“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 Emerson727
American philosopher, essayist, and poet 1803–1882Related quotes
George S. Patton (1885–1945) United States Army general
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.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (1800–1859) British historian and Whig politician
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.”
Shirley Jackson book We Have Always Lived in the Castle
Source: We Have Always Lived in the Castle
Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher
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.
Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809–1894) Poet, essayist, physician
A good Time going; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper
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.”
Neal A. Maxwell (1926–2004) Mormon leader