Heywood, John -- Proverbs, Part 2, ch. 5 (1546)

Dave — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 19:14:04 +0000

A cat may looke on a King.

John Heywood (1497?-1580?) English playwright and epigrammist
Proverbs, Part 2, ch. 5 (1546)

Revised spelling from the 1874 edition. Original editions had it, "A cat maie looke on a kyng." This is the earliest text found with this recorded as an English proverb.

Thomas Fuller included the phrase ("A Cat may look upon a King") in his Gnomologia, # 35 (1732).

For more information on this phrase and its history, see: meaning and origin of the phrase ‘a cat may look at a king’ – word histories.

Smith, Sydney -- Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith, by His Daughter, Lady Holland, Vol. 1, ch. 6 (1855)

Dave — Tue, 17 Dec 2024 19:32:26 +0000

Life is to be fortified by many friendships. To love, and to be loved, is the greatest happiness of existence. If I lived under the burning sun of the equator, it would be a pleasure to me to think that there were many human beings on the other side of the world who regarded and respected me; I could and would not live if I were alone upon the earth, and cut off from the remembrance of my fellow-creatures. It is not that a man has occasion often to fall back upon the kindness of his friends; perhaps he may never experience the necessity of doing so; but we are governed by our imaginations, and they stand there as a solid and impregnable bulwark against all the evils of life.

Sydney Smith (1771–1845) English clergyman, essayist, wit
Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith, by His Daughter, Lady Holland, Vol. 1, ch. 6 (1855)

WIST Quotations

Heywood, John -- Proverbs, Part 2, ch. 5 (1546)

Smith, Sydney -- Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith, by His Daughter, Lady Holland, Vol. 1, ch. 6 (1855)