“Then fly betimes, for only they
Conquer Love that run away.”
Thomas Carew (1594–1640) English poet
Conquest of Flight, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“Like men condemn'd to thunder-bolts,
Who, ere the blow, become mere dolts;
Or fools besotted with their crimes,
That know not how to shift betimes,
And neither have the hearts to stay,
Nor wit enough to run away.”
Hudibras, Part III (1678)
Context: We idly sit, like stupid blockheads,
Our hands committed to our pockets,
And nothing but our tongues at large,
To get the wretches a discharge:
Like men condemn'd to thunder-bolts,
Who, ere the blow, become mere dolts;
Or fools besotted with their crimes,
That know not how to shift betimes,
And neither have the hearts to stay,
Nor wit enough to run away.
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Or fools besotted with their crimes,
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Samuel Butler (poet)81
poet and satirist 1612–1680Related quotes
Fyodor Dostoyevsky book Notes from Underground
Part 1, Chapter 1 (page 8)
Notes from Underground (1864)
George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax (1633–1695) English politician
Political, Moral, and Miscellaneous Reflections (1750), Moral Thoughts and Reflections
“O heart, be at peace, because
Nor knave nor dolt can break
What's not for their applause”
W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright
Against Unworthy Praise http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1433/ <br class="br">The Green Helmet and Other Poems (1910) <br class="br">Context: p>O heart, be at peace, because<br>Nor knave nor dolt can break<br>What's not for their applause<br>Being for a woman's sake.<br>Enough if the work has seemed,<br>So did she your strength renew,<br>A dream that a lion had dreamed<br>Till the wilderness cried aloud,<br>A secret between you two,<br>Between the proud and the proud.What, still you would have their praise!<br>But here's a haughtier text,<br>The labyrinth of her days<br>That her own strangeness perplexed;<br>And how what her dreaming gave<br>Earned slander, ingratitude,<br>From self-same dolt and knave;<br>Aye, and worse wrong than these.<br>Yet she, singing upon her road,<br>Half lion, half child, is at peace.</p
“He has great tranquility of heart who cares neither for the praises nor the fault-finding of men.”
Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) French writer
Magnam habet cordis tranquillitatem, qui nec laudes curat, nec vituperia. — Thomas à Kempis, Imitation of Christ (ca. 1418), book II, ch. VI, paragraph 2.
Misattributed
Pythagoras (-585–-495 BC) ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher
As quoted in Divine Harmony: The Life and Teachings of Pythagoras by John Strohmeier and Peter Westbrook (1999)
The Golden Verses
Context: You will know that wretched men are the cause of their own suffering, who neither see nor hear the good that is near them, and few are the ones who know how to secure release from their troubles. Such is the fate that harms their minds; like pebbles they are tossed about from one thing to another with cares unceasing. For the dread companion Strife harms them unawares, whom one must not walk behind, but withdraw from and flee.
“The reason fat men are good natured is they can neither fight nor run.”
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States
Jean de La Bruyère book Les Caractères
18
Variant translation:
It is a sad thing when men have neither the wit to speak well, nor the judgment to hold their tongues.
As quoted in A Dictionary of Thoughts: being A Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations from the Best Authors of the World, both Ancient and Modern (1908) edited by Tryon Edwards, p. 560
Les Caractères (1688), De la société et de la conversation
“It becomes all men, Senators, who deliberate on dubious matters, to be influenced neither by hatred, affection, anger, nor pity.”
Omnes homines, patres conscripti, qui de rebus dubiis consultant, ab odio, amicitia, ira atque misericordia vacuos esse decet.
Sallust (-86–-34 BC) Roman historian, politician
Source: Bellum Catilinae (c. 44 BC), Chapter LI, section 1