“Most men are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer
“That which is most excellent, and is most to be desired by all happy, honest and healthy-minded men, is dignified leisure.”
Pro Publio Sestio; Chapter XLV
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Marcus Tullius Cicero180
Roman philosopher and statesman -106–-43 BCRelated quotes
“One that desires to excel should endeavour in those things that are in themselves most excellent.”
Epictetus (50–138) philosopher from Ancient Greece
Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford (1550–1604) English peer and courtier of the Elizabethan era
Attributed to Oxford by May, but also published as the work of Edward Dyer.
Poems, Attributed
Benjamin Fish Austin (1850–1933) Nineteenth-century Canadian educator/Methodist Minister/Spiritualist
Defence at his Heresy Trial
“If all men by nature desire to know, then they desire most of all the greatest knowledge of science. So the Philosopher argues in chap. 2 of his first book of the work [Metaphisics]. And he immediately indicates what the greatest science is, namely the science which is about those things that are most knowable. But there are two senses in which things are said to be maximally knowable: either [1] because they are the first of all things known and without them nothing else can be known; or [2] because they are what are known most certainly. In either way, however, this science is about the most knowable. Therefore, this most of all is a science and, consequently, most desirable…”
sic: si omnes homines natura scire desiderant, ergo maxime scientiam maxime desiderabunt. Ita arguit Philosophus I huius cap. 2. Et ibidem subdit: "quae sit maxime scientia, illa scilicet quae est circa maxime scibilia". Maxime autem dicuntur scibilia dupliciter: uel quia primo omnium sciuntur sine quibus non possunt alia sciri; uel quia sunt certissima cognoscibilia. Utroque autem modo considerat ista scientia maxime scibilia. Haec igitur est maxime scientia, et per consequens maxime desiderabilis.
Duns Scotus (1265–1308) Scottish Franciscan friar, philosopher and Catholic blessed
sic: si omnes homines natura scire desiderant, ergo maxime scientiam maxime desiderabunt. Ita arguit Philosophus I huius cap. 2. Et ibidem subdit: "quae sit maxime scientia, illa scilicet quae est circa maxime scibilia".
Maxime autem dicuntur scibilia dupliciter: uel quia primo omnium sciuntur sine quibus non possunt alia sciri; uel quia sunt certissima cognoscibilia. Utroque autem modo considerat ista scientia maxime scibilia. Haec igitur est maxime scientia, et per consequens maxime desiderabilis.
Quaestiones subtilissimae de metaphysicam Aristotelis, as translated in: William A. Frank, Allan Bernard Wolter (1995) Duns Scotus, metaphysician. p. 18-19
“The most learned are often the most narrow-minded men.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer
No. 330
Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)
“Chremylus: [Wealth], the most excellent of all the gods.”
tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text.jsp?doc=Aristoph.+Pl.+230 <br class="br">Plutus, line 230 <br class="br">Plutus (388 BC)
Cardinal Richelieu (1585–1642) French clergyman, noble and statesman
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
As quoted in The Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations (1896) by Jehiel K̀eeler Hoyt, p. 763
Édouard Fournier, in L'Espirit dans l'Historie (1867), 3rd edition, Ch. 51, p. 260, disputes the traditional attribution, and suggests various agents of Richelieu might have been the actual author.
David Hackett Fischer, in Champlain's Dream (2009), Simon & Schuster, p. 704, n. 14, says it's a paraphrase of Quintilian and there is no source closer to Richelieu than Francoise Bertaut's Memoires pour servir à l'histoire d'Anne d'Autriche.
Disputed
Francis Turner Palgrave (1824–1897) English poet and critic
Golden Treasury of English Songs and Lyrics (1861) Summary of Book Fourth.