Quotes about counselling
A collection of quotes on the topic of counsel, counseling, counselling, use.
Quotes about counselling
Khalil Gibran (1883–1931) Lebanese artist, poet, and writer
The Vision: Reflections on the Way of the Soul (1994)
Hannah Arendt book Eichmann in Jerusalem
Hannah Arendt in Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963) epilogue.
Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963)
Anthony the Great (251–357) Christian saint, monk, and hermit
Book IV, Chapter 20 (his last words), St. Athanasius. Trans. Dom J.B. McLaughlin, O.S.B. St. Antony of the Desert. Rockford: Tan Books and Publishers, Inc, 1995.
From St. Athanasius' Life of St. Antony
Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues (1715–1747) French writer, a moralist
Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), p. 172.
“Here thou, great Anna! whom three realms obey,
Dost sometimes counsel take — and sometimes tea.”
Alexander Pope The Rape of the Lock
Canto III, line 7.
The Rape of the Lock (1712, revised 1714 and 1717)
Sun Tzu (-543–-495 BC) ancient Chinese military general, strategist and philosopher from the Zhou Dynasty
Source: The Art of War, Chapter I · Detail Assessment and Planning
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
1850s, The House Divided speech (1858)
Context: Of strange, discordant, and even hostile elements, we gathered from the four winds, and formed and fought the battle through, under the constant hot fire of a disciplined, proud, and pampered enemy. Did we brave all them to falter now? — now, when that same enemy is wavering, dissevered, and belligerent? The result is not doubtful. We shall not fail — if we stand firm, we shall not fail. Wise counsels may accelerate, or mistakes delay it, but, sooner or later, the victory is sure to come.
“But thus do I counsel you, my friends: distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful!”
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
Variant: Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.
Source: Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None
Isaac Newton book Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica
Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687), Scholium Generale (1713; 1726)
Source: The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy
Context: This most beautiful System of the Sun, Planets and Comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being. And if the fixed Stars are the centers of other like systems, these being form'd by the like wise counsel, must be all subject to the dominion of One; especially, since the light of the fixed Stars is of the same nature with the light of the Sun, and from every system light passes into all the other systems. And lest the systems of the fixed Stars should, by their gravity, fall on each other mutually, he hath placed those Systems at immense distances one from another.
Edward Bernays (1891–1995) American public relations consultant, marketing pioneer
Source: Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923), p. 171
“There is a division of duties between the army and its generals. Eagerness for battle becomes the soldiers, but generals serve the cause by forethought, by counsel, by delay oftener than by temerity. As I promoted your victory to the utmost of my power by my sword and by my personal exertions, so now I must help you by prudence and by counsel, the qualities which belong peculiarly to a general.”
Divisa inter exercitum ducesque munia: militibus cupidinem pugnandi convenire, duces providendo, consultando, cunctatione saepius quam temeritate prodesse. ut pro virili portione armis ac manu victoriam iuverit, ratione et consilio, propriis ducis artibus, profuturum.
Book III, 20; Church-Brodribb translation
Histories (100-110)
Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues (1715–1747) French writer, a moralist
Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), pp. 170-171.
Catherine of Aragon (1485–1536) first wife of Henry VIII of England (1485–1536)
Joanna Denny (2006) Anne Boleyn: A New Life of England's Tragic Queen, Da Capo Press, ISBN 0306814749, p. 140.
“Never take counsel of your fears.”
Andrew Jackson (1767–1845) American general and politician, 7th president of the United States
Quoted as "a favorite maxim" of Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson in Memoirs of Stonewall Jackson by His Widow, Mary Anna Jackson, Prentice Press/Courier Journal, 1895; ch. XIII p. 264 archive.org http://archive.org/stream/memoirsstonewal00jackgoog#page/n306/mode/2up%20Seite%20264%20archive.org. <br class="br">Without any reference to Jackson in: Conversations of Our Club. Brownson's Quarterly Review, October 1858. p. 459 books.google http://books.google.de/books?id=wQ7ZAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA459&dq=counsel <br class="br">Misattributed
Philibert de l'Orme (1514–1570) French architect of the Renaissance.
Livre d'architecture as quoted by Edward Fenton, "Messer Philibert Delorme" The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin Vol. 13, No. 4, Dec., 1954
Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor
City Counsel Zagreb, 24th May 1892; as quoted in [Milčec, Zvonimir, Nečastivi na kotačima: Civilizacijske novosti iz starog Zagreba, Bookovac, Zagreb, 1991, 25, 439099360, Croatian]
André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer
Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Family Life
“In difficult and desperate cases, the boldest counsels are the safest.”
Livy (-59–17 BC) Roman historian
Book XXV, sec. 38
History of Rome
Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues (1715–1747) French writer, a moralist
Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), p. 173.
Khalil Gibran (1883–1931) Lebanese artist, poet, and writer
The Vision: Reflections on the Way of the Soul (1994)
Context: My Soul gave me good counsel, teaching me to touch what has never taken corporeal form or crystallized. It made me understand that touching something is half the task of comprehending it, and that what we grasp therein is part of what we desire from it.
Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
On the independent counsel law: Morrison v. Olson (1988) (dissenting).
1980s
Rainer Maria Rilke book Letters to a Young Poet
Letter Eight (12 August 1904)
Letters to a Young Poet (1934)
“Hear counsel, and receive instruction, that thou mayest be wise in thy latter end.”
Solomon (-990–-931 BC) king of Israel and the son of David
[Proverbs, 19:20, KJV] (KJV) <br class="br">Variant translation: <br class="br">Listen to counsel and accept discipline, In order to become wise in your future. <br class="br"> Proverbs 19:20 http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/b/r1/lp-e/nwt/E/2013/20/19#h=548:0-549:0
Edward Bernays (1891–1995) American public relations consultant, marketing pioneer
Source: Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923), p. 168
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
1860s, First State of the Union address (1861)
Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) British philosopher, jurist, and social reformer
Letter to Voltaire (c. November 1776), quoted in Timothy L. S. Sprigge (ed.), The Correspondence of Jeremy Bentham (London: University College London Press, 2017), p. 367
“Ask counsel of him who rules himself well.”
Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.
“Youth is always right. Those who follow the counsels of youth are wise.”
Stefan Zweig (1881–1942) Austrian writer
Confusion of Feelings or Confusion: The Private Papers of Privy Councillor R. Von D (1927)
“Better counsel comes overnight.”
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing book Emilia Galotti
Besserer Rat kommt über Nacht.
Emilia Galotti (1772), Act IV, scene III
“Do not counsel what is most pleasant, but what is best.”
Solón (-638–-558 BC) Athenian legislator
Demetrius of Phalerum, "Apophthegms of the Seven Sages," in Early Greek Philosophy, vol. 2 (Loeb Classical Library, volume 525), p. 141
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
1860s, Thanksgiving Proclamation (1863)
Context: In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theater of military conflict; while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battlefield; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People.
Mencius (-372–-289 BC) Chinese philosopher
Book 1, part 1, as translated by James Legge in The Life and Works of Mencius (1875), p. 124<!--. Variant translation:
Once [Mencius] visited a king, and the king asked him, "Old teacher, how can my country profit from your presence?" Mencius immediately replied, "Why do you speak of profit, sire? Isn't there also the sense of mercy and the sense of right?"
As translated by Lin Yutang in From Pagan to Christian (1959), p. 90-->
The Mencius
Context: Mencius went to see King Huei of Liang. The king said, "Venerable sir, since you have not counted it far to come here, a distance of a thousand li, may I presume that you are provided with counsels to profit my kingdom?" Mencius replied, "Why must your Majesty use that word 'profit'? What I am provided with, are counsels to benevolence and righteousness, and these are my only topics."
Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War
Book III, 3.42-[1] (Speech of Diodotus..).
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book III
George Sutherland (1862–1942) Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, United States Senator, member of the United States House of Re…
Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45, 53 (1932)
Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher
The most surprising circumstance is that this letter, though written by an obscure person, was so happy in its effect as to put a stop to the persecution.
The History of the Quakers (1762)
Rachel Hawthorne (1950) American author
Source: Surrender to the Devil
Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist
Source: The Moonlit Road and Other Ghost and Horror Stories
W. Cleon Skousen book The Naked Communist
The Naked Communist (1958)
James D. Mooney (1884–1957) American businessman
Source: "The principles of organization", 1937, p. 90
Benjamin N. Cardozo (1870–1938) United States federal judge
Excerpt from speech delivered at the 74th commencement of the Albany Law School on June 10, 1925, which is reproduced on a gigantic plaque on the west side (facing the setting sun, as if to say, "Go West, young man.") of the UC Berkeley School of Law's main building, Boalt Hall.
Other writings
James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)
1860s, Speech in the House of Representatives (1866)
Marsden Hartley (1877–1943) American artist
poem on his painting: Fishermen’s Last Supper [of the Mason family, c. 1940-1941]; as quoted in Marsden Hartley, by Gail R. Scott, Abbeville Publishers, Cross River Press, 1988, New York p. 113
1931 - 1943
George William Russell (1867–1935) Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, and artistic painter
The Nuts of Knowledge (1903)
Hugh Macmillan, Baron Macmillan (1873–1952) British judge
Source: A Man of Law's Tale (1952), At the Scottish bar, p. 26
Edward Bernays (1891–1995) American public relations consultant, marketing pioneer
Source: Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923), p. 51
John Tillotson (1630–1694) Archbishop of Canterbury
Sermon 62: On the Education of Children, in The Works of Dr. John Tillotson (1772) edited by Thomas Birch, Vol 3, p. 197; this is more commonly quoted as modernized and paraphrased by John Charles Ryle, Anglican Bishop of Liverpool (1880–1900): "To give children good instruction, and a bad example, is but a beckoning to them with the head to show them the way to heaven, while we take them by the hand and lead them in the way to hell."
Robert Hall (1764–1831) British Baptist pastor
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 306.
“5038. Three may keep Counsel, if two be away.”
Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual
Compare Poor Richard's Almanack (1735) : Three may keep a Secret, if two of them are dead.
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)
“Better Counsel comes overnight.”
Doris Lessing (1919–2013) British novelist, poet, playwright, librettist, biographer and short story writer
Besserer Rat kommt über Nacht. <br class="br">Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Emilia Galotti (1772), Act IV, scene III http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/7mlgl10.txt <br class="br">Misattributed
Ziauddin Barani (1285–1357) Indian Muslim historian and political thinker (1285–1357)
Fatawa-i-Jahandari, p.64. quoted from Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 4
Fatawa-i-Jahandari
John Holt (Lord Chief Justice) (1642–1710) English lawyer and Lord Chief Justice of England
Parkyn's Case (1696), 13 How. St. Tr. 134.
Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist
Old Path White Clouds : Walking in the Footsteps of the Buddha (1991) Parallax Press ISBN 81-216-0675-6
“I don't have counsel, I have more idioms as: Don't come to monkey mother with green bananas.”
Patricia Conde (1979) Spanish actress
No soy de consejos, soy más de frases hechas como: A mamá mono no le vengas con bananas verdes.
blog oficial Patricia Conde
Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) British Baron
Trial of John Vint and others (1799), 27 How. St. Tr. 640.
John Bright (1811–1889) British Radical and Liberal statesman
Speech in Birmingham (27 October 1858), quoted in G. M. Trevelyan, The Life of John Bright (London: Constable, 1913), pp. 271-272.
1850s
Booker T. Washington (1856–1915) African-American educator, author, orator, and advisor
Speech in New York (12 February 1904), as quoted in speech by Edward de Veaux Morrell in the House of Representatives https://cdn.loc.gov/service/rbc/lcrbmrp/t2609/t2609.pdf (4 April 1904) <br class="br">1900s
Samuel Adams (1722–1803) American statesman, Massachusetts governor, and political philosopher
Speech in Philadelphia (1776)
Variant: If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude <ins>better</ins> than the animat<del>ed</del><ins>ing</ins> contest of freedom — go <del>home</del> from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or <ins>your</ins> arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains <del>sit</del><ins>set</ins> lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen<del>!</del><ins>.</ins>
Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist
Christopher Hitchens vs. George Galloway debate http://www.seixon.com/blog/archives/2005/09/galloway_vs_hit.html, New York City (2005-09-14): On the 2003 invasion of Iraq <br class="br">2000s, 2005
George Chapman The Gentleman Usher
The Gentleman Usher, Act IV, scene i; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“2350. He that will not be counselled, cannot be helped.”
Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual
Compare Poor Richard's Almanack (1747) : He that won't be counsell'd, can't be help'd.
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)
Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Speech to the Empire Parliamentary Association's Conference in Westminster Hall (4 July 1935); published in This Torch of Freedom: Speeches and Addresses (1935), pp. 5-6.
1935
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet
Heroism
1840s, Essays: First Series (1841)
Anthony Lewis movie Gideon's Trumpet
[8, Anthony, Lewis, w:Anthony Lewis, Vintage, 1989, 9780679723127, Gideon's Trumpet, http://books.google.com/books?id=IhDfidRb5wIC&pg=PA8&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false]
Horace Greeley (1811–1872) American politician and publisher
1860s, The Prayer of the Twenty Millions (1862)
“Counsel: [You are charged with] loitering to commit a felony. Now then Mr Golightly…”
Alan Bennett (1934) English actor, author
On the Margin (1966)
Thomas Randolph (poet) (1605–1635) English poet and dramatist
"Necessary Observations", Precept 22
Poems (pub. 1638)
“Nor should anything said after dinner be taken for counsel.”
Philippe de Commines book Mémoires
Car on ne doit point tenir pour conseil ce qui se fait après disner.
Bk. II, ch. 2.
Mémoires
Peter de Noronha (1897–1970) Indian businessman
The Pageant of Life (1964), On Planning for a Better World
“The counsel of the dead is not profitable to the living.”
Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) American writer
Source: Earthsea Books, The Farthest Shore (1972), Chapter 5, "Sea Dreams"
Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) President of the Confederate States of America
1860s, Speech before the U.S. Senate (1861)
Nicholas Murray Butler (1862–1947) American philosopher, diplomat, and educator
Liberty-Equality-Fraternity (1942)
James D. Mooney (1884–1957) American businessman
Source: Onward Industry!, 1931, p. 66
James Thurber (1894–1961) American cartoonist, author, journalist, playwright
Memo to The New Yorker (1959); reprinted in New York Times Book Review (4 December 1988)
Letters and interviews
Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician
Introduction to his book The House of Lords in the Middle Ages (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1968), p. xi
1960s
Clarence Thomas (1948) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)
Hasan Nizami Persian language poet and historian
About the conquest of Delhi. Hasan Nizami. Elliot and Dowson, Vol. II : Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Volumes, Allahabad Reprint, 1964. pp. 216. Also quoted in Jain, Meenakshi (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts.
“But Juno and the virgin daughter of supreme Jove were sharing heart to heart their inmost counsels and distracting cares.”
At Iuno et summi virgo Iovis intima secum
consilia et varias sociabant pectore curas.
Gaius Valerius Flaccus book Argonautica
Source: Argonautica, Book V, Lines 280–281
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist
The London Literary Gazette (28th February 1835)
Translations, From the German
Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) American writer
Source: Earthsea Books, The Farthest Shore (1972), Chapter 8, "The Children of the Open Sea" (Ged)