
“All this was to make us glad and merry in love.”
The Thirteenth Revelation, Chapter 38
Men suld mak mirrie quhill thay mocht.
The Buik of Alexander, Part 2, line 4879; translation from Bartlett Jere Whiting and Helen Wescott Whiting Proverbs, Sentences, and Proverbial Phrases (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1968) p. 380.
The attribution of this poem to Barbour is considered doubtful.
Disputed
“All this was to make us glad and merry in love.”
The Thirteenth Revelation, Chapter 38
“It is the season of the Kronia, during which the god allows us to make merry.”
The Caesars (c. 361)
Context: "It is the season of the Kronia, during which the god allows us to make merry. But, my dear friend, as I have no talent for amusing or entertaining I must methinks take pains not to talk mere nonsense."
"But, Caesar, can there be anyone so dull and stupid as to take pains over jesting? I always thought that such pleasantries were a relaxation of the mind and a relief from pains and cares."
"Yes, and no doubt your view is correct, but that is not how the matter strikes me. For by nature I have no turn for raillery, or parody, or raising a laugh."
In Quest of Democracy (1991)
Substance, Shadow, and Spirit, "Shadow replies"
Translated by Arthur Waley
Context: While you rested in the shade, I left you a while:
But till the end we shall be together.
Our joint existence is impermanent:
Sadly together we shall slip away.
That when the body decays Fame should also go
Is a thought unendurable, burning the heart.
Let us strive and labour while yet we may
To do some deed that men will praise.
“Prosperity proves men to be fortunate, while it is adversity which makes them great.”
Secunda felices, adversa magnos probent.
XXXI.
Panegyricus
"The Problems of the Colored Race in the South," lecture, Hamilton Club, Chicago (10 December 1895) http://web.archive.org/20071031084051/www.historycooperative.org/btw/Vol.4/html/93.html
Context: Men may make laws to hinder and fetter the ballot, but men cannot make laws that will bind or retard the growth of manhood.
We went into slavery a piece of property; we came out American citizens. We went into slavery pagans; we came out Christians. We went into slavery without a language; we came out speaking the proud Anglo-Saxon tongue. We went into slavery with slave chains clanking about our wrists; we came out with the American ballot in our hands.
Progress, progress is the law of nature; under God it shall be our eternal guiding star.
“Wars may make heroes of men, but not all the time.”
Source: Briar Rose (1992), Chapter 25 (p. 146)