“3400. Men never think their Fortune too great, nor their Wit too little.”
Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)
Source: The Prime Minister (1876), Ch. 10
“3400. Men never think their Fortune too great, nor their Wit too little.”
Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)
“They make their fortune who are stout and wise,
Wit rules the heavens, discretion guides the skies.”
Torquato Tasso (1544–1595) Italian poet
Canto X, stanza 20 (tr. Fairfax)
Gerusalemme Liberata (1581)
Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) German writer
Sometimes quoted in grammatically corrected form as "They always become a little different immediately after they are expressed..." but the apparent editing error here is retained in the published versions of this translation.
Siddhartha (1922)
Context: Words do not express thoughts very well. They always become a little different immediately after they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish. And yet it also pleases me and seems right that what is of value and wisdom to one man seems nonsense to another.
Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America
2010s, 2016, July, This Week Interview (July 30, 2016)
“A little wit and plenty of authority, that is what has almost always governed the world.”
Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac (1597–1654) French author, best known for his epistolary essays
Un peu d'esprit et beaucoup d'autorité, c'est ce qui a presque toujours gouverné le monde.
Socrate Chrétien, Discours VIII.
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 230.
Socrate Chrétien (1662)
Adrianne Wadewitz (1977–2014) academic and Wikipedian
Molly Vetter, friend of Wadewitz — quoted in: Wetzel, Diane. (April 23, 2014). "NP grad, Wikipedia editor dies in Calif." http://www.nptelegraph.com/news/np-grad-wikipedia-editor-dies-in-calif/article_c7be4462-ab39-53ad-b3e8-9055b51d3bdf.html NPTelegraph.com. North Platte, Nebraska. — and: Wetzel, Diane (April 23, 2014). "North Platte grad, 37, Wikipedia editor, dies in climbing fall" http://www.omaha.com/article/20140423/NEWS/140429478/1707. Omaha World-Herald (Omaha, Nebraska). <br class="br">About
“I want to live in a city where the people who make the rules have to live by them.”
Martin Firrell (1963) British artist and activist
"I Want to Live in a City Where..." (2006)
Variant: I want to live in a city where half the people in charge are women.
Jane Brereton (1685–1740) Welsh writer (b. Flintshire 1685)
On Beau Nash's Picture at full length between the Busts of Sir Isaac Newton and Mr. Pope., in Dyce, Specimens of British Poetesses. This epigram is generally ascribed to Chesterfield. See Campbell, English Poets, note, p. 521. Reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).