“To have good sense, is the first principle and fountain of writing well.”
Scribendi recte sapere est et principium et fons.
Source: Ars Poetica, or The Epistle to the Pisones (c. 18 BC), Line 309
“To have good sense, is the first principle and fountain of writing well.”
Scribendi recte sapere est et principium et fons.
Source: Ars Poetica, or The Epistle to the Pisones (c. 18 BC), Line 309
George William Russell (1867–1935) Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, and artistic painter
The Nuts of Knowledge (1903)
“[Description of Britain] Its plains are spacious, its hills are pleasantly situated, adapted for superior tillage, and its mountains are admirably calculated for the alternate pasturage of cattle, where flowers of various colours, trodden by the feet of man, give it the appearance of a lovely picture. It is decked, like a man's chosen bride, with divers jewels, with lucid fountains and abundant brooks wandering over the snow white sands; with transparent rivers, flowing in gentle murmurs, and offering a sweet pledge of slumber to those who recline upon their banks, whilst it is irrigated by abundant lakes, which pour forth cool torrents of refreshing water.”
[Descriptio Britanniae] Campis late pansis collibusque amoeno situ locatis, praepollenti culturae aptis, montibus alternandis animalium pastibus maxime covenientibus, quorum diversorum colorum flores humanis gressibus pulsati non indecentem ceu picturam eisdem imprimebant, electa veluti sponsa monilibus diversis ornata, fontibus lucidis crebris undis niveas veluti glareas pellentibus, pernitidisque rivis leni murmure serpentibus ipsorumque in ripis accubantibus suavis soporis pignus praetendentibus, et lacubus frigidum aquae torrentem vivae exundantibus irrigua.
Gildas De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae
Section 3.
De Excidio Britanniae (On the Ruin of Britain)
George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher
The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), Human Immortality: its Positive Argument
William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist
Lectures XIV and XV, "The Value of Saintliness"
1900s, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)
Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464) German philosopher, theologian, jurist, and astronomer
Theosophy Trust, Great Teachers Series http://www.theosophytrust.org/311-nicholas-of-cusa
Isaac Barrow (1630–1677) English Christian theologian, and mathematician
Source: Mathematical Lectures (1734), p. 27-30
Sammy Cahn (1913–1993) American lyricist, songwriter, musician
Three Coins in a Fountain (1954)
Song lyrics
J. Proctor Knott (1830–1911) American politician
Speech on the St. Croix and Bayfield Railroad Bill, Jan. 27, 1871; Knott made this satirical speech, sometimes titled as Duluth! or The Untold Delights of Duluth, while serving in the United States House of Representatives; the speech lampooned Western boosterism by portraying Duluth, Minnesota, in fantastical and glowing language.
John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States
1790s, Inaugural Address (Saturday, March 4, 1797)
Sophia Loren (1934) Italian actress
As quoted in Hope Notes : 52 Meditations to Nudge Your World (2004) by Wayne Willis, p. 11.
Werner von Siemens (1816–1892) German inventor and industrialist
Bonnier Corporation. Popular Science https://books.google.com/books?id=tyoDAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false Apr 1887,Vol. 30, No. 46. [0161-7370]. pp. 814-820\ <br class="br">Werner von Siemens (1895). Scientific & technical papers of Werner von Siemens. J. Murray. p. 518
Aurangzeb (1618–1707) Sixth Mughal Emperor
Congratulating the Sayyid Brothers, as quoted in Later Mughals : Volume II : 1719-1739 (1922) by William Irvine
Quotes from late medieval histories
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist
(12th June 1824) Stanzas
The London Literary Gazette, 1824
Daniel Webster (1782–1852) Leading American senator and statesman. January 18, 1782 – October 24, 1852. Served as the Secretary of Sta…
Speech in the Senate (12 March 1838)
George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement
Stanzas to Augusta (1816), reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Olaf Stapledon book Star Maker
Source: Star Maker (1937), Chapter VI: Intimations of the Star Maker (p. 71)
Stephen Spender (1909–1995) English poet and man of letters
"To A Spanish Poet" (for Manuel Altolaguirre)
The Still Centre (1939)
Isaac Barrow (1630–1677) English Christian theologian, and mathematician
"Ration before the University of Cambridge on being elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics," (1660), reported in: Mathematical Lectures, (1734), p. 28
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) British politician
Quarterly Review, 116, 1864, p. 266, pp. 269-270
1860s
“The fountain of youth resides in our memory. You will never outlive your shadow.”
Lorin Morgan-Richards (1975) American poet, cartoonist, and children's writer
as quoted in Barry GEM "Barry GEM" http://www.barry-today.co.uk/article.cfm?id=102602&headline=Book%20on%20the%20trail%20of%20%20the%20Welsh%20Americans&sectionIs=news&searchyear=2016 "Book on the trail of the Welsh Americans” (20 January 2016).
Alexander Maclaren (1826–1910) British minister
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 56.
James Montgomery (1771–1854) British editor, hymn writer, and poet
The Little Cloud.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Elias Lyman Magoon (1810–1886) American minister
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 354.
John Constable (1776–1837) English Romantic painter
3 quotes in Constable's letter to John Dunthorne (29 May 1802), from John Constable's Correspondence, ed. R.B. Beckett (Ipswich, Suffolk Records Society, 1962-1970), part 2, pp. 31-32
1800s - 1810s
Robert Southey (1774–1843) British poet
St. 2. <br class="br"> The Cataract of Lodore http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/652.html (1820)
Gerhard Richter (1932) German visual artist, born 1932
Source: after 2000, Doubt and belief in painting' (2003), p. 47
André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer
Les silences du colonel Bramble (The Silence of Colonel Bramble)
Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) French painter and sculptor
quote, 1917
Quote in: Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art, – a source-book of Artist's writings, ed. Kristine Stiles / Peter Selz, University of California Press, London, England, 1996, p. 817
Duchamp's core quote / his own written comment on his artwork 'Fountain (Duchamp)': The Richard Mutt Case, Marcel Duchamp, ‘Blind Man’, New York, 1917: 5
1915 - 1925
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) American author
From a letter to Harold Preece (received October 20, 1928)
Letters
Apollonius of Rhodes book Argonautica
Source: Argonautica (3rd century BC), Book IV. Homeward Bound, Lines 445–449
Richard Barnfield (1574–1627) English poet
The Second Dayes Lamentation of the Affectionate Shepheard. <br class="br"> The Affectionate Shepheard http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/19902 (1594)
Rufus M. Jones (1863–1948) American writer
As quoted in Living in the Light : Some Quaker Pioneers of the 20th Century Vol. I, (1984) by Leonard Stout Kenworthy, p. 126
George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher
guilt, not simply before some external tribunal, be it even God's, but guilt before the more inexorable bar of our own soul.”
Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), The Harmony of Determinism and Freedom, p.370-1
John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author
letter http://digitalcollections.pacific.edu/cdm/ref/collection/muirletters/id/9847/show/9846 to Catharine Merrill, from New Sentinel Hotel, Yosemite Valley (9 June 1872); published in William Federic Badè, The Life and Letters of John Muir http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/life/life_and_letters/default.aspx (1924), chapter 9: Persons and Problems <br class="br">1870s
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist
The Middle Temple Gardens
The Vow of the Peacock (1835)
“Life is just a candle, and a dream must give it flame…
-- The Fountain of Lamneth (1975)”
Neil Peart (1952–2020) Canadian-American drummer , lyricist, and author
Rush Lyrics
Daniel Webster (1782–1852) Leading American senator and statesman. January 18, 1782 – October 24, 1852. Served as the Secretary of Sta…
Source: On the Completion of the Bunker Hill Monument (1843), p. 93
Joseph Priestley (1733–1804) English theologian, chemist, educator, and political theorist
Period I To the Revival of Letters in Erope
The History and Present State of Discoveries Relating to Vision, Light, and Colours (1772)
Elias Lyman Magoon (1810–1886) American minister
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 451.
George Moore (novelist) (1852–1933) Irish novelist, short-story writer, poet, art critic, memoirist and dramatist
Letter to Lady Emerald Cunard, quoted in The Everything Wedding Vows Book : Anything and Everything You Could Possibly Say at the Altar, and then Some. (2001) by Janet Anastasio and Michelle Bevilacqua, p. 97.
James Hamilton (1814–1867) Scottish minister and a prolific author of religious tracts
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 84.
Lord Randolph Churchill (1849–1895) British politician
Speech in Birmingham (16 April 1884), quoted in The Times (17 April 1884), p. 10
Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792) English painter, specialising in portraits
Discourse no. 6; vol. 1, p. 162.
Discourses on Art
Octavio Paz (1914–1998) Mexican writer laureated with the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature
Sun Stone (1957)
James Hamilton (1814–1867) Scottish minister and a prolific author of religious tracts
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 74.
John Quincy Adams (1767–1848) American politician, 6th president of the United States (in office from 1825 to 1829)
Passage on Muhammad by an anonymous author in The American Annual Register for the Years 1827-8-9 (1830), edited by Joseph Blunt, Ch. X, p. 269. Robert Spencerattributed the authorship to Adams in The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) (2005), p. 83, but provided no clear documentation as to why this attribution was made.
Disputed
Edward Everett (1794–1865) American politician, orator, statesman
Edward Everett, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 141.
“Those who do not find a fountain through which to pour their tears, do not cry.”
Antonio Porchia (1885–1968) Italian Argentinian poet
No llora quien no encuentra uns fuente donde verter su llanto.
Voces (1943)
“A film is a petrified fountain of thought.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager and filmmaker
Esquire magazine (February 1961)
J. Sidlow Baxter (1903–1999) Australian theologian
Divine Healing of the Body (1979), p. 287.
Walter Scott (1771–1832) Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet
Canto III, stanza 16 (Coronach, stanza 3). <br class="br"> The Lady of the Lake http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/3011 (1810)
John Rupert Firth (1890–1960) English linguist
Source: The tongues of men. 1937, p. 15; As cited in: Angela Senis (2016) , " The contribution of John Rupert Firth to the history of linguistics and the rejection of the phoneme theory http://media.leidenuniv.nl/legacy/014-senis.pdf." Proceedings of ConSOLE XXIII 273.
Robert Pollok book The Course of Time
Book iv, line 684.
The Course of Time (published 1827)
Thomas Percy (Bishop of Dromore)
"Love Will Find Out the Way"; in its published form this is suspected to have been extensively written by Percy himself; it was later used by Pierre de Beaumarchais in Act III of The Marriage of Figaro (1778).
Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765)
Eleanor Farjeon (1881–1965) English children's writer
The Welsh Harp
More Nursery Rhymes of London Town (1917)
Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716) German mathematician and philosopher
Anecdote (1701) from John Conduitt's manuscript, as quoted by Sir David Brewster, Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) Vol.2 https://books.google.com/books?id=Bp8RAAAAYAAJ
John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author
July 1890, pages 315-316
John of the Mountains, 1938
William Morris (1834–1896) author, designer, and craftsman
The Earthly Paradise (1868-70), The Lady of the Land
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet
New England Reformers
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Essays, First Series
James Beattie (1735–1803) Scottish poet, moralist and philosopher
Book ii. Stanza 17.
The Minstrel; or, The Progress of Genius (1771)
John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author
1895, pages 350-351
John of the Mountains, 1938
Tobin Bell (1942) American actor
Interview: Tobin Bell Discusses His Career and His New Horror Film Dark House https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/interview-tobin-bell-discusses-his-career-and-his-new-horror-film-dark-house/ (March 14, 2014)
“By definition, if prose is a river, poetry is a fountain.”
Michael Longley (1939) poet
'Poetry Ireland Review' Summer 1999
“You, Honor, you first veiled
The fountains of delight,
Denying those waves to the thirsting lovers.”
Tu prima, Onor, velasti
La fonte dei diletti,
Negando l'onde a l'amorosa sete.
Act I, Choro, line 358.
Aminta (1573)
David Mushet (1772–1847) Scottish metallurgist
The Wrongs of the Animal World, to Which is Subjoined the Speech of Lord Erskine on the Same Subject http://books.google.com/books?id=KVwPAAAAIAAJ&pg=PR5, London, 1839. p. vi-v; As cited in: animalrightshistory.org http://animalrightshistory.org/animal-rights-c1837-1901/victorian-m/mus-david-muschet/1839-wrongs-animal-world.htm, 2014
Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psychoanalysis
As quoted in his obituary, in the New York Times, 24 September, 1939
Attributed from posthumous publications
“The cistern contains: the fountain overflows.”
William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist
Source: 1790s, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790–1793), Proverbs of Hell, Line 35
“Slang is a foul pool at which every dunce fills his bucket, and then sets up as a fountain.”
Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist
Source: Epigrams, p. 369
Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher
1820s, Signs of the Times (1829)
Eleanor Farjeon (1881–1965) English children's writer
Pegasus, St. 2, p. 181
The New Book of Days (1961)
Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902) Suffragist and Women's Rights activist
1896
September
The Degraded Status of Woman in the Bible
Free Thought Magazine
Chicago
14
542
http://books.google.com/books?id=TfOfAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA542&dq=%22for+fifty+years+the+women%22
“In the midst of the fountain of wit there arises something bitter, which stings in the very flowers.”
Medio de fonte leporum
surgit amari aliquid quod in ipsis floribus angat.
Lucretius (-94–-55 BC) Roman poet and philosopher
Book IV, lines 1133–1134 (reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations)
Variant translation: From the midst of the fountain of delights rises something bitter that chokes them all amongst the flowers.
Compare: "Still from the fount of joy's delicious springs / Some bitter o'er the flowers its bubbling venom flings", Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto I, stanza 82
De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things)
Aga Khan III (1877–1957) 48th Imam of the Nizari Ismaili community
Memoirs of Aga Khan: World Enough & Time (1954)
Context: Imam Hassan has explained the Islamic doctrine of God and the Universe by analogy with the sun and its reflection in the pool of a fountain; there is certainly a reflection or image of the sun, but with what poverty and with what little reality; how small and pale is the likeness between this impalpable image and the immense, blazing, white-hot glory of the celestial sphere itself. Allah is the sun; and the Universe, as we know it in all its magnitude, and time, with its power, is nothing more than the reflection of the Absolute in the mirror of the fountain.