“Such mistress, such Nan,
Such master, such man.”

(6 August 1796)
1750s, Diaries (1750s-1790s)
Context: Omnium rerum domina, virtus. Virtue is the mistress of all things. Virtue is the master of all things. Therefore a nation that should never do wrong must necessarily govern the world. The might of virtue, the power of virtue, is not a very common topic, not so common as it should be.

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

Presidential Election Campaign 2012

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

Evening Standard, "Quote of the Day", Mon 13 January 2014, p. 16

Book of Humorous Quotations, ed. Connie Robertson (1998), page 83

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), I Prolegomena and General Introduction to the Book on Painting
Context: Though I may not, like them, be able to quote other authors, I shall rely on that which is much greater and more worthy — on experience, the mistress of their Masters. They go about puffed up and pompous, dressed and decorated with [the fruits], not of their own labours, but of those of others. And they will not allow me my own. They will scorn me as an inventor; but how much more might they — who are not inventors but vaunters and declaimers of the works of others — be blamed.

Funeral oration for John Peter Altgeld (14 March 1902)
Context: Liberty is the most jealous and exacting mistress that can beguile the brain and soul of man. She will have nothing from him who will not give her all. She knows that his pretended love serves but to betray. But when once the fierce heat of her quenchless, lustrous eyes has burned into the victim's heart, he will know no other smile but hers.

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha