“Be secret and exult,
Because of all things known
That is most difficult.”
To A Friend Whose Work Has Come To Nothing http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1723/ <br class="br">Responsibilities (1914) <br class="br">Context: Now all the truth is out,<br>Be secret and take defeat<br>From any brazen throat,<br>For how can you compete,<br>Being honour bred, with one<br>Who, were it proved he lies,<br>Were neither shamed in his own<br>Nor in his neighbours’ eyes?<br>Bred to a harder thing<br>Than Triumph, turn away<br>And like a laughing string<br>Whereon mad fingers play<br>Amid a place of stone,<br>Be secret and exult,<br>Because of all things known<br>That is most difficult.
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
W.B. Yeats255
Irish poet and playwright 1865–1939Related quotes
“If all men by nature desire to know, then they desire most of all the greatest knowledge of science. So the Philosopher argues in chap. 2 of his first book of the work [Metaphisics]. And he immediately indicates what the greatest science is, namely the science which is about those things that are most knowable. But there are two senses in which things are said to be maximally knowable: either [1] because they are the first of all things known and without them nothing else can be known; or [2] because they are what are known most certainly. In either way, however, this science is about the most knowable. Therefore, this most of all is a science and, consequently, most desirable…”
sic: si omnes homines natura scire desiderant, ergo maxime scientiam maxime desiderabunt. Ita arguit Philosophus I huius cap. 2. Et ibidem subdit: "quae sit maxime scientia, illa scilicet quae est circa maxime scibilia". Maxime autem dicuntur scibilia dupliciter: uel quia primo omnium sciuntur sine quibus non possunt alia sciri; uel quia sunt certissima cognoscibilia. Utroque autem modo considerat ista scientia maxime scibilia. Haec igitur est maxime scientia, et per consequens maxime desiderabilis.
Duns Scotus (1265–1308) Scottish Franciscan friar, philosopher and Catholic blessed
sic: si omnes homines natura scire desiderant, ergo maxime scientiam maxime desiderabunt. Ita arguit Philosophus I huius cap. 2. Et ibidem subdit: "quae sit maxime scientia, illa scilicet quae est circa maxime scibilia".
Maxime autem dicuntur scibilia dupliciter: uel quia primo omnium sciuntur sine quibus non possunt alia sciri; uel quia sunt certissima cognoscibilia. Utroque autem modo considerat ista scientia maxime scibilia. Haec igitur est maxime scientia, et per consequens maxime desiderabilis.
Quaestiones subtilissimae de metaphysicam Aristotelis, as translated in: William A. Frank, Allan Bernard Wolter (1995) Duns Scotus, metaphysician. p. 18-19
“The most difficult secret for a man to keep is his own opinion of himself.”
Marcel Pagnol (1895–1974) novelist, playwright and filmmaker from France
“The things that are most precious to us are sometimes the most secret.”
Ally Carter (1974) American writer
Source: Perfect Scoundrels
“Sometimes simple things are the most difficult things to achieve.”
Keanu Reeves (1964) Canadian actor, director, producer and musician
“The most difficult thing is not to want anything.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) Dutch painter
1960's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde' (1965 - 1969)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) Austrian Romantic composer
"Sie wird das nothwendigste und härteste und die hauptsache in der Musique niemahlen bekommen, nämlich das tempo, weil sie sich vom jugend auf völlig befliessen hat, nicht auf den tact zu spiellen." <br class="br">Letter to Leopold Mozart (24 October 1777), from Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words by Friedrich Kerst, trans. Henry Edward Krehbiel (1906) http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/wamma11.txt