
“On every thorn, delightful wisdom grows, In every rill a sweet instruction flows.”
Source: Ars Poetica, or The Epistle to the Pisones (c. 18 BC), Line 343
Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci, lectorem delectando pariterque monendo.
“On every thorn, delightful wisdom grows, In every rill a sweet instruction flows.”
“First delight, then instruct.”
Erst erfreuen, dann belehren.
Karl Friedrich Schinkel and Gustav Friedrich Waagen in "On the Purpose of the Berlin Gallery" [Über die Aufgabe der Berliner Galerie] (1828); occasionally attributed to von Humboldt, who had quoted Schinkel and Waagen in a report.
Misattributed
La satire, en leçons, en nouveautés fertile,
Sait seule assaisonner le plaisant et l'utile,
Et, d'un vers qu'elle épure aux rayons du bons sens,
Détromper les esprits des erreurs de leur temps.
Satire 9
Satires (1716)
1850s, Address before the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society (1859)
Introduction to the Book of Zohar, in Introduction to the Book of Zohar: Volume Two, Michael Laitman, ed., Laitman Kabbalah Publishers, 2005, p. 119.
Introduction to the Book of Zohar
“First delight, then instruct (original German: ).”
From an 1828 proposal "On the Purpose of the Berlin Gallery" (
This quotation is occasionally attributed to Wilhelm von Humboldt, which appears to be erroneous; von Humboldt had quoted Schinkel and Waagen in a report.