Variant: Good wits jump; 45 a word to the wise is enough.
Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part II (1615), Book III, Ch. 38.
Interview, The Paris Review (Summer 1956)
“A word to the wise is enough.”
Dictum sapienti sat est.
Persa, Act IV, scene 7, line 19
Variant translation: A sentence is enough for a sensible man. (translator unknown)
More commonly found as Verbum sapienti (same meaning) and abbreviated to verb. sap. ; proverbially, “A word to the wise is sufficient”
Persa (The Persian)
Book III (1761-1762), Ch. 9. Compare: "Great wits jump", John Byrom, The Nimmers; Earl of Buckingham, The Chances, act. iv, scene 1; "Good wits jump", Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote, part II, ch. 38.
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1760-1767)
“Silence is the wit of fools, and one of the virtues of the wise.”
Le silence est l'esprit des sots
Et l'une des vertus du sage.
Bernard de Bonnard, "Le Silence," http://books.google.com/books?id=9gAvAAAAMAAJ&pg=PR14&dq=%22Et+l%27une+des+vertus+du+sage%22+Bonnard&ei=iyzvR-bFOIa4zASV0PyoBQ#PPA244,M1 L'Almanach des Muses (1776)
Misattributed
Source: Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 3 (2015), p. 99
“No jump is good if the landing is bad.”
Source: The Practice of Natural Movement: Reclaim Power, Health, and Freedom (2019), p.344
“Wine can of their wits the wise beguile, Make the sage frolic, and the serious smile”
XIV. 463–466 (tr. Alexander Pope).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)
Context: Tis sweet to play the fool in time and place,
And wine can of their wits the wise beguile,
Make the sage frolic, and the serious smile,
The grave in merry measures frisk about,
And many a long-repented word bring out.
