“Presents are made for the pleasure of who gives them, not the merits of who receives them.”
Source: The Shadow of the Wind
“Who is the happiest of men? He who values the merits of others,
And in their pleasure takes joy, even as though 'twere his own.”
"Distichs" in The Poems of Goethe (1853) as translated in the original metres by Edgar Alfred Bowring
Context: Who is the happiest of men? He who values the merits of others,
And in their pleasure takes joy, even as though 'twere his own.
Not in the morning alone, not only at mid-day he charmeth;
Even at setting, the sun is still the same glorious planet.
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And in their pleasure takes joy, even as though 'twere…" by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe?
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 185
German writer, artist, and politician 1749–1832Related quotes
“Amongst the sons of men how few are known
Who dare be just to merit not their own?”
Charles Churchill (satirist)
(1731–1764) British poet
Epistle to William Hogarth (July 1763)
“Then take, good sir, your pleasure while you may;
With life so short 'twere wrong to lose a day.”
Dum licet, in rebus jucundis vive beatus;
Vive memor quam sis aevi brevis.
Book II, satire viii, line 96 (trans. Conington)
Satires (c. 35 BC and 30 BC)
“Then take, good sir, your pleasure while you may;
With life so short 'twere wrong to lose a day.”
John Conington
(1825–1869) British classical scholar
Dum licet, in rebus jucundis vive beatus;
Vive memor quam sis aevi brevis.
Book II, satire viii, line 96 (trans. Conington)
Translations, The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry of Horace (1869), Satires
Edgar Guest
(1881–1959) American writer
Source: Just Folks (1917), The Truth About Envy, third and last stanzas.
“Those who are happiest are those who do the most for others.”
Variant: The happiest people are those who do the most for others. The most miserable are those who do the least.
Source: Up from Slavery
“The painter will produce pictures of little merit if he takes the works of others as his standard.”
Leonardo Da Vinci
(1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath
George S. Patton
(1885–1945) United States Army general
Speech to the Third Army (1944)
Context: Every man is scared in his first battle. If he says he's not, he's a liar. Some men are cowards but they fight the same as the brave men or they get the hell slammed out of them watching men fight who are just as scared as they are. The real hero is the man who fights even though he is scared. Some men get over their fright in a minute under fire. For some, it takes an hour. For some, it takes days. But a real man will never let his fear of death overpower his honor, his sense of duty to his country, and his innate manhood. Battle is the most magnificent competition in which a human being can indulge. It brings out all that is best and it removes all that is base.
“I should think that for one who has tasted the joys of creation, no other pleasure could exist.”
Anna to Trigorin, Act I
The Seagull (1896)
Original: (ru) Но, я думаю, кто испытал наслаждение творчества, для того уже все другие наслаждения не существуют.