“He sets a thief to guard his purse
Who trusts a dial with his hours”
The Golden Ass (1999)
Context: He sets a thief to guard his purse
Who trusts a dial with his hours
Or bids a sand-glass bleed away his nights,
His days, his loves, his pleasures and his powers.
The burthen of his years
Is Time's soft footfall, Time's soft
Falling
Through his joys and tears.
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Robertson Davies 282
Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and nov… 1913–1995Related quotes

“He who has his thumb on the purse has the power.”
Wer den Daumen auf dem Beutel hat, der hat die Macht.
Speech to North German Reichstag (21 May 1869), Stenographische Berichte p. 1017 (left) http://books.google.de/books?id=wm9HAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA1017
1860s

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), III : The Hunger of Immortality

Memorial dedication (1902)

“Set a thief to catch a thief.”
Epigram 43; translation by Robert Allason Furness, from Poems of Callimachus (1931), p. 103
Epigrams

“4106. Set a Thief to catch a Thief.”
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)
"That a Burnt Child often Dreads the Fire".
Sketches from Life (1846)
“Who trusts to others for his food,
Waits long e’er he be satisfied.”
Chi per l’altrui mani
S’imbocca, tardi si satolla.
Le Rappresentazion di Tobia, Act I., Scene III. — (Samuella).
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 269.