“The troublesome ones in a family are usually either the wits or the idiots.”
George Eliot book Middlemarch
Source: Middlemarch
Compare Poor Richard's Almanack (1741) : There are no fools so troublesome as those that have wit.
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)
“The troublesome ones in a family are usually either the wits or the idiots.”
George Eliot book Middlemarch
Source: Middlemarch
“It is having in some measure a sort of wit to know how to use the wit of others.”
Stanisław Leszczyński (1677–1766) king of Poland
Maxims and Moral Sentences
Denis Diderot (1713–1784) French Enlightenment philosopher and encyclopædist
Paradoxe sur le Comédien (1773-1777)
“Getting something and having the wits to use it… those are two different things.”
Rick Riordan book The Battle of the Labyrinth
Source: The Battle of the Labyrinth
Kalki Krishnamurthy (1899–1954) writer
Sivakozhundu of Tiruvazhundur (1939)
Context: It is natural for a train to run on its tracks. We get into a train because we believe that it will do that. But once in a while the train runs off the rails, and there’s an accident. Those who don’t actually witness such a happening can say, “No train will run off the rails, it is unnatural for it to do so”.
Thomas Fuller (1608–1661) English churchman and historian
Of Natural Fools.
The Holy State and the Profane State (1642)
Plato (-427–-347 BC) Classical Greek philosopher
Often attributed to Plato, it cannot be found in any of his writings. http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=796
Misattributed
Richard Arden, 1st Baron Alvanley (1744–1804) British judge and politician
Macbride v. Macbride (1805), 4 Esp. 242.
George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax (1633–1695) English politician
Political, Moral, and Miscellaneous Reflections (1750), Moral Thoughts and Reflections
John Heywood (1497–1580) English writer known for plays, poems and a collection of proverbs
Part I, chapter 3.
Proverbs (1546)