
Ibn Shu’ba al-Harrani, Tuhaf al-'Uqul, p. 297
Douglas Jerrold's Wit, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Ibn Shu’ba al-Harrani, Tuhaf al-'Uqul, p. 297
Letter to the Rev. John Johnson, (29 September1793).
Source: The Great God Pan (1894), Ch. VII : The Encounter in Soho
Context: I can fancy what you saw. Yes; it is horrible enough; but after all, it is an old story, an old mystery played in our day and in dim London streets instead of amidst the vineyards and the olive gardens. We know what happened to those who chanced to meet the Great God Pan, and those who are wise know that all symbols are symbols of something, not of nothing. It was, indeed, an exquisite symbol beneath which men long ago veiled their knowledge of the most awful, most secret forces which lie at the heart of all things; forces before which the souls of men must wither and die and blacken, as their bodies blacken under the electric current. Such forces cannot be named, cannot be spoken, cannot be imagined except under a veil and a symbol, a symbol to the most of us appearing a quaint, poetic fancy, to some a foolish, silly tale. But you and I, at all events, have known something of the terror that may dwell in the secret place of life, manifested under human flesh; that which is without form taking to itself a form. Oh, Austin, how can it be? How is it that the very sunlight does not turn to blackness before this thing, the hard earth melt and boil beneath such a burden?
“People who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.”
Variant: Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the vote decide everything.
Address on The Method of Nature http://www.infomotions.com/alex2/authors/emerson-ralph/emerson-method-734/ (1841)
“Wise men say nothing in dangerous times.”
Wisdom.
Table Talk (1689)
“Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely.”
As quoted in Heads and Tales (1936) by Malvina Hoffman, p. 47
1900s-1940s
Bob Shrum, Meet the Press, MSNBC, 2007-11-25 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21963747/page/6/,