“The sword within the scabbard keep,
And let mankind agree.”
Source: Fables, Ancient and Modern (1700), The Secular Masque (1700), Lines 61–62.
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John Dryden 196
English poet and playwright of the XVIIth century 1631–1700Related quotes

“5698. Who draws his Sword against his Prince, must throw away the Scabbard.”
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)

Speech to cadets at the Virginia Military Institute (March 1861); as quoted in Mighty Stonewall (1957) by Frank E. Vandiver, p. 131; this has sometimes been paraphrased as "When war does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard."

A New Way to pay Old Debts (1625), Act v. Sc. 1. Compare: "From thousands of our undone widows / One may derive some wit", Thomas Middleton, A Trick to catch the Old One (1605), Act i, Scene 2.

Source: The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon (1002), p. 109

Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), The Limits of Evolution, p.54-5

“All that may be so and mankind is ready to agree with it, but it is not what was asked.”
Vol 2, pt 5, p 236 — Selected Works, Moscow, 1869
War and Peace (1865–1867; 1869)
Context: The peculiar and amusing nature of those answers stems from the fact that modern history is like a deaf person who is in the habit of answering questions that no one has put to them.
If the purpose of history be to give a description of the movement of humanity and of the peoples, the first question — in the absence of a reply to which all the rest will be incomprehensible — is: what is the power that moves peoples? To this, modern history laboriously replies either that Napoleon was a great genius, or that Louis XIV was very proud, or that certain writers wrote certain books.
All that may be so and mankind is ready to agree with it, but it is not what was asked.

Source: Seven Against Thebes (467 BC), lines 200–201 (tr. E. D. A. Morshead)

“Mankind have always wandered or settled, agreed or quarrelled, in troops and companies.”
PART I, SECTION III.
An Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767)

“719. One sword keepes another in the sheath.”
Jacula Prudentum (1651)