James Wood, comp. Dictionary of Quotations. 1899.
Brave men to Cattivo è quel
Brave men are brave from the very first.Corneille.
Bread at pleasure, / Drink by measure.Proverb.
Bread is the staff of life.Swift.
Breathes there the man with soul so dead, / Who never to himself hath said, / “This is my own, my native land?”Scott.
Breathe his faults so quaintly, / That they may seem the taints of liberty; / The flash and outbreak of a fiery mind.Hamlet, ii. 1.
Breed is stronger than pasture.George Eliot.
Brevet d’invention—A patent.French.
Breveté—Patented.French.
Breve tempus ætatis satis est longum ad bene honesteque vivendum—A short term on earth is long enough for a good and honourable life.Cicero.
Brevi manu—Offhand; summarily (lit. with a short hand).
Brevis a natura nobis vita data est: at memoria bene redditæ vitæ est sempiterna—A short life has been given us by Nature, but the memory of a well-spent one is eternal.Cicero.
Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio—When labouring to be concise, I become obscure.Horace.
Brevis ipsa vita est, sed longior malis—Life itself is short, but lasts longer than misfortunes.Publius Syrus.
Brevis voluptas mox doloris est parens—Short-lived pleasure is the parent of pain.Proverb.
Brevity is the body and soul of wit.Jean Paul.
Brevity is the soul of wit.Hamlet, iii. 2.
Bric-à-brac—Articles of vertu or curiosity.French.
Bricht ein Ring, so bricht die ganze Katte—A link broken, the whole chain broken.German Proverb.
Brief as the lightning in the collied night, / That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth, / And ere a man hath power to say, “Behold!” / The jaws of darkness do devour it up.Mid. N.’s Dream, i. 1.
Briefe gehören unter die wichtigsten Denkmäler die der einzelne Mensch hinterlassen kann—Letters are among the most significant memorials a man can leave behind him.Goethe.
Briller par son absence—To be conspicuous by its absence.French.
Bring down my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave.Bible.
Bring forth men-children only! / For thy undaunted mettle should compose. / Nothing but males.Macbeth, i. 7.
Broad thongs may be cut from other people’s leather.Italian Proverb.
Broken friendships may be sowthered (soldered), but never sound.Scotch Proverb.
Brouille sera à la maison si la quenouille est maîtresse—There will be disagreement in the house if the distaff holds the reins.French Proverb.
Brûler la chandelle par les deux bouts—To burn the candle at both ends.French.
Brute force holds communities together as an iron nail, if a little rusted with age, binds pieces of wood; but intelligence binds like a screw, which must be gently turned, not driven.Draper.
Brutum fulmen—A harmless thunderbolt.Latin.
Brutus, thou sleep’st; awake, and see thyself.Julius Cæsar, ii. 1.
Brutus will start a spirit as soon as Cæsar.Julius Cæsar, i. 2.
Bûche tortue fait bon feu—A crooked log makes a good fire.French Proverb.
Buen siglo haya quien dijó bolta—Blessings on him that said, Right about face!Spanish Proverb.
Buey viejo sulco derecho—An old ox makes a straight furrow.Spanish Proverb.
Buffoonery is often want of wit.La Bruyère.
Bullies are generally cowards.Proverb.
Buon cavallo non ha bisogno di sproni—Don’t spur a willing horse.Italian Proverb.
Burlaos con el loco en casa, burlará con vos en la plaza—Play with the fool in the house and he will play with you in the street.Spanish Proverb.
Burnt bairns dread the fire.Scotch Proverb.
Business dispatched is business well done, but business hurried is business ill done.Bulwer Lytton.
Busy readers are seldom good readers.Wieland.
But a bold peasantry, their country’s pride, / When once destroyed, can never be supplied.Goldsmith.
But all was false and hollow; though his tongue / Dropp’d manna, and could make the worse appear / The better reason, to perplex and dash / Maturest counsels.Milton.
But by bad courses may be understood, / That their events can never fall out good.Richard II., ii. 1.
But Cristes lore, and his apostles twelve, / He taught, but first he folwed it himselve.Chaucer.
But earthlier happy is the rose distilled, / Than that which, withering on the virgin thorn, / Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness.Mid. N.’s Dream, i. 1.
But evil is wrought by want of thought / As well as want of heart.Hood.
But facts are chiels that winna ding, / An’ douna be disputed.Burns.
But far more numerous was the herd of such / Who think too little and who talk too much.Dryden.
But for women, our life would be without help at the outset, without pleasure in its course, and without consolation at the end.Jouy.
But from the heart of Nature rolled / The burdens of the Bible old.Emerson.
But human bodies are sic fools, / For a’ their colleges and schools, / That, when nae real ills perplex them, / They make enow themsels to vex them.Burns.
But hushed be every thought that springs / From out the bitterness of things.Wordsworth.
But I am constant as the northern star, / Of whose true-fixed and resting quality, / There is no fellow in the firmament.Julius Cæsar, iii. 1.
But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve / For daws to peck at.Othello, i. 1.
But man, proud man, / Drest in a little brief authority, / Most ignorant of what he’s most assured, / His glassy essence,—like an angry ape, / Plays such fantastic tricks before high Heaven / As make the angels weep.Meas. for Meas., ii. 2.
But men may construe things after their fashion, clean from the purpose of the things themselves.Julius Cæsar, i. 3.
But men must work, and women must weep, / Though storms be sudden and waters deep, / And the harbour bar be moaning.C. Kingsley.
But mercy is above this sceptred sway; / It is enthroned in the hearts of kings, / It is an attribute to God Himself, / And earthly power doth then show likest God’s / When mercy seasons justice.Mer. of Ven., iv. 1.
But now our fates from unmomentous things / May rise like rivers out of little springs.Campbell.
But O for the touch of a vanish’d hand, / And the sound of a voice that is still.Tennyson.
But O what damned minutes tells he o’er, / Who dotes, yet doubts; suspects, yet strongly loves?Othello, iii. 3.
But pleasures are like poppies spread, / You seize the flower, its bloom is shed; / Or, like the snowfall on the river, / A moment white—then melts for ever.Burns.
But Shakespeare’s magic could not copied be; / Within that circle none durst walk but he.Dryden.
But shapes that come not at an earthly call, / Will not depart when mortal voices bid.Wordsworth.
But souls that of His own good life partake, / He loves as His own self; dear as His eye / They are to Him; He’ll never them forsake; / When they shall die, then God Himself shall die: / They live, they live in blest eternity.H. More.
But spite of all the criticising elves, / Those that would make us feel, must feel themselves.Churchill.
But there are wanderers o’er eternity, / Whose bark drives on and on, and anchor’d ne’er shall be.Byron.
But there’s nothing half so sweet in life / As love’s young dream.Moore.
But thought’s the slave of life, and life time’s fool; / And time, that takes survey of all the world, / Must have a stop.1 Henry IV., v. 4.
But to see her was to love her—love but her, and love for ever.Burns.
But truths on which depend our main concern, / That ’tis our shame and misery not to learn, / Shine by the side of every path we tread, / With such a lustre, he that runs may read.Cowper.
But war’s a game which, were their subjects wise, / Kings would not play at.Cowper.
But were I Brutus, / And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony / Would ruffle up your spirits, and put a tongue / In every wound of Cæsar, that should move / The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny.Julius Cæsar, iii. 2.
But what fate does, let fate answer for.Sheridan.
But whether on the scaffold high, / Or in the battle’s van, / The fittest place where man can die / Is where he dies for man.M. J. Barry.
But who would force the soul, tilts with a straw / Against a champion cased in adamant.Wordsworth.
But winter lingering chills the lap of May.Goldsmith.
But words are things, and a small drop of ink, / Falling, like dew, upon a thought, produces / That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.Byron.
But wouldst thou know what’s heaven? I’ll tell thee what: / Think what thou canst not think, and heaven is that.Quarles.
But yesterday the word of Cæsar might / Have stood against the world; now lies he there, / And none so poor to do him reverence.Julius Cæsar, iii. 2.
Buying is cheaper than asking.German Proverb.
Buy the truth, and sell it not.Bible.
Buy what ye dinna want, an’ ye’ll sell what ye canna spare.Scotch Proverb.
By-and-by is easily said.Hamlet, iii. 2.
By any ballot-box, Jesus Christ goes just as far as Judas Iscariot.Carlyle.
By blood a king, in heart a clown.Tennyson.
By bravely enduring it, an evil which cannot be avoided is overcome.Proverb.
By desiring little, a poor man makes himself rich.Democritus.
By dint of dining out, I run the risk of dying by starvation at home.Rousseau.
By doing nothing we learn to do ill.Proverb.
By education most have been misled.Dryden.
By experience we find out a short way by a long wandering.Roger Ascham.
By nature man hates change; seldom will he quit his old home till it has actually fallen about his ears.Carlyle.
By night an atheist half believes a God.Young.
By nothing do men more show what they are than by their appreciation of what is and what is not ridiculous.Goethe.
By others’ faults wise men correct their own.Proverb.
By persisting in your path, though you forfeit the little, you gain the great.Emerson.
By pious heroic climbing of our own, not by arguing with our poor neighbours, wandering to right and left, do we at length reach the sanctuary—the victorious summit, and see with our own eyes.Carlyle.
By pride cometh contention.Bible.
By robbing Peter he paid Paul … and hoped to catch larks if ever the heavens should fall.Rabelais.
By seeking and blundering we learn.Goethe.
By shallow rivers to whose falls / Melodious birds sing madrigals.Marlowe.
By sports like these are all their cares beguil’d, / The sports of children satisfy the child.Goldsmith.
By strength of heart the sailor fights with roaring seas.Wordsworth.
By the long practice of caricature I have lost the enjoyment of beauty: I never see a face but distorted.Hogarth to a lady who wished to learn caricature.
By three methods we may learn wisdom: first, by reflection, which is the noblest; second, by imitation, which is the easiest; and third, by experience, which is the bitterest.Confucius.
By time and counsel do the best we can: / Th’ event is never in the power of man.Herrick.
Ca’ (drive) a cow to the ha’ (hall), and she’ll rin to the byre.Scotch Proverb.
Cabin’d, cribb’d, confin’d.Macbeth, iii. 4.
Cacoëthes carpendi—An itch for fault-finding.
Cacoëthes scribendi—An itch for scribbling.
Cacoëthes loquendi—An itch for talking.
Cada cousa a seu tempo—Everything has its time.Portuguese Proverb.
Cada qual en seu officio—Every one to his trade.Portuguese Proverb.
Cada qual hablé en lo que sabe—Let every one talk of what he understands.Spanish Proverb.
Cada uno es hijo de sus obras—Every one is the son of his own works; i.e., is responsible for his own acts.Spanish Proverb.
Cadenti porrigo dextram—I extend my right hand to a falling man.Motto.
Cadit quæstio—The question drops, i.e., the point at issue needs no further discussion.Law.
Cæca invidia est, nec quidquam aliud scit quam detrectare virtutes—Envy is blind, and can only disparage the virtues of others.Livy.
Cæca regens vestigia filo—Guiding blind steps by a thread.
Cæsarem vehis, Cæsarisque fortunam—You carry Cæsar and his fortunes; fear not, therefore.Cæsar to a pilot in a storm.
Cæsar non supra grammaticos—Cæsar has no authority over the grammarians.Proverb.
Cæsar’s wife should be above suspicion.Plutarch.
Cæteris major qui melior—He who is better than others is greater.Maxim.
Cahier des charges—Conditions of a contract.French.
Ça ira—It shall go on (a French Revolution song).Ben. Franklin.
Caisse d’amortissement—Sinking fund.French.
Calamitosus est animus futuri anxius—The mind that is anxious about the future is miserable.Seneca.
Calamity is man’s true touchstone.Beaumont and Fletcher.
Calf love, half love; old love, cold love.Frisian Proverb.
Call a spade a spade.
Call him wise whose actions, words, and steps are all a clear Because to a clear Why.Lavater.
Callida junctura—Skilful arrangement.Horace.
Call me what instrument you will, though you fret me, you cannot play on me.Hamlet, iii. 2.
Call not that man wretched who, whatever ills he suffers, has a child he loves.Southey, Coleridge.
Call not the devil; he will come fast enough without.Danish Proverb.
Call your opinions your creed, and you will change it every week. Make your creed simply and broadly out of the revelation of God, and you may keep it to the end.Phillips Brooks.
Calmness of will is a sign of grandeur. The vulgar, far from hiding their will, blab their wishes, A single spark of occasion discharges the child of passions into a thousand crackers of desire.Lavater.
Calumnies are sparks which, if you do not blow them, will go out of themselves.Boerhaave.
Calumny is like the wasp which worries you; which it were best not to try to get rid of, unless you are sure of slaying it, for otherwise it will return to the charge more furious than ever.Chamfort.
Calumny will sear / Virtue itself: these shrugs, these hums and ha’s.Winter’s Tale, ii. 1.
Camelus desiderans cornua etiam aures perdidit—The camel begging for horns was deprived of his ears as well.Proverb.
Campos ubi Troja fuit—The fields where Troy once stood.Lucan.
Campus Martius—A place of military exercise (lit. field of Mars).
Canaille—The rabble.French.
Canam mihi et Musis—I will sing to myself and the Muses, i.e., if no one else will listen.Anonymous.
“Can” and “shall,” well understood, mean the same thing under this sun of ours.Carlyle.
Can anybody remember when the times were not hard and money not scarce? or when sensible men, and the right sort of men, and the right sort of women, were plentiful?Emerson.
Can ch’ abbaia non morde—A dog that barks does not bite.Italian Proverb.
Can che morde non abbaia in vano—A dog that bites does not bark in vain.Italian Proverb.
Can despots compass aught that hails their sway? / Or call with truth one span of earth their own, / Save that wherein at last they crumble bone by bone?Byron.
Candida pax homines, trux decet ira feras—Wide-robed peace becomes men, ferocious anger only wild beasts.Ovid.
Candide et caute—With candour and caution.Motto.
Candide et constanter—With candour and constancy.Motto.
Candide secure—Honesty is the best policy.Motto.
Candidus in nauta turpis color: æquoris unda / Debet et a radiis sideris esse niger—A fair complexion is a disgrace in a sailor; he ought to be tanned, from the spray of the sea and the rays of the sun.Ovid.
“Can do” is easy (easily) carried aboot.Scotch Proverb.
Candor dat viribus alas—Candour gives wings to strength.Motto.
Candour is the brightest gem of criticism.Disraeli.
Canes timidi vehementius latrant quam mordent—Cowardly dogs bark more violently than they bite.Q. Curtius.
Cane vecchio non abbaia indarno—An old dog does not bark for nothing.Italian Proverb.
Can I choose my king? I can choose my King Popinjay, and play what farce or tragedy I may with him; but he who is to be my ruler, whose will is higher than my will, was chosen for me in heaven.Carlyle.
Canina facundia—Dog (i.e., snarling) eloquence.Appius.
Canis a non canedo—Dog is called “canis,” from “non cano,” not to sing.Varro.
Canis in præsepi—The dog in the manger (that would not let the ox eat the hay which he could not eat himself).
Cannon and firearms are cruel and damnable machines. I believe them to have been the direct suggestion of the devil.Luther.
Can storied urn or animated bust / Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? / Can honour’s voice provoke the silent dust, / Or flattery soothe the dull cold ear of death?Gray.
Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas’d, / Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, / Raze out the written troubles of the brain? / And with some sweet oblivious antidote, / Cleanse the stuff’d bosom of that perilous stuff / Which weighs upon the heart?Macbeth, v. 3.
Can such things be, / And overcome us like a summer’s cloud, / Without our special wonder?Macbeth, iii. 4.
Cantabit vacuus coram latrone viator—The penniless traveller will sing in presence of the robber.Juvenal.
Can that which is the greatest virtue in philosophy, doubt, be in religion, what we priests term it, the greatest of sins?Bovee.
Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?Bible.
Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?Nathanael.
Cantilenam eandem canis—You are always singing the same tune, i.e., harping on one theme.Terence.
Cant is properly a double-distilled lie, the second power of a lie.Carlyle.
Cant is the voluntary overcharging or prolonging of a real sentiment.Hazlitt.
Can wealth give happiness? look around and see, / What gay distress! what splendid misery! / Whatever fortunes lavishly can pour, / The mind annihilates and calls for more.Young.
Can we wonder that men perish and are forgotten, when their noblest and most enduring works decay?Ausonius.
“Can you tell a plain man the plain road to heaven?”—“Surely. Turn at once to the right, then go straight forward.”Bp. Wilberforce.
Caõ que muito ladra, nunca bom para a caça—A dog that barks much is never a good hunter.Portuguese Proverb.
Capable of all kinds of devotion, and of all kinds of treason, raised to the second power, woman is at once the delight and the terror of man.Amiel.
Capacity without education is deplorable, and education without capacity is thrown away.Saadi.
Cap-à-pié—From head foot.French.
Capias—A writ to order the seizure of a defendant’s person.Law.
Capias ad respondendum—You may take him to answer your complaint.Law.
Capias ad satisfaciendum—You may take him to satisfy your claim.Law.
Capiat, qui capere possit—Let him take who can.Proverb.
Capistrum maritale—The matrimonial halter.Juvenal.
Capitis nives—The snowy locks of the head.Horace.
Capo grasso, cervello magro—Fat head, lean brains.Italian Proverb.
Captivity is the greatest of all evils that can befall man.Cervantes.
Captivity, / That comes with honour, is true liberty.Massinger.
Captum te nidore suæ putat ille culinæ—He thinks he has caught you with the savoury smell of his kitchen.Juvenal.
Caput artis est, decere quod facias—The chief thing in any art you may practise is that you do only the one you are fit for.Proverb.
Caput inter nubila condit—(Fame) hides her head amid the clouds.Virgil.
Caput mortuum—The worthless remains; a ninny.
Caput mundi—The head of the world, i.e., Rome, both ancient and modern.
Cara al mio cuor tu sei, / Ciò ch’è il sole agli occhi miei—Thou art as dear to my heart as the sun to my eyes.Italian Proverb.
Care, and not fine stables, makes a good horse.Danish Proverb.
Care is no cure, but rather a corrosive, / For things that are not to be remedied.1 Henry VI., iii. 3.
Care is taken that trees do not grow into the sky.Goethe.
Care keeps his watch in every old man’s eye, / And where care lodges, sleep will never lie.Romeo and Juliet, ii. 2.
Care killed the cat.Proverb.
Carelessness is worse than theft.Gaelic Proverb.
Careless their merits or their faults to scan, / His pity gave ere charity began.Goldsmith.
Care’s an enemy to life.Twelfth Night, i. 3.
Cares are often more difficult to throw off than sorrows; the latter die with time, the former grow with it.Jean Paul.
Care that has enter’d once into the breast, / Will have the whole possession ere it rest.Ben Jonson.
Caret—It is wanting.
Caret initio et fine—It has neither beginning nor end.
Caret periculo, qui etiam cum est tutus cavet—He is not exposed to danger who, even when in safety, is on his guard.Publius Syrus.
Care to our coffin adds a nail, no doubt, / And every grin, so merry, draws one out.Wolcot.
Care will kill a cat, but ye canna live without it.Scotch Proverb.
Carica volontario non carica—A willing burden is no burden.Italian Proverb.
Car il n’est si beau jour qui n’amène sa nuit—There is no day, however glorious, but sets in night.French.
Carior est illis homo quam sibi—Man is dearer to them (i.e., the gods) than to himself.Juvenal.
Cari sunt parentes, cari liberi, propinqui, familiares; sed omnes omnium caritates, patria una complexa est—Dear are our parents, dear our children, our relatives, and our associates, but all our affections for all these are embraced in our affection for our native land.Cicero.
Carmen perpetuum primaque origine mundi ad tempora nostra—A song for all ages, and from the first origin of the world to our own times.Transposed from Ovid.
Carmen triumphale—A song of triumph.
Carmina nil prosunt; nocuerunt carmina quondam—My rhymes are of no use; they once wrought me harm.Ovid.
Carmina spreta exolescunt; si irascare, agnita videntur—Abuse, if you slight it, will gradually die away; but if you show yourself irritated, you will be thought to have deserved it.Tacitus.
Carmine di superi placantur, carmine Manes—The gods above and the gods below are alike propitiated by song.Horace.
Carmine fit vivax virtus; expersque sepulcri, notitiam seræ posteritatis habet—By verse virtue is made immortal; and, exempt from burial, obtains the homage of remote posterity.Ovid.
Carpet knights.Burton.
Carpe diem—Make a good use of the present.Horace.
Carry on every enterprise as if all depended on the success of it.Richelieu.
Carte blanche—Unlimited power to act (lit. blank paper).Proverb.
Car tel est votre plaisir—For such is our pleasure.Proverb.
Casa hospidada, comida y denostada—A house which is filled with guests is both eaten up and spoken ill of.Spanish Proverb.
Casa mia, casa mia, per piccina che tu sia, tu mi sembri una badia—Home, dear home, small though thou be, thou art to me a palace.Italian Proverb.
Casar, casar, e que do governo?—Marry, marry, and what of the management of the house?Portuguese Proverb.
Casar, casar, soa bem, e sabe mal—Marrying sounds well, but tastes ill.Portuguese Proverb.
Cassis tutissima virtus—Virtue is the safest helmet.Motto.
Casta ad virum matrona parendo imperat—A chaste wife acquires an influence over her husband by obeying him.Labertius.
Casta moribus et integra pudore—Of chaste morals and unblemished modesty.Martial.
Cast all your cares on God; that anchor holds.Tennyson.
Cast forth thy act, thy word, into the ever-living, ever-working universe. It is a seed-grain that cannot die; unnoticed to-day, it will be found flourishing as a banyan-grove, perhaps, alas! as a hemlock forest, after a thousand years.Carlyle.
Cast him (a lucky fellow) into the Nile, and he will come up with a fish in his mouth.Arabian Proverb.
Castles in the air cost a vast deal to keep up.Bulwer Lytton.
Castor gaudet equis, ovo prognatus eodem / Pugnis—Castor delights in horses; he that sprung from the same egg, in boxing.Horace.
Castrant alios, ut libros suos, per se graciles, alieno adipe suffarciant—They castrate the books of others, that they may stuff their own naturally lean ones with their fat.Jovius.
Cast thy bread upon the waters, for thou shalt find it after many days.Bible.
Cast thy bread upon the waters; God will know of it, if the fishes do not.Eastern Proverb.
Casus belli—A cause for war; originally, fortune of war.
Casus quem sæpe transit, aliquando invenit—Misfortune will some time or other overtake him whom it has often passed by.Publius Syrus.
Casus ubique valet; semper tibi pendeat hamus. / Quo minimè credas gurgite, piscis erit—There is scope for chance everywhere; let your hook be always hanging ready. In the eddies where you least expect it, there will be a fish.Ovid.
Catalogue raisonné—A catalogue topically arranged.French.
Catch as catch can.Antiochus Epiphanes.
Catching a Tartar—i.e., an adversary too strong for one.
Catch not at the shadow and lose the substance.Proverb.
Catch, then, O catch the transient hour; / Improve each moment as it flies; / Life’s a short summer—man a flower— / He dies—alas! how soon he dies!Johnson.
Catholicism commonly softens, while Protestantism strengthens, the character; but the softness of the one often degenerates into weakness, and the strength of the other into hardness.Lecky.
Cato contra mundum—Cato against the world.
Cato esse, quam videri, bonus malebat—Cato would rather be good than seem good.Sallust.
Cattiva è quella lana, che non si può tingere—Bad is the cloth that won’t dye.Italian Proverb.
Cattivo è quel sacco che non si puo rappezzare—Bad is the sack that won’t patch.Italian Proverb.