“See ye not, Courtesy
Is the true Alchemy,
Turning to gold all it touches and tries?”

—  George Meredith

The Song of Courtesy https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1381/1381-h/1381-h.htm#page129, IV (1859).

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "See ye not, Courtesy Is the true Alchemy, Turning to gold all it touches and tries?" by George Meredith?
George Meredith photo
George Meredith 45
British novelist and poet of the Victorian era 1828–1909

Related quotes

Thomas Fuller (writer) photo

“1154. Content is the Philosopher’s Stone, that turns all it touches into Gold.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Compare Poor Richard's Almanack (1758) : Content is the Philosopher’s Stone, that turns all it touches into Gold.
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)

Kate Bush photo

“They got alchemy.
They turn the roses into gold
They turn the lilac into honey
They're making love for the peaches.

And they'll do it,
Do it for you.”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Song lyrics, Singles and rarities

Bill Haywood photo

“The mine owners "did not find the gold, they did not mine the gold, they did not mill the gold, but by some weird alchemy all the gold belonged to them!"”

Bill Haywood (1869–1928) Labor organizer

Haywood, William D. The Autobiography of Big Bill Haywood. New York: International Publishers, 1929, p. 171.

Edith Wharton photo

“The real alchemy consists in being able to turn gold back again into something else; and that's the secret that most of your friends have lost.”

Edith Wharton book The House of Mirth

Source: The House of Mirth

Nick Herbert photo

“Legendary King Midas never knew the feel of silk or a human hand after everything he touched turned to gold. Humans are stuck in a similar Midas-like predicament: we can't directly experience the true texture of reality because everything we touch turns to matter.”

Nick Herbert (1936) American physicist

Source: Quantum Reality - Beyond The New Physics, Chapter 10, Quantum Realities: Four More, p. 194

Seneca the Younger photo

“Fire tries gold, misfortune tries brave men.”
Ignis aurum probat, miseria fortes uiros.

Seneca the Younger Moral Essays

De Providentia (On Providence): cap. 5, line 9
Alternate translation: Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men. (translator unknown).
Moral Essays

Felix Adler photo

“The moral ideal would embrace the whole of life. In its sight nothing is petty or indifferent. It touches the veriest trifles and turns them into shining gold.”

Felix Adler (1851–1933) German American professor of political and social ethics, rationalist, and lecturer

Section 4 : Moral Ideals
Founding Address (1876), Life and Destiny (1913)
Context: The moral ideal would embrace the whole of life. In its sight nothing is petty or indifferent. It touches the veriest trifles and turns them into shining gold. We are royal by virtue of it, and like the kings in the fairy tale, we may never lay aside our crowns.
The moral order never is, but is ever becoming. It grows with our growth.

Francis Bacon photo

“Credulity in arts and opinions... is likewise of two kinds viz., when men give too much belief to arts themselves, or to certain authors in any art. The sciences that sway the imagination more than the reason are principally three viz., astrology, natural magic, and alchemy... Alchemy may be compared to the man who told his sons that he had left them gold, buried somewhere in his vineyard; while they by digging found no gold, but by turning up the mould about the roots of the vines procured a plentiful vintage. So the search and endeavours to make gold have brought many useful inventions to light.”

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author

Source: De Augmentis Scientiarum (1623) as quoted by Edward Thorpe, History of Chemistry, Vol. 1, p. 43.

“Nor peace nor ease the heart can know
Which, like the needle true,
Turns at the touch of joy or woe,
But turning, trembles too.”

Frances Greville (1727–1789) Irish poet

A Prayer for Indifference, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Related topics