“You should not speak ill of an absent friend.”
Ne male loquare absenti amico.
Trinummus, Act IV, sc. 2, line 81.
Trinummus (The Three Coins)
“Sir, more than kisses, letters mingle souls;
For, thus friends absent speak.”
Verse Letter to Sir Henry Woton, written before April 1598, line 1
Variant: More than kisses, letters mingle souls.
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For, thus friends absent speak." by John Donne?
John Donne115
English poet 1572–1631Related quotes
“Letters are signs of things, symbols of words, whose power is so great that without a voice they speak to us the words of the absent; for they introduce words by the eye, not by the ear.”
Litterae autem sunt indices rerum, signa verborum, quibus tanta vis est, ut nobis dicta absentium sine voce loquantur. Verba enim per oculos non per aures introducunt.
Isidore of Seville book Etymologiae
Bk. 1, ch. 3, sect. 1; p. 96.
Etymologiae
“The soul that can speak through the eyes can also kiss with a gaze.”
Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer (1836–1870) Spanish poet
“Let no one be willing to speak ill of the absent.”
Absenti nemo non nocuisse velit.
Propertius (-47–-16 BC) Latin elegiac poet
II, xix, 32.
Elegies
“Absent or dead, still let a friend be dear.”
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) eighteenth century English poet
"Epistle to Robert, Earl of Oxford and Mortimer" (1721).
“Sir, could I trouble you for a kiss?”
Chris Pontius (1974) American actor
[Renaissance Fair- Jackass Episodes]
“A blow from your friend is better than a kiss from your enemy.”
Pythagoras (-585–-495 BC) ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher
As quoted in Geary's Guide to the World's Great Aphorists (2007) by James Geary, p. 118
