“And wit's the noblest frailty of the mind.”
Thomas Shadwell (1642–1692) English poet and playwright
Act II, sc. i.
The True Widow (1679)
“Love's but a frailty of the mind,
When 'tis not with ambition joined.”
Act III, scene xii
The Way of the World (1700)
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When 'tis not with ambition joined." by William Congreve?
William Congreve35
British writer 1670–1729Related quotes
“Ambition breaks the ties of blood, and forgets the obligations of gratitude.”
William Scott, 1st Baron Stowell (1745–1836) British politician
As quoted in History of the Anti-Corn Law League (1853), by Archibald Prentice, p. 54; around 1876 this began to began to be cited to W. Scott, and then around 1880 sometimes to Walter Scott, but without citations of source, including a variant: "Selfish ambition breaks the ties of blood, and forgets the obligations of gratitude" in a publication of 1907.
“Ambition breaks the ties of blood, and forgets the obligations of gratitude.”
Sallust (-86–-34 BC) Roman historian, politician
The earliest attributions of this yet found are to it being a saying of William Scott, 1st Baron Stowell, in History of the Anti-Corn Law League (1853), by Archibald Prentice, p. 54; around 1876 it began to began to be cited to W. Scott, and then around 1880 sometimes to Walter Scott, but without citations of source, including a variant: "Selfish ambition breaks the ties of blood, and forgets the obligations of gratitude" in a publication of 1907. It seems to only recently to have begun to be attributed to Sallust, on the internet.
Misattributed
Tara Westover book Educated
Source: Educated (2018), Chapter 22, “What We Whispered and What We Screamed” (p. 197)
“As that the walls worn thin, permit the mind
To look out thorough, and his frailty find. 1”
Samuel Daniel (1562–1619) Poet and historian
History of the Civil War (1595), Book iv, Stanza 84, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "The soul's dark cottage, batter'd and decay'd, Lets in new light through chinks that Time has made", Edmund Waller, Verses upon his Divine Poesy.
Russell Kirk (1918–1994) American political theorist and writer
Libertarians: Chirping Sectaries (1981)
“Thrice venomed is the wound when 'tis Love's hand
Inflicts the blow.”
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist
(3rd August 1822) Sketches from Drawings by Mr. Dagley. Sketch the Second. Love touching the Horns of a Snail, which is shrinking from his hand.
The London Literary Gazette, 1821-1822
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer
Lectures on the English Poets http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16209/16209.txt (1818), Lecture VIII, "On the Living Poets"