Letter to Charles II of England (25 November 1675)
An Apology for the True Christian Divinity (1678)
Context: There is no king in the world, who can so experimentally testify of God's providence and goodness; neither is there any who rules so many free people, so many true Christians: which thing renders thy government more honorable, thyself more considerable, than the accession of many nations filled with slavish and superstitious souls.
Thou hast tasted of prosperity and adversity; thou knowest what it is to be banished thy native country, to be overruled as well as to rule and sit upon the throne; and being oppressed, thou hast reason to know how hateful the oppressor is both to God and man. If after all these warnings and advertisements thou dost not turn unto the Lord with all thy heart, but forget him who remembered thee in thy distress and give up thyself to follow lust and vanity, surely great will be thy condemnation.
Against which snare, as well as the temptation of those that may or do feed thee and prompt thee to evil, the most excellent and prevalent remedy will be to apply thyself to that Light of Christ, which shineth in thy conscience, which neither can nor will flatter thee nor suffer thee to be at ease in thy sins, but doth and will deal plainly and faithfully with thee as those that are followers thereof have also done.
God Almighty, who hath so signally hitherto visited thee with his love, so touch and reach thy heart, ere the day of thy visitation be expired, that thou mayest effectually turn to him so as to improve thy place and station for his name.
“"Tell me, O wise man, how hast thou come to know so astonishingly much?"
By never being ashamed to ask of those that knew!”
Sag' o Weiser, wodurch du zu solchem Wissen gelangtest?
"Dadurch, daß ich mich nie andre zu fragen geschämt."
"Der Weg zur Wissenschaft"; cited from Bernhard Suphan (ed.) Herders sämmtliche Werke (Berlin Weidmann, 1887-1913) vol. 26, p. 376; Translation by Thomas Carlyle, from Clyde de L. Ryals and Kenneth Fielding (eds.) The Collected Letters of Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995) vol. 23, p. 160.
Original
Sag' o Weiser, wodurch du zu solchem Wissen gelangtest? "Dadurch, daß ich mich nie andre zu fragen geschämt."
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Johann Gottfried Herder 18
German philosopher, theologian, poet, and literary critic 1744–1803Related quotes
Variant Translation: Let not thy mind run on what thou lackest as much as on what thou hast already.
VII, 27
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book VII
“Whither hast thou fled, O wind?”
said the king of Morven. "Dost thou rustle in the chambers of the south? pursuest thou the shower in other lands? Why dost thou not come to my sails? to the blue face of my seas?"
"Lathmon"
The Poems of Ossian
“O dream of fame, what hast thou been to me
But the destroyer of life's calm content!”
Erinna
The Golden Violet (1827)
Attributed to Metrodorus by Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, V, 14, as translated by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, Clement of Alexandria, vol. II, in Ante-Nicene Christian Library: Translations of the Writings of the Fathers Down to A.D. 325, vol. XII, 1869, p. 300 https://archive.org/details/antenicenechris05donagoog/page/n314.
“Thou hast been called, O sleep! the friend of woe;
But ’tis the happy that have called thee so.”
Canto XV, st. 11.
The Curse of Kehama (1810)
Poem Sweet Content http://www.bartleby.com/101/204.html
Bk. 13, ch. 4, as translated by Letitia Elizabeth Landon for Isabel Hill (1833)
Corinne (1807)
<p>Ah! minha Dinamene! Assim deixaste
Quem não deixara nunca de querer-te!
Ah! Ninfa minha, já não posso ver-te,
Tão asinha esta vida desprezaste!</p><p>Como já pera sempre te apartaste
De quem tão longe estava de perder-te?
Puderam estas ondas defender-te
Que não visses quem tanto magoaste?</p><p>Nem falar-te somente a dura Morte
Me deixou, que tão cedo o negro manto
Em teus olhos deitado consentiste!</p><p>Oh mar! oh céu! oh minha escura sorte!
Que pena sentirei que valha tanto,
Que inda tenha por pouco viver triste?</p>
Lyric poetry, Não pode tirar-me as esperanças, Ah! minha Dinamene! Assim deixaste
“How art thou out of breath when thou hast breath
To say to me that thou art out of breath?”
Source: Romeo and Juliet