“A fine quotation is a diamond on the finger of a man of wit, and a pebble in the hand of a fool.”

— Joseph Roux

Part 1, LXXIV
Meditations of a Parish Priest (1866)

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Joseph Roux 9

French poet 1834–1905

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“Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without.”

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“Great virtues may draw attention from defects, they cannot sanctify them. A pebble surrounded by diamonds remains a common stone, and a diamond surrounded by pebbles is still a gem.”

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Context: Great virtues may draw attention from defects, they cannot sanctify them. A pebble surrounded by diamonds remains a common stone, and a diamond surrounded by pebbles is still a gem. No one should attempt to refute an argument by pronouncing the name of some man, unless he is willing to adopt all the ideas and beliefs of that man. It is better to give reasons and facts than names. An argument should not depend for its force upon the name of its author. Facts need no pedigree, logic has no heraldry, and the living should not awed by the mistakes of the dead.

“If there is a witness to my little life,
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He sees a fool;
And it is not fine for gods to menace fools.”

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Source: The Black Riders and Other Lines (1895), XIII

“Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit.”

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“Bricks… should not be made of sandy or pebbly clay, or of fine gravel”

Vitruvius book De architectura

Source: De architectura (The Ten Books On Architecture) (~ 15BC), Book II, Chapter III "Brick" Sec. 1
Context: Bricks... should not be made of sandy or pebbly clay, or of fine gravel, because when made of these kinds they are in the first place heavy; and secondly when washed by the rain as they stand in walls, they go to pieces and break up, and the straw in them does not hold together on account of the roughness of the material. They should rather be made of white and chalky or of red clay, or even of a coarse grained gravelly clay. These materials are smooth and therefore durable; they are not heavy to work with, and are readily laid.

“O but it is a fine thing to have a finger pointed at one, and to hear people say, "That's the man!"”
At pulchrum est digito monstrari et dicier "hic est".

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Satire I, line 28.
The Satires

“She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit…”

W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) British playwright, novelist, short story writer

[1926, August, The Creative Impulse, Harper's Bazar, 41, 0017-7873, Hearst Corp., New York]
Revised with quotation in the 1931 compilation Six Stories Written in the First Person Singular.
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“A diamond was laying in the street covered with dirt. Many fools passed by. Someone who knew diamonds picked it up.”

Kabir (1440–1518) Indian mystic poet

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Bijak

“No Man is so much a Fool as not to have Wit enough sometimes to be a Knave; nor any so cunning a Knave, as not to have the Weakness sometimes to play the Fool.”

George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax (1633–1695) English politician

Political, Moral, and Miscellaneous Reflections (1750), Moral Thoughts and Reflections

“I am satisfied it has strengthened my hand tremendously. Nobody but a fool would disregard the kind of result we witnessed today.”

Ian Smith (1919–2007) Prime Minister of Rhodesia

BBC News 'On this day' http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/august/31/newsid_2510000/2510755.stm, August 31.
Reaction to the 1977 general election in which his government was re-elected overwhelmingly.

“A fine quotation is a diamond on the finger of a man of wit, and a pebble in the hand of a fool.”

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Joseph Roux 9

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