“The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.”
Worship
1860s, The Conduct of Life (1860)
Variant: The louder they talked of their honor, the faster we counted our spoons.
Source: The Conduct of Life: A Philosophical Reading
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Ralph Waldo Emerson 727
American philosopher, essayist, and poet 1803–1882Related quotes
July 14, 1763, p. 123
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I
This is actually a translation of a statement by Lao Zi from the Tao Te Ching (Daodejing). Patton may have used a similar or identical expression, perhaps quoting the book.
Misattributed
“Ye diners-out from whom we guard our spoons.”
Political Georgics (June 29, 1831)
“On the moon we wore feathers in our hair, and rubies on our hands. On the moon we had gold spoons.”
Source: We Have Always Lived in the Castle
1960s, Freedom From The Known (1969)
Context: For centuries we have been spoon-fed by our teachers, by our authorities, by our books, our saints. We say, "Tell me all about it — what lies beyond the hills and the mountains and the earth?" and we are satisfied with their descriptions, which means that we live on words and our life is shallow and empty. We are secondhand people. We have lived on what we have been told, either guided by our inclinations, our tendencies, or compelled to accept by circumstances and environment. We are the result of all kinds of influences and there is nothing new in us, nothing that we have discovered for ourselves; nothing original, pristine, clear.
A good Time going; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Variant: Goldfish get big enough only for the bowl you put them in. Bonsai trees twist in miniature. I would have given anything to keep her little. They outgrow us so much faster than we outgrow them.
Source: My Sister's Keeper
“We should certainly count our blessings, but we should also make our blessings count.”