Quotes about servant
page 3

Teresa of Ávila photo
George Herbert photo

“508. He that tells a secret is another's servant.”

George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest

Jacula Prudentum (1651)

Ellen G. White photo
Muhammad bin Qasim photo

“Muhammad Kasim marched from Dhalila, and encamped on the banks of the stream of the Jalwali to the east of Brahmanabad. He sent some confidential messengers to Brahmanabad to invite its people to submission and to the Muhammadan faith, to preach to them Islam, to demand the Jizya, or poll-tax, and also to inform them that if they would not submit, they must prepare to fight…
They sent their messengers, and craved for themselves and their families exemption from death and captivity. Muhammad Kasim granted them protection on their faithful promises, but put the soldiers to death, and took all their followers and dependents prisoners. All the captives, up to about thirty years of age, who were able to work, he made slaves, and put a price upon them…
When the plunder and the prisoners of war were brought before Kasim, and enquiries were made about every captive, it was found that Ladi, the wife of Dahir, was in the fort with two daughters of his by his other wives. Veils were put on their faces, and they were delivered to a servant to keep them apart. One-fifth of all the prisoners were chosen and set aside; they were counted as amounting to twenty thousand in number, and the rest were given to the soldiers. Protection was given to the artificers, the merchants, and the common people, and those who had been seized from those classes were all liberated. But he (Kasim) sat on the seat of cruelty, and put all those who had fought to the sword. It is said that about six thousand fighting men were slain, but, according to some, sixteen thousand were killed, and the rest were pardoned.”

Muhammad bin Qasim (695–715) Umayyad general

Source: The Chach Nama, in: Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, Volume I, p. 176-181. ( also quoted in Bostom, A. G. M. D., & Bostom, A. G. (2010). The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims. Amherst: Prometheus.) note: Quotes from The Chach Nama

Zakir Hussain (politician) photo
Karel Čapek photo

“Great god of the Ants, thou hast granted victory to thy servants. I appoint thee honorary Colonel.”

Pictures from the Insects' Life (1922), as translated in 'And so ad infinitum (The Life of the Insects) : An Entomological Review in Three Acts, a Prologue and an Epilogue (1936) co-written with his brother Josef Čapek, p. 60; also known as The Insect Play

Richard III of England photo

“Right trusty and well beloved, we greet you well, and where, by your letters of supplication to us delivered by your servant John Brackenbury, we understand that, by reason of your great charges that ye have had and sustained, as well in the defence of this realm against the Scots as otherwise, your worshipful city remaineth greatly in poverty, for the which ye desire us to be good mean unto the King’s Grace for an ease of such charges as ye yearly bear and pay unto His Highness, we let you wit that for such great matters and businesses as we now have to do for the weal and usefulness of the realm, we as yet ne can have convenient leisure to accomplish this your business, but be assured that for your kind and loving dispositions to us at all times showed, which we ne can forget, we in goodly haste shall so endeavour us for your ease in this behalf as that ye shall verily understand we be your especial good and loving lord, as your said servant shall show you, to whom it will like you herein to give further credence; and for the diligent service which he hath done to our singular pleasure unto us at this time, we pray you to give unto him laud and thanks, and God keep you.”

Richard III of England (1452–1485) English monarch

Letter to the city fathers of York in April or early May 1483 as Lord Protector for his nephew, Edward V, reprinted in Richard the Third (1956) http://books.google.com/books?id=dNm0JgAACAAJ&dq=Paul+Murray+Kendall+Richard+the+Third&ei=TZHDR8zXKZKIiQHf2NCpCA

“We, me and thee and the parson and all the other lads in the village constitute the public, and the politicians are our servants.”

Margery Allingham (1904–1966) English writer of detective fiction

The Oaken Heart

Chester A. Arthur photo
Yehudi Menuhin photo
Hildegard of Bingen photo
Robert Graves photo
Steven Erikson photo
Julian of Norwich photo
Firuz Shah Tughlaq photo

“From thence the King marched towards the mountains of Nagrakote, where he was overtaken by a storm of hail and snow. The Raja of Nagrakote, after sustaining some loss, submitted, but was restored to his dominions. The name of Nagrakote was, on this occasion, changed to that of Mahomedabad, in honour of the late king. Some historians state, that Feroze, on this occasion, broke the idols of Nagrakote, and mixing the fragments with pieces of cows flesh, filled bags with them, and caused them to be tied round the necks of Bramins, who were then paraded through the camp. It is said, also, that he sent the image of Nowshaba to Mecca, to be thrown on the road, that it might be trodden under foot by the pilgrims, and that he also remitted the sum of 100,000 tunkas, to be distributed among the devotees and servants of the temple.”

Firuz Shah Tughlaq (1309–1388) Tughluq sultan

Tarikh-i-Firishta, translated into English by John Briggs under the title History of the Rise of the Mahomedan Power in India, 4 Volumes, New Delhi Reprint, 1981. p. 263 Vol I.
Variant: From thence the King marched towards the mountains of Nagrakote, where he was overtaken by a storm of hail and snow. The Raja of Nagrakote, after sustaining some loss, submitted, but was restored to his dominions. The name of Nagrakote was, on this occasion, changed to that of Mahomedabad, in honour of the late king. Some historians state, that Feroze, on this occasion, broke the idols of Nagrakote, and mixing the fragments with pieces of cows flesh, filled bags with them, and caused them to be tied round the necks of Bramins, who were then paraded through the camp. It is said, also, that he sent the image of Nowshaba to Mecca, to be thrown on the road, that it might be trodden under foot by the pilgrims, and that he also remitted the sum of 100,000 tunkas, to be distributed among the devotees and servants of the temple.

Gloria Steinem photo

“I was perversely delighted to see the Catholic Church and the Vatican go after nuns because I think they made a major error. People are quite clear in viewing nuns as the servants and the teachers and the supporters of the poor. You contrast that with the fact that the Vatican did virtually nothing about long-known pedophiles, and it’s just too much.
Their stance on abortion is also quite dishonest historically, because as the Jesuits (who always seem to be more honest historians of the Catholic Church) point out, the Church approved of and even regulated abortion well into the mid-1800s. The whole question of ensoulment was determined by the date of baptism. But after the Napoleonic Wars there weren’t enough soldiers anymore and the French were quite sophisticated about contraception. So Napoleon III prevailed on Pope Pius IX to declare abortion a mortal sin, in return for which Pope Pius IX got all the teaching positions in the French schools and support for the doctrine of papal infallibility. … My favorite line belongs to an old Irish woman taxi driver in Boston. Flo Kennedy and I were in the backseat talking about Flo’s book, Abortion Rap (1971), and the driver turned around and said, “Honey, if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.” I wish I’d gotten her name so we could attribute it to her.”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

The Humanist interview (2012)

Will Eisner photo
Edward Carpenter photo

“To keep a man (slave or servant) for your own advantage merely, to keep an animal that you may eat it, is a lie. You cannot look that man or animal in the face.”

Edward Carpenter (1844–1929) British poet and academic

England's Ideal and Other Papers on Social Subjects (1887), Routledge, 2016, p. https://books.google.it/books?id=53uPCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT71

David Lloyd George photo

“Never have I had such great minds around me—Smuts, Balfour, Bonar Law…and Curzon. Curzon was perhaps not a great man, but he was a supreme Civil Servant. Compared to these men, the front benches of today are pigmies.”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Quoted in Harold Nicolson's diary entry (6 July 1936), quoted in Nigel Nicolson (ed.), Harold Nicolson: Diaries and Letters. 1930-1939 (London: Collins, 1966), p. 268.
Later life

William T. Sherman photo

“USA thoughts must turn to rebuild. By 2018, Dempsey is 35, Jones, Beasley and Beckerman 36, and Howard 39. All magnificent servants of U. S.”

Ian Darke (1950) British association football and boxing commentator

Twitter https://twitter.com/IanDarke/status/484272268819038208 (2 July 2014).
2010s, 2014, 2014 FIFA World Cup

Taliesin photo
Dwight D. Eisenhower photo

“The Founders conceived government as the servant, not the master of the individual.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

Remarks to the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce http://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/education/bsa/citizenship_merit_badge/speeches/address_convention_hall.pdf (31 January 1962)
1960s

Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis photo
Osama bin Laden photo
George Herbert photo

“A servant with this clause
Makes drudgery divine:
Who sweeps a room, as for thy laws,
Makes that and th' action fine.”

George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest

Source: The Temple (1633), The Elixir, Lines 17-20

Bernardo Dovizi photo

“The more servants a master has, the more enemies he has.”

Bernardo Dovizi (1470–1520) Italian cardinal and playwright

Act I, scene II. — (Polinico).
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 432.
La Calandria (c. 1507)

Hilaire Belloc photo
Roberto Mangabeira Unger photo
Mark Tully photo
Harry V. Jaffa photo
Walter Lippmann photo
Erving Goffman photo
Ferdinand Lundberg photo
Henry Adams photo
Robert Graves photo
Richard III of England photo
Francis Escudero photo

“Teachers are the most overworked among public servants, having to cope with the tremendous task of educating the youth while at the same time risking life and limb during the entire process.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

Official Website of the Senate of the Philippines http://www.senate.gov.ph/press_release/2013/0510_escudero1.asp
2013, Mid-Term Campaign Trail

Guy Gavriel Kay photo
Subh-i-Azal photo
Thomas Hobbes photo
Mohammad Hidayatullah photo
Titian photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
Ian Kershaw photo
Frederick II of Prussia photo
Herbert Hoover photo

“Being a politician is a poor profession. Being a public servant is a noble one.”

Herbert Hoover (1874–1964) 31st President of the United States of America

On Growing Up: Letters to American Boys & Girls (1962); also quoted in Herbert Hoover On Growing Up: Letters from and to American Children (1990) edited by Timothy Walch

Ilana Mercer photo

“The Democratic Party has come to be controlled by hysterical women and their domesticated man servants. In conduct, these Democratic women are more feral than female.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

"The Dominatrix Party," https://amgreatness.com/2018/10/21/the-dominatrix-party/ American Greatness, October 21, 2018
2010s, 2018

Julian of Norwich photo
Robinson Jeffers photo
Rembrandt van Rijn photo

“My [dear] Sir: Let me first offer my kind regards. I agree that I should come soon to see how the picture accords with the rest. As regards the price, I certainly deserve 200 pounds for it, but shall be content with whatever His Excellency pays me. And if you, Sir, do not deem it presumptuous, I shall not neglect to requite the favor. Your humble and devoted servant Rembrandt - It [the picture] will show to [the] best advantage in His Excellency's gallery, since there it will be [displayed] in bright light.”

Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669) Dutch 17th century painter and etcher

Letter to Constantijn Huygens (Amsterdam, after Feb. 1636) http://remdoc.huygens.knaw.nl/#/document/remdoc/e4429
Rembrandt emphasizes here the urge for a place with bright light, necessary to view his painting well. Not certain is which painting by Rembrandt is meant here.
1630 - 1640

Jack McDevitt photo

“So long as you believe in some truth you do not believe in yourself. You are a servant. A man of faith.”

Jack McDevitt (1935) American novelist, Short story writer

Source: Academy Series - Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins, Chindi (2002), Chapter 12 (p. 158), quoting Max Stiner

Karel Appel photo

“The true artist has no style. Style is an exterior decorative element. The true artist as servant of his matter, transcends it with an absolute freedom.”

Karel Appel (1921–2006) Dutch painter, sculptor, and poet

quote, 1984 - from ATV', 188; p. 49
Karel Appel, a gesture of colour' (1992/2009)

Dafydd ap Gwilym photo

“Blue, round, miserable moon, full of magic, picture that draws like a magnet, pale-coloured, charmed jewel, made by sorcerers; swiftest of dreams, cold traitor, brother to the ice, most evil and unkind of servants, let hell consume the hateful, thin, bent-lipped mirror!”

Dafydd ap Gwilym (1320–1380) Welsh poet

Lleuad las gron gwmpas graen,
Llawn o hud, llun ehedfaen;
Hadlyd liw, hudol o dlws,
Hudolion a'i hadeilws;
Breuddwyd o'r modd ebrwydda',
Bradwr oer a brawd i'r ia.
Ffalstaf, gwir ddifwynaf gwas,
Fflam fo'r drych mingam meingas!
"Y Drych" (The Mirror), line 25; translation from Carl Lofmark Bards and Heroes (Felinfach: Llanerch, 1989) p. 96.

Éric Pichet photo
Harriet Harman photo

“Not all civil servants admire strong political leadership. But if you want to change things for the better you need strong political leadership.”

Harriet Harman (1950) British politician

On BBC Radio 4's Today programme http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6469293.stm, 20 March, 2007.

Albert Einstein photo

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Commonly quoted on the internet, and also in recent books such as Planetary Survival Manual by Matthew Stein (2000), p. 51.
Stein's book is the earliest published source located with that precise version of the quote, but the quote can be found in earlier Usenet posts such as this one from 1995 http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.ascii/msg/d9f6ec3887950a0d?hl=en, and other published variants of the quote using the words "sacred gift" can be found earlier. A Google Books search http://books.google.com/advanced_book_search?q=%22sacred+gift%22+einstein with the date range restricted to 1900-1990 shows only a handful in the 1980s and 1970s, and several of them attribute it to The Metaphoric Mind by Bob Samples (1976), which also seems to be the earliest published variant. Samples does not provide an exact quote, but writes on p. 26: "Albert Einstein called the intuitive or metaphoric mind a sacred gift. He added that the rational mind was a faithful servant. It is paradoxical that in the context of modern life we have begun to worship the servant and defile the divine." It seems as if the last sentence about worshipping the servant is just Samples' own comment (though in later variants it became part of the supposed quote), while the earlier sentences only paraphrase something that Samples claims Einstein to have said. Einstein had many quotes about the value of intuition and imagination, but the specific word "gift" can be found in a comment remembered by János Plesch in the section Attributed in posthumous publications, "When I examine myself and my methods of thought I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge." So, Bob Samples might have been paraphrasing that comment. Likewise Einstein had a number of quotes about the intellect being secondary to intuition, but the language of the intellect "serving" can be found in a quote from the Out of My Later Years (1950) section, "And certainly we should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality. It cannot lead, it can only serve; and it is not fastidious in its choice of a leader."
Misattributed

Henry Ward Beecher photo
Naomi Klein photo
Fethullah Gülen photo
John Kenneth Galbraith photo
Jacques Ellul photo
Grover Cleveland photo

“Public officers are the servants and agents of the people, to execute the laws which the people have made.”

Grover Cleveland (1837–1908) 22nd and 24th president of the United States

Letter accepting the nomination for governor of New York (October 1882).

Theodor Mommsen photo

“.. whatever may have been the style and title, the sovereign ruler was there, and accordingly the court established itself at once with all its due accompaniments of pomp, insipidity, and emptiness. Caesar appeared in public not in the robe of the consuls which was bordered with purple stripes, but in the robe wholly of purple which was reckoned in antiquity as the proper regal attire, and received, sitting on his golden chair and without rising from it, the solemn procession of the senate. The festivals in his honour commemorative of birthday, of victories, and of vows, filled the calendar. When Caesar came to the capital, his principal servants marched forth in trips to great distances so as to meet and escort him. To be near to him began to be of such importance, that the rents rose in the quarter of the city where he lived. Personal interviews with him were rendered so difficult by the multitude of individuals soliciting audience, that Caesar found himself compelled in many cases to communicate even with his intimate friends in writing, and that persons even of the highest rank had to wait for hours in the ante-chamber. People felt, more clearly than was agreeable to Caesar himself, that they no longer approached a fellow-citizen. There arose a monarchical aristocracy, which was a remarkable manner at once new and old, and which had sprung out of the idea of casting into the shade the aristocracy of the oligarchy by that of the royalty, the nobility of the patriciate. The patrician body still subsisted, although without essential privileges as an order, in the character of a close aristocratic guild; but as it could receive no new gentes it had dwindled away more and more in the course of centuries, and in Caesar's time there were not more than fifteen or sixteen patrician gentes still in existence. Caesar, himself sprung from one of them, got the right of creating new patrician gentes conferred on the Imperator by decree of the people, and so established, in contrast to the republican nobility, the new aristocracy of the patriciate, which most happily combined all the requisites of a monarchichal aristocracy - the charm of antiquity, entire dependence on the government, and total insignificance. On all sides the new sovereignty revealed itself.”

Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist and writer

Vol. 4, Part 2. Translated by W.P. Dickson.
The New Court.
The History of Rome - Volume 4: Part 2

Statius photo

“Give not rein to your hot mood, give time, a little delay; impulse is ever a bad servant.”
Ne frena animo permitte calenti, da spatium tenuemque moram, male cuncta ministrat impetus.

Source: Thebaid, Book X, Line 703. Variant translation: Give not reins to your inflamed passions: take time and a little delay; impetuosity manages all things badly.

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis photo

“Dear God, please take care of your servant John Fitzgerald Kennedy.”

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (1929–1994) public figure, First Lady to 35th U.S. President John F. Kennedy

Inscription for cards at her husband’s funeral (25 November 1963)

Verghese Kurien photo

“I am a servant to the farmers.”

Verghese Kurien (1921–2012) Indian founder of dairy-cooperative Amul

In How a farmers’ servant painted the nation white, 9 September 2012, 31 Deccember 2013, The Hindu http://www.hindustantimes.com/comment/columnsothers/how-a-farmers-servant-painted-the-nation-white/article1-927184.aspx,
Quote

Connie Willis photo

“Servants don’t travel with their employers.”
“How do they do without them?”

”They don’t.”

Chapter 18 (pp. 317-318)
To Say Nothing of the Dog (1998)

Sri Aurobindo photo

“God's servant is something; God's slave is greater.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

Thoughts and Aphorisms (1913), Bhakti

“Are they trained to treat everyone as a servant?”

Sherwood Smith (1951) American fantasy and science fiction writer

Remalna's Children (Crown & Court 2.5, 2011)

Nanak photo
Diogenes of Sinope photo
Julian of Norwich photo

“Our courteous Lord willeth not that His servants despair, for often nor for grievous falling: for our falling hindereth not Him to love us. Peace and love are ever in us, being and working; but we be not alway in peace and in love.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

The Thirteenth Revelation, Chapter 39
Context: Our courteous Lord willeth not that His servants despair, for often nor for grievous falling: for our falling hindereth not Him to love us. Peace and love are ever in us, being and working; but we be not alway in peace and in love. But He willeth that we take heed thus that He is Ground of all our whole life in love; and furthermore that He is our everlasting Keeper and mightily defendeth us against our enemies, that be full fell and fierce upon us; — and so much our need is the more for we give them occasion by our falling.

Rousas John Rushdoony photo

“Now one of the interesting facts here with respect to intermarriage, and our time is just about up and we will conclude in a moment, is this; that historically, whenever you have had two peoples close together, and one in a position of power and the other in a position of either slavery or inferiority, it takes only a very short time for the two races to merge, no matter how great the hatred between them. Thus, when the Normans took England, there was nothing more hateful to the Anglo Saxon peoples of England than a Norman. And yet, because they were of comparable ability, in spite of that intense hatred, they did merge, ultimately. But when you find two peoples of very different intellectual and cultural levels close together, they can be together generation after generation, and the amount of merging is very slight. So that there is no disappearing of one as against the other. This is why the Negro did not disappear in the South. Had the slaves been, say of another racial group, it would not have taken more than a hundred years of slavery for the two groups to have merged. But you had a couple of hundred years of slavery in the south, and the Negro did not disappear. So this is the remarkable fact. As a result, when you hear stories told about how the Negro women were exploited and so on, these stories tend to be exaggerations. As a matter of fact, the truth was usually the other way, it was very difficult to raise children in the south, or to rear children in the south, because one way of promotion was to capture the interest of a white boy or a white man. Now this goes counter to the Marxist thesis, but when you study the history of the west you discover that one of the best things that ever happened incidentally to the morality of the upper classes was modern inventions which abolished the need for servants in the home. Because one of the major problems that existed was the seduction of the boys and the men in a household by servant girls.”

Rousas John Rushdoony (1916–2001) American theologian

Audio lectures, The Law of Divorce (n.d.)

Vyasa photo
John F. Kennedy photo
Michel De Montaigne photo

“In true education, anything that comes to our hand is as good as a book: the prank of a page-boy, the blunder of a servant, a bit of table talk— they are all part of the curriculum.”

Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman

The Autobiography of Michel de Montaigne, Chapter III, pg. 24 (Translated by Marvin Lowenthal
Attributed

Ramon Llull photo

“Death has no terrors for a sincere servant of Christ who is laboring to bring souls to a knowledge of the truth.”

Ramon Llull (1232–1316) Majorcan writer and philosopher

Llull cited in: George Frederick Maclear (1863) A history of Christian missions during the Middle Ages . p. 365

Henry Ward Beecher photo
Lawrence M. Schoen photo

““You didn’t do any of these things because they were necessarily good unto themselves, but because you saw them as means to shape events to serve your own ends. The entire legacy of the Matriarch is the exploitation of others like pieces in some great game.”
She laughed in his face. “You can see it that way if you like. The weak usually do, if they see it at all. But you disappoint me. Despite your study of history, you fail to understand power. It’s obvious you never will… There’s really only one choice you ever have to make in any act of creation. Will you be the instrument or the artist? If you’re only now coming to realize that you’ve been a tool all your life, there’s no one to blame for it but yourself. If you don’t like that state of affairs, then act! Impose your will upon the world and walk your own path. If you don’t, you’ll just end up being a token in someone else’s game; you’ll continue to be used as they see fit. That’s how the universe works. You don’t have to like it, but you’d do well to get used to it.”…
“No, maybe that’s the way the world looks once you’ve already decided to take your path. Or maybe it’s just you’re so jaded, or you’ve bought into your own delusions. I don’t know which, and I don’t care. Those aren’t the only choices: use of be used. There is more than being tyrant or servant. I reject both options and I reject you. You’ve been dead for centuries, Margda, it’s about time you accepted that.””

Lawrence M. Schoen (1959) American writer and klingonist

Source: Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard (2015), Chapter 38, “Loose Ends” (pp. 362-363; ellipses represent elisions of descriptive sections)

Saint Patrick photo
Keiji Nishitani photo

“The faithful servant shall his guerdon have.”

Guido Guinizzelli (1230–1276) Italian poet

A buon servente guiderdon non pere.
Sonetto. (Poeti del Primo Secolo, Firenze, 1816, p. 104).
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 239.

Lyndon B. Johnson photo
Amory B. Lovins photo

“The markets make a good servant but a bad master, and a worse religion”

Amory B. Lovins (1947) American physicist

[This much I know: Amory Lovins, http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/mar/23/ethicalliving.lifeandhealth4, The Guardian, 2008-11-20]

Thomas Gainsborough photo

“to Joshua Kirby, Esq. - to be left at the Turk's Head, Gerrard Street, St. Ann's, London - Mr. President and Gentlemen, Directors of the Society of Artists of Great Britain. I thank ye for the honor done me in appointing me one of your Directors, but for a particular reason I beg leave to resign, and am. Gentlemen, your most obliged and obedient Humble Servant.”

Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788) English portrait and landscape painter

Quote from Gainsborough's letter, Bath, 5 Dec. 1768; as cited in Thomas Gainsborough, by William T, Whitley https://ia800204.us.archive.org/6/items/thomasgainsborou00whitrich/thomasgainsborou00whitrich.pdf; New York, Charles Scribner's Sons – London, Smith, Elder & Co, Sept. 1915, p. 397 (Appendix B)
18 October 1768, Gainsborough was elected to a Directorship of the Society of Artists, and on the same day his old Ipswich friend, Joshua Kirby, was made President. Gainsborough, however, declined to accept office, and his letter of refusal must have grieved Kirby
1755 - 1769

Freeman Dyson photo
Paul Bourget photo

“Well, you must now imagine my friend at my age or almost there. You must picture him growing gray, tired of life and convinced that he had at last discovered the secret of peace. At this time he met, while visiting some relatives in a country house, a mere girl of twenty, who was the image, the haunting image of her whom he had hoped to marry thirty years before. It was one of those strange resemblances which extend from the color of the eyes to the 'timbre' of the voice, from the smile to the thought, from the gestures to the finest feelings of the heart. I could not, in a few disjointed phrases describe to you the strange emotions of my friend. It would take pages and pages to make you understand the tenderness, both present and at the same time retrospective, for the dead through the living; the hypnotic condition of the soul which does not know where dreams and memories end and present feeling begins; the daily commingling of the most unreal thing in the world, the phantom of a lost love, with the freshest, the most actual, the most irresistibly naïve and spontaneous thing in it, a young girl. She comes, she goes, she laughs, she sings, you go about with her in the intimacy of country life, and at her side walks one long dead. After two weeks of almost careless abandon to the dangerous delights of this inward agitation imagine my friend entering by chance one morning one of the less frequented rooms of the house, a gallery, where, among other pictures, hung a portrait of himself, painted when he was twenty-five. He approaches the portrait abstractedly. There had been a fire in the room, so that a slight moisture dimmed the glass which protected the pastel, and on this glass, because of this moisture, he sees distinctly the trace of two lips which had been placed upon the eyes of the portrait, two small delicate lips, the sight of which makes his heart beat. He leaves the gallery, questions a servant, who tells him that no one but the young woman he has in mind has been in the room that morning.”

Paul Bourget (1852–1935) French writer

Pierre Fauchery, as quoted by the character "Jules Labarthe"
The Age for Love

Ursula K. Le Guin photo
Henry Adams photo
Alexis De Tocqueville photo
Ha-Joon Chang photo
Oliver Cowdery photo
William Lenthall photo

“May it please your majesty, I have neither eyes to see, nor tongue to speak, in this place, but as the house is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am here; and I humbly ask pardon that I cannot give any other answer to what your majesty is pleased to demand of me.”

William Lenthall (1591–1662) English politician, died 1662

Response to King Charles I on being asked the whereabouts of five fugitive members of the House of Commons (4 January 1642), from the journal of Sir Simonds d'Ewes, quoted in Cobbett's Parliamentary History of England : From the Norman conquest, in 1066. To the year, 1803 (1807), p. 1010.