James Wood, comp. Dictionary of Quotations. 1899.
Data fata to De profundis
Data fata secutus—Following what is decreed by fate.Motto.
Dat Deus immiti cornua curta bovi—God gives the vicious ox short horns.Proverb.
Dà tempo al tempo—Give time to time.Italian Proverb.
Date obolum Belisario—Give a mite to Belisarius!
Dat Galenus opes, dat Justinianus honores / Sed Moses sacco cogitur ire pedes—Galen gives wealth, Justinian honours, but Moses must go afoot with a beggar’s wallet.
Dat inania verba, / Dat sine mente sonum—He utters empty words; he utters sound without meaning.Virgil.
Dat veniam corvis, vexat censura columbas—He pardons the ravens, but visits with censure the doves.Juvenal.
Daub yourself with honey, and you’ll be covered with flies.Proverb.
Dauer un Wechsel—Persistence in change.Goethe.
Da veniam lacrymis—forgive these tears.
Da ventura a tu hijo, y echa lo en el mar—Give your son luck and then throw him into the sea.Spanish Proverb.
Davus sum, non Œdipus—I am a plain man, and no Œdipus (who solved the riddle of the Sphinx).Terence.
Dawted dochters mak’ dawly wives—i.e., petted daughters make slovenly wives.Scotch Proverb.
Day follows the murkiest night; and when the time comes, the latest fruits also ripen.Schiller.
Day is driven on by day, and the new moons hasten to their wane.Smart, from Horace.
Daylight will come, though the cock does not crow.Danish Proverb.
Days should speak, and multitude of years should teach wisdom.Bible.
De adel der ziel is meer waardig dan de adel des geslachts—Nobility of soul is more honourable than nobility by birth.Dutch Proverb.
Dead men open living men’s eyes.Spanish Proverb.
Dead scandals form good subjects for dissection.Byron.
De alieno largitor, et sui restrictor—Lavish of what is another’s, tenacious of his own.Cicero.
Deal mildly with his youth; / For young hot colts, being raged, do rage the more.Richard II., ii. 1.
Deal so plainly with man and woman as to constrain the utmost sincerity and destroy all hope of trifling with you.Emerson.
Dear is cheap, and cheap is dear.Portuguese Proverb.
Dear son of memory, great heir of fame.Milton on Shakespeare.
Death and life are in the power of the tongue.Bible.
Death-bed repentance is sowing seed at Martinmas.Gaelic Proverb.
Death borders upon our birth, and our cradle stands in the grave.Bp. Hall.
Death but supplies the oil for the inextinguishable lamp of life.Coleridge.
Death comes equally to us all, and makes us all equal when it comes.Donne.
Death finds us ’mid our playthings—snatches us, / As a cross nurse might do a wayward child, / From all our toys and baubles.Old Play.
Death gives us sleep, eternal youth, and immortality.Jean Paul.
Death is a black camel that kneels at every man’s door.Turkish Proverb.
Death is a commingling of eternity with time; in the death of a good man eternity is seen looking through time.Goethe.
Death is a fearful thing.Meas. for Meas., iii. 1.
Death is a friend of ours, and he who is not ready to entertain him is not at home.Bacon.
Death is but another phasis of life, which also is awful, fearful, and wonderful, reaching to heaven and hell.Carlyle.
Death is but a word to us. Our own experience alone can teach us the real meaning of the word.W. von Humboldt.
Death is but what the haughty brave, / The weak must bear, the wretch must crave.Byron.
Death is sure / To those that stay and those that roam.Tennyson.
Death is the only physician, the shadow of his valley the only journeying that will cure us of age and the gathering fatigue of years.George Eliot.
Death is the quiet haven of us all.Wordsworth.
Death is the tyrant of the imagination.Barry Cornwall.
Death is the wish of some, the relief of many, and the end of all.Seneca.
Death joins us to the great majority; / ’Tis to be borne to Platos and to Cæsars; / ’Tis to be great for ever; / ’Tis pleasure, ’tis ambition, then, to die.Young.
Death lays his icy hand on kings.Shirley.
Death levels all distinctions.
Death lies on her, like an untimely frost, / Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.Romeo and Juliet, iv. 5.
Death may expiate faults, but it does not repair them.Napoleon.
Death opens the gate of fame, and shuts the gate of envy after it.Sterne, after Bacon.
Death pays all debts.Proverb.
Death puts an end to all rivalship and competition. The dead can boast no advantage over us, nor can we triumph over them.Hazlitt.
Death rides in every passing breeze, / He lurks in every flower.Heber.
Death’s but a path that must be trod, / If man would ever pass to God.Parnell.
Death shuns the wretch who fain the blow would meet.Byron.
Death, so called, is a thing which makes men weep, / And yet a third of life is passed in sleep.Byron.
Death stands behind the young man’s back, before the old man’s face.T. Adams.
Death treads in pleasure’s footsteps round the world.Young.
Death will have his day.Richard II., iii. 2.
De auditu—By hearsay.
Debate is masculine, conversation is feminine; the former angular, the latter circular and radiant of the underlying unity.A. B. Alcott.
De beste zaak heeft nog een goed’ advocaat noodig—The best cause has need of a good pleader.Dutch Proverb.
Debetis velle quæ velimus—You ought to wish as we wish.Plautus.
De bonne grace—With good grace; willingly.French.
De bonne lutte—By fair means.French.
De bon vouloir servir le roy—To serve the king with good-will.Motto.
Debt is the worst kind of poverty.Proverb.
Debt is to a man what the serpent is to the bird; its eye fascinates, its breath poisons, its coil crushes both sinew and bone; its jaw is the pitiless grave.Bulwer Lytton.
Debts make the cheeks black.Arabian Proverb.
De calceo sollicitus, at pedem nihil curans—Anxious about the shoe, but careless about the foot.Latin Proverb.
Deceit and falsehood, whatever conveniences they may for a time promise or produce, are, in the sum of life, obstacles to happiness.Johnson.
Deceit is a game played only by small minds.Corneille.
Decency is the least of all laws, yet it is the one which is the most strictly observed.La Rochefoucauld.
Deceptio visus—Optical illusion.
Decet affectus animi neque se nimium erigere nec subjicere serviliter—We ought to allow the affections of the mind to be neither too much elated nor abjectly depressed.Cicero.
Decet imperatorem stantem mori—An emperor ought to die at his post (lit. standing).Vespasian.
Decet patriam nobis cariorem esse quam nosmetipsos—Our country ought to be dearer to us than ourselves.Cicero.
Decet verecundum esse adolescentem—It becomes a young man to be modest.Plautus.
Decies repetita placebit—Ten times repeated, it will still please.Horace.
Decipimur specie recti—We are deceived by the semblance of rectitude.Horace.
Decipit / Frons prima multos—First appearances deceive many.
Decision and perseverance are the noblest qualities of man.Goethe.
Declaring the end from the beginning, and from the ancient times the things that are not yet done.Bible.
Decori decus addit avito—He adds honour to the honour of his ancestors.Motto.
Decorum ab honesto non potest separari—Propriety cannot be sundered from what is honourable.Cicero.
De court plaisir, long repentir—A short pleasure, a long penance.French.
Decrevi—I have decreed.Motto.
Decus et tutamen—An honour and defence.Motto.
Dedecet philosophum abjicere animum—It does not beseem a philosopher to be dejected.Cicero.
De die in diem—From day to day.
Dedimus potestatem—We have given power.Law.
Dediscit animus sero quod didicit diu—The mind is slow in unlearning what it has been long learning.Seneca.
Deeds survive the doers.Horace Mann.
Deep calleth unto deep.Bible.
Deep insight will always, like Nature, ultimate its thought in a thing.Emerson.
Deep in the frozen regions of the north, / A goddess violated brought thee forth, / immortal liberty.Smollett.
Deep on his front engraven / Deliberation sat, and public care.Milton.
Deep subtle wits, / In truth, are master spirits in the world.Joanna Baillie.
Deep vengeance is the daughter of deep silence.Alfieri.
Deep vers’d in books, and shallow in himself.Milton.
De ezels dragen de haver, en de paarden eten die—Asses fetch the oats and horses eat them.Dutch Proverb.
De facto—In point of fact.
Defeat is a school in which truth always grows strong.Ward Beecher.
Defeat is nothing but education, nothing but the first step to something better.Wendell Phillips.
Defect in manners is usually the defect of fine perception.Emerson.
Defectio virium adolescentiæ vitiis efficitur sæpius quam senectutis—Loss of strength is more frequently due to the faults of youth than of old age.Cicero.
Defendit numerus junctæque umbone phalanges—Their numbers protect them and their compact array.Juvenal.
Defend me, common sense, say I, / From reveries so airy, from the toil / Of dropping buckets into empty wells, / And growing old with drawing nothing up.Cowper.
Defend me from my friends; I can defend myself from my enemies.Maréchal Villars.
Deference is the most complicate, the most indirect, and the most elegant of all compliments.Shenstone.
Defer no time; / Delays have dangerous ends.1 Henry VI., iii. 2.
Defer not the least virtue; life’s poor span / Make not an ell, by trifling in thy woe. / If thou do ill, the joy fades, not the pains; / If well, the pain doth fade, the joy remains.George Herbert.
Defer not till to-morrow to be wise, / To-morrow’s sun to thee may never rise.Congreve.
Deficiunt vires—Ability is wanting.
Defienda me Dios de my—God defend me from myself.Spanish Proverb.
Definition of words has been commonly called a mere exercise of grammarians; but when we come to consider the innumerable evils men have inflicted on each other from mistaking the meaning of words, the exercise of definition certainly begins to assume rather a more dignified aspect.Sydney Smith.
Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time / Into this breathing world, scarce half made up, / And that so lamely and unfashionable, / That dogs bark at me as I halt by them.Richard III., i. 1.
Deformity is daring; it is its essence to overtake mankind by heart and soul, and make itself the equal, ay, the superior of the rest.Byron.
De fumo in flammam—Out of the frying-pan into the fire.Proverb.
Dégagé—Free and unrestrained.French.
De gaieté de cœur—In gaiety of heart; sportively; wantonly.French.
Degeneres animos timor arguit—Fear is proof of a low-born soul.Virgil.
Degli uomini si può dire questo generalmente che sieno ingrate, volubili simulatori, fuggitori pericoli, cupidi di guadagno—Of mankind we may say in general that they are ungrateful, fickle, hypocritical, intent on a whole skin and greedy of gain.Machiavelli.
Degrees infinite of lustre there must always be, but the weakest among us has a gift, however seemingly trivial, which is peculiar to him, and which, worthily used, will be a gift also to his race for ever.Ruskin.
De gustibus non disputandum—There is no disputing about tastes.
De hambre a nadie vi morir, de mucho comer a cien mil—I never saw a man die of hunger, but thousands die of overfeeding.Spanish Proverb.
De haute lutte—By main force.French.
De hoc multi multa, omnes aliquid, nemo satis—Of this many have said many things, all something, no one enough.
Dei gratia—By the grace of God.
Dei jussu non unquam credita Teneris—Fated she (i.e., Cassandra) never to be believed by her Trojan countrymen.Virgil.
Deil stick pride, for my dog deed o’d.Scotch Proverb.
Deil tak’ the hin’most! on they drive, / Till a’ their weel-swall’d kytes belyve / Are bent like drums, / And auld guid man maist like to rive / “Bethankit” hums.Burns.
Dein Auge kann die Welt trüb’ oder hell dir machen; / Wie du sie ansiehst, wird sie weinen oder lachen—Thy eye can make the world dark or bright for thee; as thou look’st on it, it will weep or laugh.Rückert.
De industria—Purposely.
De integro—Over again; anew.
[Greek]—We must bear what the gods lay on us.
Dei plena sunt omnia—All things are full of God.Cicero.
Déjeûner à la fourchette—A meat breakfast.French.
De jure—By right.
De kleine dieven hangt men, de groote laat men loopen—We hang little thieves and let great ones off.Dutch Proverb.
Del agua mansa me libre Dios; que de la recia me guardaré yo—From smooth water God guard me; from rough, I can guard myself.Spanish Proverb.
De lana caprina—About goat’s wool, i.e., a worthless matter.
Delay has always been injurious to those who are ready.Lucan.
Delay in vengeance gives a heavier blow.J. Ford.
Delay of justice is injustice.Landor.
Delectando pariterque monendo—By pleasing as well as instructing.Horace.
Delenda est Carthago—Carthage must be destroyed.Cato Major.
Del giudizio, ognun ne vende—Of judgment every one has some to sell.Italian Proverb.
Deliberando sæpe perit occasio—An opportunity is often lost through deliberation.Publius Syrus.
Deliberandum est diu quod statuendum est semel—We must take time for deliberation, where we have to determine once for all.Publius Syrus.
Deliberate treachery entails punishment upon the traitor.Junius.
Deliberate with caution, but act with decision; and yield with graciousness or oppose with firmness.Colton.
Deliberat Roma, perit Saguntum—While Rome deliberates, Saguntum perishes.Proverb.
Delicacy is to the affections what grace is to the beauty.Degerando.
Delicacy of taste has the same effect as delicacy of passion; it enlarges the sphere both of our happiness and misery, and makes us sensible to pain as well as pleasures, which escape the rest of mankind.Hume.
Deliciæ illepidæ atque inelegantes—Unmannerly and inelegant pleasures.Catullus.
Deligas tantum quem diligas—Choose only him whom you love.
Delightful task! to rear the tender thought, / To teach the young idea how to shoot.Thomson.
Deliramenta doctrinæ—The crazy absurdities of learned men.Law.
Delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi—Whatsoever devilry kings do, the Greeks must pay the piper.Horace.
Deliriums are dreams not rounded with a sleep.Jean Paul.
Deliverer, God hath appointed thee to free the oppressed and crush the oppressor.Bryant.
Dell’ albero non si giudica dalla scorza—You can’t judge of a tree by its bark.Italian Proverb.
De loin c’est quelque chose, et de près ce n’est rien—At a distance it is something, at hand nothing.La Fontaine.
Delphinum sylvis appingit, fluctibus aprum—He paints a porpoise in the woods, a boar amidst the waves.Horace.
De lunatico inquirendo—To inquire into a man’s state of mind.
Delusion and weakness produce not one mischief the less because they are universal.Burke.
Delusion may triumph, but the triumphs of delusion are but for a day.Macaulay.
Delusions are as necessary to our happiness as realities.Bovee.
Delusive ideas are the motives of the greatest part of mankind, and a heated imagination the power by which their actions are incited. The world in the eye of a philosopher may be said to be a large madhouse.Mackenzie.
Del vero s’adira l’uomo—It is the truth that irritates a man.Italian Proverb.
De mal en pis—From bad to worse.French.
De male quæsitis vix gaudet tertius hæres—A third heir seldom enjoys what is dishonestly acquired.Juvenal.
Demean thyself more warily in thy study than in the street. If thy public actions have a hundred witnesses, thy private have a thousand.Quarles.
De medietate linguæ—Of a moiety of languages, i.e., foreign jurymen.Law.
Dem Esel träumet von Disteln—When the ass dreams, it is of thistles.German Proverb.
Dem Glücklichen schlägt keine Stunde—When a man is happy he does not hear the clock strike.German Proverb.
Dem harten Muss bequemt sich Will’ und Grille—To hard necessity one’s will and fancy (must) conform.Goethe.
Dem Herlichsten, was auch der Geist empfangen, drängt Stoff sich an—Matter presses heavily on the noblest efforts of the spirit.Goethe, in “Faust.”
Dem Hunde, wenn er gut gezogen / Wird selbst ein weiser Mann gewogen—Even a wise man will attach himself to the dog when he is well bred.Goethe.
De minimis non curat lex—The law takes no notice of trifles.Law.
Dem Menschen ist / Ein Mensch noch immer lieber als ein Engel—A man is ever dearer to man than an angel.Lessing.
Democracies are prone to war, and war consumes them.W. H. Seward.
Democracy has done a wrong to everything that is not first-rate.Amiel.
Democracy is always the work of kings. Ashes, which in themselves are sterile, fertilise the land they are cast upon.Landor.
Democracy is, by the nature of it, a self-cancelling business, and gives in the long-run a net result of zero.Carlyle.
Democracy is the healthful life-blood which circulates through the veins and arteries, which supports the system, but which ought never to appear externally, and as the mere blood itself.Coleridge.
Democracy is the most powerful solvent of military organisation. The latter is founded on discipline; the former on the negation of discipline.Renan.
De monte alto—From a lofty mountain.Motto.
De mortuis nil nisi bonum (or bene)—Let nothing be said of the dead but what is favourable.
De motu proprio—From the suggestion of one’s own mind; spontaneously.
Dem thätigen Menschen kommt es darauf an, dass er das Rechte thue; ob das Rechte geschehe, soll ihn nicht kümmern—With the man of action the chief concern is that he do the right thing; the success of that ought not to trouble him.Goethe.
Den Bösen sind sie los; die Bösen sind geblieben—They are rid of the Wicked One, (but) the wicked are still there.Goethe.
De nihilo nihil, in nihilum nil posse reverti—From nothing is nothing, and nothing can be reduced to nothing.
Denique non omnes eadem mirantur amantque—All men do not admire and love the same things.Horace.
Den Irrthum zu bekennen, schändet nicht—It is no disgrace to acknowledge an error.R. Gutzkov.
Denken und Thun, Thun und Denken, das ist die Summe aller Weisheit von jeher anerkannt, von jeher geübt, nicht eingesehen von einem jeden—To think and act, to act and think, this is the sum of all the wisdom that has from the first been acknowledged and practised, though not understood by every one, i.e., (as added) the one must continually act and react on the other, like exhaling and inhaling, must correspond as question and answer.Goethe.
Denke nur niemand, dass man auf ihn als den Heiland gewartet habe—Let no one imagine that he is the man the world has been waiting for as its deliverer.Goethe.
Den leeren Schlauch bläst der Wind auf, / Den leeren Kopf der Dünkel—The empty bag is blown up with wind, the empty head with self-conceit.Claudius.
Den Mantel nach dem Winde kehren—To trim one’s sails (lit. to turn one’s cloak) to the wind.German Proverb.
Den Menschen Liebe, den Göttern Ehrfurcht—To men, affection; to gods, reverence.Grillparzer.
Denn geschwätzig sind die Zeiten, / Und sie sind auch wieder stumm—For the times are babbly, and then again the times are dumb.Goethe.
De non apparentibus, et non existentibus, eadem est ratio—Things which do not appear are to be treated as the same as those which do not exist.Coke.
De novo—Anew.
Den Profit som kom seent, er bedre end aldeles ingen—The profit which comes late is better than none at all.E. H. Vessel.
Den rechten Weg wirst nie vermissen, / Handle nur nach Gefühl und Gewissen—Wilt thou never miss the right way, thou hast only to act according to thy feeling and conscience.Goethe.
Den schlecten Mann muss man verachten / Der nie bedacht was er vollbringt—We must spurn him as a worthless man who never applies his brains to what he is working at.Schiller.
Dens theonina—A calumniating disposition (lit. tooth).
Deo adjuvante non timendum—God assisting, there is nothing to be feared.
Deoch an doris—The parting cup.Gaelic.
Deo dante nil nocet invidia, et non dante, nil proficit labor—When God gives, envy injures us not; when He does not give, labour avails not.
Deo date—Give unto God.Motto.
Deo duce, ferro comitante—God my guide, my sword my companion.Motto.
Deo duce, fortuna comitante—God for guide, fortune for companion.Motto.
Deo ducente—God guiding.Motto.
Deo favente—With God’s favour.
Deo fidelis et regi—Faithful to God and the king.Motto.
Deo gratias—Thanks to God.
Deo honor et gloria—To God the honour and glory.Motto.
Deo ignoto—To the unknown God.
Deo juvante—With God’s help.
De omnibus rebus, et quibusdam aliis—About everything, and certain things else.
De omni re scibile et quibusdam aliis—On everything knowable and some other matters.
Deo, non fortuna—From God, not fortune.Motto.
Deo, optimo maximo—To God, the best and greatest.Motto.
Deo, patriæ, amicis—For God, country, and friends.Motto.
Deo, regi, patriæ—To God, king, and country.Motto.
Deo, regi, vicino—For God, king, and our neighbour.Motto.
Deo, reipublicæ, amicis—To God, the state, and friends.Motto.
Deorum cibus est—A feast fit for the gods.
De oui et non vient toute question—All disputation comes out of “Yes” and “No.”French Proverb.
Deo volente—With God’s will.
Depart from the highway and transplant thyself in some enclosed ground; for it is hard for a tree that stands by the wayside to keep her fruit till it be ripe.St. Chrysostom.
De paupertate tacentes / Plus poscente ferent—Those who say nothing of their poverty fare better than those who beg.Horace.
De’ peccati de’ signori fanno penitenza i poveri—The poor do penance for the sins of the rich.Italian Proverb.
Dependence goes somewhat against the grain of a generous mind; and it is no wonder, considering the unreasonable advantage which is often taken of the inequality of fortune.Jeremy Collier.
Dependence is a perpetual call upon humanity, and a greater incitement to tenderness and pity than any other motive whatsoever.Addison.
Depend upon it, if a man talks of his misfortunes, there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him.Johnson.
De pilo, or de filo, pendet—It hangs by a hair.Proverb.
De pis en pis—From worse to worse.French.
De plano—With ease.
De præscientia Dei—Of the foreknowledge of God.
Deprendi miserum est—To be caught is a wretched experience.
Depressus extollor—Having been depressed, I am exalted.Motto.
De profundis—Out of the depths.