“Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door.”
Source: Songs of Innocence and of Experience
“Be not inhospitable to strangers, lest they be angels in disguise.”
Last update Sept. 27, 2023.
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W.B. Yeats 255
Irish poet and playwright 1865–1939Related quotes
Jorge Luis Borges
(1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature
Comparing film and stage theatre in "The Divine Comedy" (1977)
“Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”
Paul of Tarsus
(5–67) Early Christian apostle and missionary
Hebrews 13:2 http://bible.cc/hebrews/13-2.htm (KJV)
Epistle to the Hebrews
The Club of Queer Trades http://books.google.com/books?id=mjcdk4InFzoC&q="Men+always+talk+about+the+most+important+things+to+total+strangers+it+is+because+in+the+total+stranger+we+perceive+man+himself+the+image+of+God+is+not+disguised+by+resemblances+to+an+uncle+or+doubts+of+the+wisdom+of+a+moustache"&pg=PT93#v=onepage (1905) Ch. 5 "The Noticeable Conduct of Professor Chadd"
book The Club of Queer Trades
Lord Dunsany
(1878–1957) Irish writer and dramatist
The Book of Wonder http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/8wond10.txt, Distressing Tale of Thangobrind the Jeweller
Book VI, 6.23-[2]
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book VI
“Most first novels are disguised autobiographies. This autobiography is a disguised novel.”
Clive James
(1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist
Opening lines to the preface, p. 9
Memoirs, Unreliable Memoirs (1980)
“Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power.”
Bertrand Russell
(1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
1950s, What Desires Are Politically Important? (1950)
Context: I do not wish to seem to end upon a note of cynicism. I do not deny that there are better things than selfishness, and that some people achieve these things. I maintain, however, on the one hand, that there are few occasions upon which large bodies of men, such as politics is concerned with, can rise above selfishness, while, on the other hand, there are a very great many circumstances in which populations will fall below selfishness, if selfishness is interpreted as enlightened self-interest.
And among those occasions on which people fall below self-interest are most of the occasions on which they are convinced that they are acting from idealistic motives. Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power. When you see large masses of men swayed by what appear to be noble motives, it is as well to look below the surface and ask yourself what it is that makes these motives effective. It is partly because it is so easy to be taken in by a facade of nobility that a psychological inquiry, such as I have been attempting, is worth making. I would say, in conclusion, that if what I have said is right, the main thing needed to make the world happy is intelligence. And this, after all, is an optimistic conclusion, because intelligence is a thing that can be fostered by known methods of education.
Source: Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus