“354. He that hath no ill fortune is troubled with good.”
George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest
Jacula Prudentum (1651)
Source: Ajax, Line 486
“354. He that hath no ill fortune is troubled with good.”
George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest
Jacula Prudentum (1651)
“Of all the tyrannies on human kind
The worst is that which persecutes the mind.”
John Dryden book The Hind and the Panther
Pt. I, lines 239–240.
The Hind and the Panther (1687)
“Such are the vicissitudes of our mortal lot: misfortune is born of prosperity, and good fortune of ill-luck.”
Habet has vices conditio mortalium, ut adversa ex secundis, ex adversis secunda nascantur.
Pliny the Younger (61–113) Roman writer
V.
Panegyricus
“But what is Government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?”
James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)
Federalist No. 51 (6 February 1788)
1780s, Federalist Papers (1787–1788)
Context: The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of Government. But what is Government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?
Ludovico Ariosto book Orlando Furioso
Dovea in memoria avere il signor mio,
Che l'oro e 'l premio ogni durezza inchina;
Ma, quando bisognò, l'ebbe in oblio,
Ed ei si procacciò la sua ruina.
Canto XLIII, stanza 70 (tr. B. Reynolds)
Orlando Furioso (1532)
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
Source: 1920s, Sceptical Essays (1928), Ch. 13: Freedom in Society
George Boole (1815–1864) English mathematician, philosopher and logician
George Boole (1854), "Address at Cork" as cited in: R. H. Hutton, " Professor Boole http://books.google.com/books?id=pfMEAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA165," (1866), p. 165; Also cited in: Boole, George. Studies in Logic and Probability. 2002. Courier Dover Publications. p. 451 <br class="br">1850s <br class="br">Context: Perhaps it is in the thought that there does exist an Intelligence and Will superior to our own,—that the evolution of the destinies of our species is not solely the product either of human waywardness or of human wisdom; perhaps, I say, it is in this thought, that the conception of humanity attains its truest dignity. When, therefore, I use this term, I would be understood to mean by it the human race, viewed in that mutual connexion and dependence which has been established, as I firmly believe, for the accomplishment of a purpose of the Divine mind... One eminent instance of that connexion and dependence to which I have referred is to be seen in the progression of the arts and sciences. Each generation as it passes away bequeaths to its successor not only its material works in stone and marble, in brass and iron, but also the truths which it has won, and the ideas which it has learned to conceive; its art, literature, science, and, to some extent, its spirit and morality. This perpetual transmission of the light of knowledge and civilisation has been compared to those torch-races of antiquity in which a lighted brand was transmitted from one runner to another until it reached the final goal. Thus, it has been said, do generations succeed each other, borrowing and conveying light, receiving the principles of knowledge, testing their truth, enlarging their application, adding to their number, and then transmitting them forward to coming generations
Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher
Of Bashfulness
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Lewis Thomas (1913–1993) American physician, poet and educator
Walther von der Vogelweide (1170–1230) Middle High German lyric poet
A. T. Hatto, in Gottfried von Strassburg (trans. A. T. Hatto) Tristan (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1975) p. 368.
Praise