“At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.”
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A Writer's Notebook (1946)
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W. Somerset Maugham158
British playwright, novelist, short story writer 1874–1965Related quotes
“I think the main reason my marriages failed is that I always loved too well but never wisely.”
Ava Gardner (1922–1990) American actress
Chrétien de Troyes French poet and trouvère
Nus ne puet estre trop parliers
Qui sovent tel chose ne die
Qui torné li est affolie,
Car li sages dit et retrait:
Qui trop parole, il se mesfait.
Source: Perceval or Le Conte du Graal, Line 1650.
Ben Jonson (1572–1637) English writer
The Works of Ben Jonson, Second Folio (1640), Timber: or Discoveries
Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) German poet, journalist, essayist, and literary critic
Ben Jonson
Misattributed
G. K. Chesterton book The Napoleon of Notting Hill
The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904)
The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904)
James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) American poet, critic, editor, and diplomat
On Democracy (6 October 1884)
Rudyard Kipling book The Second Jungle Book
Stanza 1.
The Second Jungle Book (1895), If— (1896)
Source: If: A Father's Advice to His Son
Context: If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise.