“Greatest fools are oft most satisfied.”
Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux (1636–1711) French poet and critic
Le plus fou souvent est le plus satisfait.
Satire 4, l. 128
Satires (1716)
“Greatest fools are oft most satisfied.”
Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux (1636–1711) French poet and critic
Le plus fou souvent est le plus satisfait.
Satire 4, l. 128
Satires (1716)
“In man's most dark extremity
Oft succour dawns from Heaven.”
Walter Scott The Lord of the Isles
Canto I, stanza 20.
The Lord of the Isles (1815)
“Despair and Genius are too oft connected”
George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement
Source: Byron Poems
“Great Expectations oft to nothing come.”
John Ogilby (1600–1676) Scottish academic
Fab. VIII: Of the Mountain in Labour
The Fables of Aesop (2nd ed. 1668)
“Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit and lost without deserving.”
Iago, Act II, scene iii.
Source: Othello (1603–4)
“For true it is, good oft befalls us when we least expect it. And true it is, that when we trust in hope, we’re often disappointed.”
Nam multa praeter spem, scio, multis bona evenisse. At ego etiam qui speraverint, spem decepisse multos.
Rudens, Act II, scene 3, line 69
Rudens (The Rope)
“For hit ys oft seyde by hem that yet lyues
He must nedys go that the deuell dryues.”
John Lydgate (1370–1450) monk and poet
The Assembly of Gods; or, The Accord of Reason and Sensuality, line 20. <br class="br">This poem was long attributed to Lydgate, but is now thought to have been written after his death, during the second half of the 15th century. http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/asint.htm#f10 <br class="br">Misattributed
Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1516–1547) English Earl
Source: Prisoned in Windsor, He Recounteth his Pleasure there Passed, Line 21
Xi Jinping (1953) General Secretary of the Communist Party of China and paramount leader of China
As quoted in "China's Xi to tread peaceful, patient path on Taiwan" http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/25/us-china-taiwan-idUSBRE91O0CC20130225 in Reuters (25 February 2013). <br class="br">2010s
Stephen Jay Gould book Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms
"The Tallest Tale", p. 318
Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms (1998)