is slothful and regardless of his household,
Intent on nought except bewitching song,
Will by his family, his friends, his country,
Be held in no esteem: for the best gifts
Of nature ineffectual prove, when pleasure,
Degrading pleasure, occupies the soul.

[ἁνὴρ γὰρ ὅστις εὖ βίον κεκτηµένος
τὰ µὲν κατ’ οἴκους ἀµελίᾳ παρεὶς ἐᾷ,
µολπαῖσι δ’ ἡσθεὶς τοῦτ’ ἀεὶ θηρεύεται,
ἀγρὸς µὲν οἴκοι κἂν πόλει γενήσεται,
φίλοισι δ’οὐδείς· ἡ φύσις γὰρ οἴχεται,
ὅταν γλυκείας ἡδονῆς ἥσσων τις ᾗ.]

Euripides (485?-406? BC) Greek tragic dramatist
Antiope [Αντιοπη], frag. 187 (TGF, Kannicht) [Zethus/ΖΗΘΟΣ] (c. 410 BC) [tr. Wodhall (1809)]
(Source)

(Source (Greek)). Barnes frag. 16, Musgrave frag. 29. See also frag. 200. Alternate translation:

For any man who well acquires a livelihood
and permits its decline with his indifference,
and who delights himself with song and dance
and is always chasing it, will be idle at home and in the polis,
and a nobody for his friends; for a man’s nature is lost
when he is conquered by the sweetness of pleasure.
[tr. Will (2015)]

Nightingale, Florence -- Letter to her family (5 May 1855)

Dave — Thu, 22 Jul 2021 16:47:34 +0000

What the horrors of war are, no one can imagine — they are not wounds & blood & fever, spotted & low, or dysentery chronic & acute, cold & heat & famine. They are intoxication, drunken brutality, demoralization & disorder on the part of the inferior — jealousies, meanness, indifference, selfish brutality on the part of the superior.

Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) English social reformer, statistician, founder of modern nursing
Letter to her family (5 May 1855)
(Source)

Morris, William -- Art and Socialism (1884)

Dave — Wed, 04 Mar 2020 18:01:47 +0000

Nothing should be made by man’s labour which is not worth making; or which must be made by labour degrading to the makers.

William Morris (1834-1896) British textile designer, writer, socialist activist
Art and Socialism (1884)
(Source)

Colton, Charles Caleb -- Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Vol. 1, § 457 (1820)

Dave — Tue, 22 Nov 2016 06:16:11 +0000

He that is good will infallibly become better, and he that is bad will as certainly become worse; for vice, virtue, and time are three things that never stand still.

Charles Caleb "C. C." Colton (1780-1832) English cleric, writer, aphorist
Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Vol. 1, § 457 (1820)
(Source)

Washington, Booker T. -- Up from Slavery, ch. 11 (1901)

Dave — Tue, 08 Dec 2015 14:26:05 +0000

I would permit no man, no matter what his colour might be, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.

Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) American educator, writer
Up from Slavery, ch. 11 (1901)
(Source)

This has been paraphrased in various ways, and is the source of Martin Luther King, Jr's quote he attributed to Washington: "Let no man pull you so low as to make you hate him" (e.g., Stride Toward Freedom, ch. 6 (1958)). King used this or variants of this paraphrase frequently in his speeches, though it was only in his early activism that he referenced Washington by name.

Rowling, Jo -- “The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination,” Commencement Address, Harvard (5 Jun 2008)

Dave — Mon, 18 Aug 2014 12:29:31 +0000

I cannot criticize my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor. And I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression. It means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is something on which to pride yourself. But poverty itself is romanticized only by fools.

Joanne "Jo" Rowling (b. 1965) British novelist [writes as J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith]
“The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination,” Commencement Address, Harvard (5 Jun 2008)
(Source)

Hepburn, Katharine -- Quoted in “Hepburn: She is the Best,” Los Angeles Times (24 Nov 1974)

Dave — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 22:48:32 +0000

To keep your character intact you cannot stoop to filthy acts. It makes it easier to stoop the next time.

Katharine Hepburn (1907-2003) American actress
Quoted in “Hepburn: She is the Best,” Los Angeles Times (24 Nov 1974)

Maugham, W. Somerset -- The Summing Up, ch. 19 (1938)

Dave — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 01:51:02 +0000

I set down in my notebooks, not once or twice, but in a dozen places, the facts I had seen. I knew that suffering did not ennoble; it degraded. It made men selfish, mean, petty and suspicious. It absorbed them in small things. It did not make them more than men; it made them less than men.

W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) English novelist and playwright [William Somerset Maugham]
The Summing Up, ch. 19 (1938)
(Source)

On his experiences as a medical student and the patients he observed.