Canto III, stanza 22.
The Corsair (1814)
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Journal
Se l'arte dell'eloquenza è l'arte di persuadere, non vi è altra eloquenza che quella di dire sempre il vero, il solo vero, il nudo vero. Le parole, onde è necessità di nostra inferma natura di rivestire il pensiero, saranno tanto più potenti, quanto più atte al fine, cioè più nudo lasceranno il vero, che è nel pensiero.
Platone in Italia
“Woe to the flesh which depends upon the soul, woe to the soul which depends upon the flesh!”
112
Gospel of Thomas (c. 50? — c. 140?)
“The art of the parenthesis is one of the great secrets of eloquence in Society.”
L’art de la parenthèse est un des grands secrets de l’éloquence dans la Société.
Maximes et Pensées, #243
Maximes and Thoughts, #243
Letter to Mrs. Blumberg (27 September 1977)
Context: There is not an idea that cannot be expressed in 200 words. But the writer must know precisely what he wants to say. If you have nothing to say and want badly to say it, then all the words in all the dictionaries will not suffice.
“6164. To the Wise
A Word may suffice.”
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)
“Silence is more eloquent than words.”
Source: A Letter to a Hindu (1908), III
Context: The recognition that love represents the highest morality was nowhere denied or contradicted, but this truth was so interwoven everywhere with all kinds of falsehoods which distorted it, that finally nothing of it remained but words. It was taught that this highest morality was only applicable to private life — for home use, as it were — but that in public life all forms of violence — such as imprisonment, executions, and wars — might be used for the protection of the majority against a minority of evildoers, though such means were diametrically opposed to any vestige of love.
“And bear about the mockery of woe
To midnight dances and the public show.”
Source: The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope (1717), Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady, Line 57.
“Myself not ignorant of woe,
Compassion I have learned to show.”
Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book I, p. 31
