“Fain would I, but I dare not; I dare, and yet I may not;
I may, although I care not, for pleasure when I play not.”
Fain Would I, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
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Walter Raleigh41
English aristocrat, writer, poet, soldier, courtier, spy, a… 1554–1618Related quotes
Michel De Montaigne book Essays
Book iii. Chap 2. Of Repentance
Essais (1595), Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“Letting I dare not wait upon I would is a mug's game, and those who play it usually get mugged.”
Robert Heller (1932–2012) British magician
Source: The Decision makers (1989), Ch. 3. The Truth About Decisions
“And indeed there will be time to wonder, 'Do I dare?', and 'Do I dare?”
T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author
Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist
Letter to Mr. Clarke, librarian to the Prince Regent (1815-12-11) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters
Context: I am quite honoured by your thinking me capable of drawing such a clergyman as you gave the sketch of in your note of Nov. 16th. But I assure you I am not. The comic part of the character I might be equal to, but not the good, the enthusiastic, the literary. Such a man's conversation must at times be on subjects of science and philosophy, of which I know nothing; or at least be occasionally abundant in quotations and allusions which a woman who, like me, knows only her own mother-tongue, and has read little in that, would be totally without the power of giving. A classical education, or at any rate a very extensive acquaintance with English literature, ancient and modern, appears to me quite indispensable for the person who would do any justice to your clergyman; and I think I may boast myself to be, with all possible vanity, the most unlearned and uninformed female who ever dared to be an authoress.
“I dared much, but the next time, you will see, I will dare even more…”
César Franck (1822–1890) Belgian-French composer, organist and music teacher
J'ai osé beaucoup, mais la prochaine fois, vous verrez, j'oserai plus encore...
Franck, Symphonie en ré mineur, Chefs-d'Œuvre de l'Art, Grand Musiciens, 75. Paris, Hachette-Fabri, 1969.
Talking about his Symphony in D minor, after it had been received unfavorably at its 1889 premiere.
James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)
In a letter to Burke Aaron Hinsdale (1 January 1867); quoted in The Life of Gen. James A. Garfield (1880) by Jonas Mills Bundy, p. 77
1860s
