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Home  »  Dictionary of Quotations  »  The essence to The good word

James Wood, comp. Dictionary of Quotations. 1899.

The essence to The good word

The essence of a lie is in deception, not in words.Ruskin.

The essence of affectation is that it be assumed; the character is, as it were, forcibly crushed into some foreign mould, in the hope of being thereby re-shaped and beautified; and the unhappy man persuades himself he has become a new creature of wonderful symmetry, though every movement betrays not symmetry, but dislocation.Carlyle.

The essence of all government among good men is this, that it is mainly occupied in the production and recognition of human worth, and in the detection and extinction of human unworthiness.Ruskin.

The essence of all immorality, of sin, is the making self the centre to which we subordinate all other beings and interests.J. C. Sharp.

The essence of all religion that was, and that will be, is to make men free.Carlyle.

The essence of all vulgarity lies in want of sensation.Ruskin.

The essence of an aristocracy is to transfer the source of honour from the living to the dead, to make the merits of living men depend not so much upon their own character and actions as upon the actions and position of their ancestors.H. Lecky.

The essence of aphorism is the compression of a mass of thought and observation into a single saying.John Morley.

The essence of faith lies in this, a deep sense and conviction that in what we do, though it were single-handed, with all men standing aloof, and even saying nay to it, we have God and all his universe at our back.James Wood.

The essence of friendship is entireness, a total magnanimity and trust.Emerson.

The essence of greatness is the perception that virtue is enough. Poverty is its ornament. It does not need plenty, and can very well abide its loss.Emerson.

The essence of humour is sensibility, warm, tender, fellow-feeling with all forms of existence; and unless seasoned and purified by humour, sensibility is apt to run wild, will readily corrupt into disease, falsehood, or, in one word, sentimentality.Carlyle.

The essence of justice is mercy. (?)

The essence of knowledge is, having it, to apply it; not having it, to confess your ignorance.Confucius.

The essence of poetry is will and passion.Hazlitt.

The essence of true nobility is neglect of self. Let the thought of self pass in, and the beauty of a great action is gone, like the bloom from a soiled flower.Froude.

The essence of wealth consists in its authority over men; if (therefore) the apparent or nominal wealth fail in this power, it fails in essence; in fact, ceases to be wealth at all. And since the essence of wealth consists in power over men, will it not follow that the nobler and the more in number the persons are over whom it has power, the greater the wealth.Ruskin.

The essence or peculiarity of man is to comprehend a whole.Emerson.

The essential thing for all creatures is to be made to do right.Ruskin.

The Eternal is no simulacrum; God is not only there, but here or nowhere,—in that life-breath of thine, in that act and thought of thine,—and thou wert wise to look to it.Carlyle.

The eternal stars shine out again, as soon as it is dark enough.Carlyle.

The eternity, before the world and after, is without our reach; but that little spot of ground which lies betwixt those two great oceans, this we are to cultivate.Burnet.

The even and cheerful temper makes us pleasing to ourselves, to those with whom we converse, and to Him whom we were made to please.Addison.

The even-flow of constant cheerfulness strengthens; while great excitements, driving us with fierce speed, both wreck the ship and end often in explosions.Ward Beecher.

The evening brings a’ hame.Scotch Proverb.

The evil that goeth out of thy mouth flieth into thy bosom.Proverb.

The evil that men do lives after them; / The good is oft interréd with their bones.Julius Cæsar, iii. 2.

The evil wound is cured, but not the evil name.Proverb.

The ewe that will not hear her lamb when it baes, will never answer a calf when it bleats.Much Ado, iii. 3.

The exacting a grateful acknowledgment is demanding a debt by which the creditor is not advantaged and the debtor pays with reluctance.Goldsmith.

The example of good men is visible philosophy.Proverb.

The excellent is rarely found, more rarely valued.Goethe.

The exception proves the rule.Proverb.

The excesses of our youth are draughts upon our age, payable with interest about thirty years after date.Colton.

The expectation of the poor shall not perish for ever.Bible.

The experience of each new age requires a new confession, and the world seems always waiting for its poet.Emerson.

The experience of suffering has been declared on the highest authority to be necessary to every poet who would touch the hearts of his fellow-creatures.C. Fitzhugh.

The express schoolmaster is not equal to much at present, while the unexpress, for good or for evil, is so busy with a poor little fellow.Carlyle.

The eye by which I see God is the same eye by which he sees me.Scheffler.

The eye is easily daunted.Emerson.

The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.Bible.

The eye is the best of artists.Emerson.

The eye is the mirror of the soul.Proverb.

The eye is the only note-book of the true poet.Lowell.

The eye is the window of the soul; even an animal looks for a man’s intentions right into his eyes.H. Powers.

The eye—it cannot choose but see; / We cannot bid the ear be still; / Our bodies feel, where’er they be, / Against or with our will.Wordsworth.

The eye of a critic is often like a microscope, made so very fine and nice, that it discovers the atoms, grains, and minutest particles, without ever comprehending the whole, comparing the parts, or seeing all at once the harmony. (?)

The eye of the master will do more work than both his hands.Ben. Franklin.

The eye repeats every day the first eulogy on things: “He saw that they were very good.”Emerson.

The eye sees in all things what it brings with it the faculty of seeing.Goethe.

The eye sees not itself, / But by reflection, by some other things.Julius Cæsar, i. 2.

The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it.Bible.

The eye that sees all things else sees not itself.Proverb.

The eyes being in the highest part, hold the post of sentinels.Cicero.

The eyes of other people are the eyes that ruin us. If all but myself were blind, I would want neither fine clothes, fine houses, nor fine furniture.Ben. Franklin.

The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.Bible.

The face is the index of the mind.Proverb.

The face of man gives us fuller and more interesting information than his tongue; for his face is the compendium of all he will ever say, as it is the one record of all he has thought and endeavoured.Schopenhauer.

The faculty for remembering is not diminished in proportion to what one has learnt, just as little as the number of moulds in which you cast sand lessens its capacity for being cast in new moulds.Schopenhauer.

The faculty of art is to change events; the faculty of science is to foresee them. The phenomena with which we deal are controlled by art; they are predicted by science.Buckle.

The faculty of listening is a tender thing, and soon becomes weary and satiated.Luther.

The failings of good men are commonly more published in the world than their good deeds: and one fault of a deserving man shall meet with more reproaches than all his virtues praise; such is the force of ill-will and ill-nature. (?)

The faint, exquisite music of a dream.Moore.

The fair maid who, the first of May, / Goes to the fields at break of day, / And washes in dew from the hawthorn tree, / Will ever after handsome be.Proverb.

The fair point of the line of beauty is the line of love. Strength and weakness stand on either side of it. Love is the point in which they unite.Goethe.

The fairest action of our human life is scorning to avenge an injury.Lady E. Carew.

The fairest tulip’s not the sweetest flower.Quarles.

The faith in an Invisible, Unnameable, Godlike, present everywhere in all we see and work and suffer, is the essence of all faith whatsoever; and that once denied, or, still worse, asserted with lips only, and out of bound prayer-books only, what other thing remains credible?Carlyle.

The faith of a hearer must be extremely perplexed who considers the speaker, or believes that the speaker considers himself, as under no obligation to adhere to truth, but according to the particular importance of what he relates.Paley.

The faith that stands on authority is not faith.Emerson.

The faithful servant is a humble friend.Proverb.

The fall from the (Christian) faith, and all the corruptions of its abortive practice, may be summed up briefly as the habitual contemplation of Christ’s death instead of his life, and the substitution of his past suffering for our present duty.Ruskin.

The falling out of faithful friends is the renewing of love.Proverb.

The family is the proper province for private women to shine in.Addison.

The family virtues are indispensable to the proper continuance of a society.Renan.

The fashion doth wear out more apparel than the man.Much Ado, iii. 3.

The fashion of this world passeth away.St. Paul.

The fatal man, is he not always the unthinking, the man who cannot think and see?Carlyle.

The fatal tendency of mankind to leave off thinking about a thing when it is no longer doubtful, is the cause of half their errors. A contemporary author has well spoken of “the deep slumber of a decided opinion.”J. S. Mill.

The fatal trait (of the times) is the divorce between religion and morality.Emerson.

The fate of a man of feeling is, like that of a tuft of flowers, twofold; he may either mount upon the head of all, or go to decay in the wilderness.Hitopadesa.

The fate of empires depends upon the education of youth.Aristotle.

The fated will happen.Gaelic Proverb.

The fates but only spin the coarser clue; / The finest of the wool is left for you.Dryden.

The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.Bible Proverb.

The faults of the superior man are like the eclipses of the sun and moon. He has his faults, and all men see them; he changes, and all men look up to him.Confucius.

The fear o’ hell’s the hangman’s whip, / To haud the wretch in order; / But when ye feel yer honour grip, / Let that be aye yer border.Burns.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.Bible.

The fear of the Lord is the fountain of life.Bible.

The fear of the Lord is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate.Bible.

The fear of the Lord tendeth to life: and he that hath it shall abide satisfied.Bible.

The fearful unbelief is unbelief in yourself.Carlyle.

The feast of reason and the flow of soul.Pope.

The feelings, like flowers and butterflies, last longer the later they are delayed.Jean Paul.

The female heart is just like a new india-rubber shoe; you may pull and pull at it till it stretches out a yard long; and then let go, and it will fly right back to its old shape.Judge Haliburton.

The fetters of the slave bind the hands only.Grillparzer.

The fewer our wants, the nearer we resemble the gods.Socrates.

The fibres of all things have their tension, and are strained like the strings of a lyre.Thoreau.

The field cannot be well seen from within the field. The astronomer must have his diameter of the earth’s orbit as a base to fix the parallax of any other star.Emerson.

The finding of your able man, and getting him invested with the symbols of ability, is the business, well or ill accomplished, of all social procedure whatsoever in the world.Carlyle.

The finer the nature, the more flaws it will show through the clearness of it; and it is a law of this universe that the best things shall be seldomest seen in their best form.Ruskin.

The finest composition of human nature, as well as the finest china, may have a flaw in it, and this in either case is equally incurable.Fielding.

The finest language is chiefly made up of unimposing words.George Eliot.

The finest lives, in my opinion, are those who rank in the common model and with the human race, but without miracle, without extravagance.Montaigne.

The finest minds, like the finest metals, dissolve the easiest.Pope.

The finest nations in the world—the English and the American—are going all away into wind and tongue.Carlyle.

The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling; yet we do not treat ourselves or one another thus tenderly.Thoreau.

The fire in the flint shows not till it’s struck.Proverb.

The fire that all things else consumeth clean / May hurt and heal.Sir Thomas Wyatt.

The fire that does not warm me shall never scorch me.Proverb.

The fire which enlightens is the same fire which consumes.Amiel.

The first and worst of all frauds is to cheat one’s self. All sin is easy after that.Bailey.

The first approach to riches is security from poverty.Johnson.

The first article that a young trader offers for sale is his honesty.Proverb.

The first, as indeed the last, nobility of education is in the rule over our thoughts.Ruskin.

The first breath / Is the beginning of death.Proverb.

The first business of the philosopher is to part with self-conceit.Epictetus.

The first condition of education is being put to wholesome and useful work.Ruskin.

The first condition of goodness is something to love; the second, something to reverence.George Eliot.

The first creation of God in the works of the days was the light of the sense; the last was the light of the reason; and his Sabbathwork ever since is the illumination of the spirit.Bacon.

The first day a man is a guest, the second a burden, the third a pest.Laboulaye.

The first days of spring have less grace than the growing virtue of a young man.Vauvenargues.

The first duty of a man is that of subduing fear; he must get rid of fear; he cannot act at all till then; his acts are slavish, not true.Carlyle.

The first duty of every man in the world is to find his true master, and, for his own good, submit to him; and to find his true inferior, and, for that inferior’s good, conquer him.Ruskin.

The first evil those suffer who are fain to talk is that they hear nothing.Plutarch.

The first faults are theirs that commit them, / The second are theirs that permit them.Proverb.

The first forty years of life furnish the text, the remaining thirty the commentary.Schopenhauer. (?)

The first glass for myself, the second for my friends, the third for good-humour, and the fourth for mine enemies.Sir W. Temple.

The first glass of a wine is the one which gives us its true taste.Schopenhauer.

The first great work / Is that yourself may to yourself be true.Roscommon.

The first hour of the morning is the rudder of the day.Ward Beecher.

The first ingredient in conversation is truth, the next good sense, the third good humour, and the fourth wit.Sir W. Temple.

The first lesson of life is one of vicarious suffering.Ward Beecher.

The first lesson of literature, no less than of life, is the learning how to burn one’s own smoke.Lowell.

“The first love, which is infinite,” can be followed by no second like it.Carlyle.

The first of the nine orders of knaves is he that tells his errand before he goes it.Proverb.

The first period of a nation, as of an individual, is the period of unconscious strength.Emerson.

The first point of wisdom is to discern that which is false; the second, to know that which is true.Lactantius.

The first power of a nation consists in knowing how to guide the plough: its second power consists in knowing how to wear the letter.Ruskin.

The first principle of all human economy—individual or political—is to live with as few wants as possible, and to waste nothing of what is given us to supply them.Ruskin.

The first problem (in life) is to unite yourself with some one and with somewhat.Carlyle.

The first proof of a man’s incapacity for anything is his endeavouring to fix the stigma of failure upon others.B. R. Haydon.

The first requisite, both in conversation and correspondence, is to attend to all the proper decorums which our own character and that of others demand.Blair.

The first sigh of love is the last of wisdom.Antoine Bret.

The first sin in our universe was Lucifer’s, that of self-conceit.Carlyle.

The first spiritual want of a barbarous man is decoration, as indeed we still see among the barbarous classes in civilised countries.Carlyle.

The first step towards greatness is to be honest.Proverb.

The first test of a truly great man is his humility. I do not mean by humility, doubt of his power or hesitation in speaking his opinions; but a right understanding of the relation between what he can say and do, and the rest of the world’s sayings and doings.Ruskin.

The first thing for acceptance of truth is to unlearn human doctrines and become as a little child.General Gordon.

The first thing in oratory, Demosthenes used to say, was action; the second, action; and the third, action.

The first use of education is to enable us to consult with the wisest and the greatest men on all points of earnest difficulty.Ruskin.

The first wealth is health. Sickness is poor-spirited, and cannot serve any one; it must husband its resources to live. But health or fulness answers its own ends, and has to spare, runs over, and inundates the neighbourhoods and creeks of other men’s necessities.Emerson.

The first year let your house to your enemy; the second to your friend; the third, live in it yourself.Proverb.

The fittest place where man can die / Is where he dies for man.M. J. Barry.

The flesh-bound volume is the only revelation (of God) that is, that was, or that can be. In that is the image of God painted; in that is the law of God written; in that is the promise of God revealed.Ruskin.

The flighty purpose never is o’ertook, / Unless the deed go with it.Macbeth, iv. 1.

The floating vapour is just as true an illustration of the law of gravity as the falling avalanche.John Burroughs.

The flower is the proper object of the seed, not the seed of the flower.Ruskin.

The flower of sweetest smell is shy and lowly.Wordsworth.

The flower of youth never appears more beautiful than when it bends towards the Sun of Righteousness.Matthew Henry.

The flute is sweet / To gods and men, but sweeter the lyre / And voice of a true singer.Lewis Morris.

The follies of modern Liberalism are practically summed up in the denial or neglect of the quality and intrinsic value of things.Ruskin.

The folly of all follies / Is to be love-sick for a shadow.Tennyson.

The folly of others is ever most ridiculous to those who are themselves most foolish.Goldsmith.

The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.As You Like It, v. 1.

The fool is always discovered if he stayeth too long; like the ass dressed in a tiger’s skin, from his voice.Hitopadesa.

The fool is in himself the object of pity till he is flattered.Steele.

The fool needs company, the wise man solitude.Rückert.

The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinion.Lowell.

The foot of the owner is the best manure for his land.Proverb.

The force of the guinea in your pocket depends on the default of a guinea in your neighbour’s.Ruskin.

The form of government can never be a matter of choice; it is almost always a matter of necessity.Joubert.

The formation of his character ought to be the chief aim of every man.Goethe.

The fortitude of a Christian consists in patience.Dryden.

The fortune which nobody sees makes a man happy and unenvied.Bacon.

The foul slime stands for the sloth and vice of man, the decay of humanity; the fragrant flower that springs from it, for the purity and courage which are immortal.Thoreau.

The foundations of man are not in matter, but in spirit.Emerson.

The fountain which from Helicon proceeds, / That sacred stream, should never water weeds.Waller.

The fox puts off all with a jest.L’Estrange.

The fox thrives best when he is most curst.Proverb.

The fraction of life can be increased in value not so much by increasing your numerator as by lessening your denominator. Nay, unless my algebra deceives me, unity itself divided by zero will give infinity.Carlyle.

The free man is he who is loyal to the laws of this universe; who in his heart sees and knows that injustice cannot befall him here; that, except by sloth and cowardly falsity, evil is not possible here.Carlyle.

The (French) Revolution was a revolt against lies, and against a betrayal of love.Ruskin.

The fresh air of the open country is the proper place to which we belong. It is as if the breath of God were there wafted immediately to men, and a divine power exerted its influence.Goethe.

The fresh gaze of a child is richer in significance than the forecasting of the most indubitable seer.Novalis.

The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, / Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel.Hamlet, i. 3.

The frost is God’s plough, which he drives through every inch of ground, opening each clod and pulverising the whole.Fuller.

The fruit of friendship, in opening the understanding, is not restrained only to such friends as are able to give counsel (they indeed are best), but even without that a man learneth of himself, and bringeth his own thoughts to light, and whetteth his wits as against a stone, which itself cuts not.Bacon.

The fruit of life is experience, not happiness, and its fruition to accustom ourselves, and to be content, to exchange hope for insight.Schopenhauer.

The fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.St. James.

The fruit that’s yellow / Is found not always mellow.Quarles.

The full moon brings fair weather.Proverb.

The full soul loatheth a honeycomb; but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.Bible.

The furiously wicked have but a short career. Bad for them, but good for the universe.Spurgeon.

The future comes on slowly, the present flies like an arrow, the past stands for ever still.Schiller.

The future destiny of the child is always the work of the mother.Napoleon.

The future epic of the world rests not with those near dead, but with those that are alive, and those that are coming into life.Carlyle.

The future hides in it / Gladness and sorrow; / We press still thoro’; / Nought that abides in it / Daunting us—onward; / But solemn before us, / Veiled the dark portal, / Goal of all mortal. / Stars silent rest o’er us— / Graves under us, silent.Goethe.

The gain of lying is nothing else but not to be trusted of any, nor to be believed when we say the truth.Sir Walter Raleigh.

The game is not worth the candle.Corneille.

The gardener’s business is to tend the flowers and root out the weeds.Bodenstedt.

The general and perpetual voice of men is as the sentence of God himself.Hooker.

The general tendency of things throughout the world is to render mediocrity the ascendant power among mankind.J. S. Mill.

The generality never suspect the devil even when he has them by the throat.Goethe.

The generous, who is always just, and the just who is always generous, may, unannounced, approach the throne of Heaven.Lavater.

The genius of light is friendly to the noble, and, in the dark, brings them friends from afar.Emerson.

The genius, wit, and spirit of a nation are discovered by their proverbs.Bacon.

The gentle mind by gentle deeds is known.Spenser.

The genuine use of gunpowder I hold to be that it makes all men alike tall.Carlyle.

The germs of all things are in every heart.Amiel.

The getting of treasures by a lying tongue is a vanity tossed to and fro of them that seek death.Bible.

The gift blindeth the wise and perverteth the words of the righteous.Bible.

The gift of prayer is not always in our power, but in the eye of Heaven the very wish to pray is prayer.Lessing.

The gift which is to be given should be given gratuitously.Hitopadesa.

The gifted man is he who sees the essential point and leaves aside all the rest as surplusage.Carlyle.

The glass of fashion and the mould of form, / The observed of all observers.Hamlet, iii. 1.

The glory dies not, and the grief is past.Sir Egerton Brydges.

The glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time you fall.Bovee.

The glory of a people and of an age is always the work of a small number of great men, and disappears with them.Baron de Grimm.

The glory of children are their fathers.Bible.

The glory of philosophy lies not in solving the problem, but in putting it.Renan.

The glory of young men is their strength: and the beauty of old men is the grey head.Bible.

The God of merely traditional believers is the great Absentee of the universe.W. R. Alger.

The god of this world is riches, pleasure, and pride.Luther.

The God who dwells in my bosom can stir my heart to its depths.Goethe.

The goddess Athene is armed with the Gorgon’s head.James Wood.

The gods approve the depth, and not the tumult, of the soul.Wordsworth.

The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices / Make instruments to scourge us.King Lear, v. 3.

The gods are long-suffering; but the law from the beginning was, He that will not work shall perish from the earth; and the patience of the gods has limits.Carlyle.

The gods are on the side of the strongest.Emerson.

The gods are wont to save by human means.Goethe.

The gods do not avenge on the son the misdeeds of the father. Each or good or bad reaps the due reward of his own actions. Parents’ blessing, not their curse, is inherited.Goethe.

The gods hearken to him who hearkens to them.Homer.

The gods in charity oft lend their strength to man.Schiller.

The gods invariably make us pay dear for the great benefits they confer on us.Corneille.

The gods of fable are the shining moments of great men.Emerson.

The gods sell all things at a fair price.Ancient Proverb.

The gods sell to us all the goods which they give us.Epicharmus.

The gods, when they appear to man, are commonly unrecognised by them.Goethe.

The golden age hath passed away, / Only the good have power to bring it back.Goethe.

The golden age, that lovely prime, / Existed in the past no more than now. / And did it e’er exist, believe me, / As then it was, it now may be restored. / Still meet congenial spirits, and enhance / Each other’s pleasures in this beauteous world.Goethe.

The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone.George Eliot.

The good are always ready to be the upholders of the good in their misfortunes. Elephants even are wont to bear the burthens of elephants who have sunk in the mire.Hitopadesa.

The good are better made by ill, / As odours crushed are sweeter still.Rogers.

The good die first, / And they whose hearts are dry as summer dust / Burn to the socket.Wordsworth.

The good-for-nothing is he who cannot command and cannot even obey.Goethe.

The good is always beautiful, the beautiful is good.Whittier.

The good mother saith not, “Will you?” but gives.Proverb.

The good nature of the dog is not discouraged, although it often brings upon him only rebuffs; the abusive treatment of man never offends him, because he loves man.Renan.

The good need little water, but the base / Free from their guilt not ocean’s self can lave.Pythian oracle.

The good of other times let others state; / I think it lucky I was born so late.Sydney Smith.

The good old rule / Sufficeth them, the simple plan, / That they should take who have the power, / And they should keep who can.Wordsworth.

The good that passes by without returning, leaves behind it an impression that may be compared to a void, and is felt like a want.Goethe.

The good, the new, comes exactly from that quarter whence it is not looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.Feuerbach.

The good things which belong to prosperity are to be wished; but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired.Bacon, from Seneca.

The good word is an easy obligation; but not to speak ill requires only our silence, which costs us nothing. (?)