“Contentment has been worn as a crown by no end of sleepy heads.”
Source: Meditations in Wall Street (1940), p. 104
Variant: Our crown has already been bought and paid for. All we have to do is wear it
“Contentment has been worn as a crown by no end of sleepy heads.”
Source: Meditations in Wall Street (1940), p. 104
A Man From Lebanon: Nineteen Centuries Afterward
Jesus, The Son of Man (1928)
Context: Master, Master Poet,
Master of our silent desires,
The heart of the world quivers with the throbbing of your heart,
But it burns not with your song.
The world sits listening to your voice in tranquil delight,
But it rises not from its seat
To scale the ridges of your hills.
Man would dream your dream but he would not wake to your dawn
Which is his greater dream.
He would see with your vision,
But he would not drag his heavy feet to your throne.
Yet many have been enthroned in your name
And mitred with your power,
And have turned your golden visit
Into crowns for their head and sceptres for their hand.
Page 157
Publications, An Enduring Love: My Life with the Shah (2004)
“I tell you we will cut off his head with the crown upon it.”
To Algernon Sidney, one of the judges at the trial of Charles I (December 1648)
“What you have in your head, put down on paper. The head is a fragile vessel.”
Page 229
Testimony (1979)
“Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.”
King Henry, Act III, scene i.
Source: Henry IV, Part 2 (1597–8)
Never Scared (HBO, 2004)
“Damn it all, you can't have the crown of thorns and the thirty pieces of silver.”
On his position in the Labour Party (c. 1956), quoted in Michael Foot, Aneurin Bevan: A Biography, Volume 2 (1973), p. 503
1950s