James Wood, comp. Dictionary of Quotations. 1899.
Frost and fraud to Genug ist über
Frost and fraud both end in foul.Proverb.
Frost is God’s plough.Fuller.
Fructu non foliis arborem æstima—Judge of a tree from its fruit, not from its leaves.Phædrus.
Frugality, and even avarice, in the lower orders of mankind are true ambition. These afford the only ladder for the poor to rise to preferment.Goldsmith.
Frugality is an estate.Proverb.
Frugality is founded on the principle that all riches have limits.Burke.
Frugality is good, if liberality be joined with it.William Penn.
Frugality may be termed the daughter of prudence, the sister of temperance, and the parent of liberty.Johnson.
Fruges consumere nati—Born merely to consume the fruits of the earth.Horace.
Frühe Hochzeit, lange Liebe—Early marriage, long love.German Proverb.
Fruit is seed.Proverb.
Frustra fit per plura, quod fieri potest per paucora—It is vain to do by many agencies what may be done by few.
Frustra Herculi—In vain to speak against Hercules.Proverb.
Frustra laborat qui omnibus placere studet—He labours in vain who studies to please everybody.Proverb.
Frustra retinacula tendens / Ferter equis auriga, neque audit currus habenas—In vain as he tugs at the reins is the charioteer borne along by the steeds, and the chariot heeds not the curb.Virgil.
Frustra vitium vitaveris illud, / Si te alio pravus detorseris—In vain do you avoid one fault if you perversely turn aside into another.Horace.
Fugam fecit—He has taken to flight.Law.
Fuge magna; licet sub paupere tecto / Reges et regum vita præcurrere amicos—Shun grandeur; under a poor roof you may surpass even kings and the friends of kings in your life.Horace.
Fugere est triumphus—Flight (i.e., from temptation) is a triumph.Proverb.
Fugit improbus, ac me / Sub cultro linquit—The wag runs away and leaves me with the knife at my throat, i.e., to be sacrificed.Horace.
Fugit irreparabile tempus—Time flies, never to be repaired.Virgil.
Fühlst du dein Herz durch Hass von Menschen wegetrieben— / Thu’ ihnen Gutes! schnell wirst du sie wieder lieben—Shouldst thou feel thy heart repelled from men through hatred, do thou them good, soon shall thy love for them revive in thee.B. Paoli.
Fuimus—We have been.Motto.
Fuimus Troes, fuit Ilium, et ingens / Gloria Teucrorum—We Trojans are no more; Ilium is no more, and the great renown of the Teucri.Virgil.
Fuit hæc sapientia quondam, / Publica privatis secernere, sacra profanis, / Concubitu prohibere vago, dare jura maritis, / Oppida moliri, leges incidere ligno—This of old was accounted wisdom, to separate public from private property, things sacred from profane, to restrain from vagrant concubinage, to ordain laws for married people, to build cities, to engrave laws on tablets.Horace.
Fuit Ilium—Troy was.
Fules are aye fond o’ flittin’.Scotch Proverb.
Fulgente trahit constrictos gloria curru, / Non minus ignotos generosis—Glory draws all bound to her shining car, low-born and high-born alike.Horace.
Full little knowest thou that hast not tried / What hell it is in suing long to bide; / To lose good days that might be better spent, / To waste long nights in pensive discontent.Spenser.
Full many a day for ever is lost / By delaying its work till to-morrow; / The minutes of sloth have often cost / Long years of bootless sorrow.Eliza Cook.
Full many a gem of purest ray serene / The dark unfathom’d caves of ocean bear; / Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, / And waste its sweetness on the desert air.Gray.
Full many a stoic eye and aspect stern / Masks hearts where grief has little left to learn; / And many a withering thought lies hid, not lost, / In smiles that least befit who wears them most.Byron.
Full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing.Macbeth, v. 5.
Full oft have letters caused the writers / To curse the day they were inditers.Butler.
Full of wise saws and modern instances.As You Like It, ii. 7.
Full seldom doth a man repent, or use / Both grace and will to pick the vicious quitch / Of blood and custom wholly out of him, / And make all clean, and plant himself afresh.Tennyson.
Full twenty times was Peter fear’d / For once that Peter was respected.Wordsworth.
Full vessels give the least sound.Proverb.
Full wise is he that can himselven knowe.Chaucer.
Fully to possess and rule an object, one must first study it for its own sake.Goethe.
Fumos vendere—To sell smoke.Martial.
Fumum, et opes, strepitumque Romæ—The smoke, the wealth, and din of the town.Juvenal.
Functus officio—Having discharged his duties and resigned.
Fundamentum est justitiæ fides—The foundation of justice is good faith.Cicero.
Fungar vice cotis, acutum / Reddere quæ ferrum valet, exsors ipsa secandi—I will discharge the office of a whetstone, which can give an edge to iron, though it cannot cut itself.Horace.
Fürchterlich / Ist einer der nichts zu verlieren hat—Terrible is a man who has nothing to lose.Goethe.
Für den Dialektiker ist die Welt ein Begriff, fur den Schöngeist ein Bild, für den Schwärmer ein Traum, für den Forscher Wahrheit—For the thinker the world is a thought; for the wit, an image; for the enthusiast, a dream; for the inquirer, truth.L. Büchner.
Für eine Nation ist nur das gut was aus ihrem eignen Kern und ihrem eignen allegmeinen Bedürfniss hervorgegangen, ohne Nachäffung einer andern—Only that is good for a nation which issues from its own heart’s core and its own general wants, without apish imitation of another; since (it is added) what may to one people, at a certain stage, be wholesome nutriment, may perhaps prove a poison for another.Goethe.
Für einen Leichnam bin ich nicht zu Haus; / Mir geht es wie der Katze mit der Maus—For a dead one I am not at home; I am like the cat with the mouse.Goethe’s Mephistopheles.
Für ewig ist ja nicht gestorben, was man für diese Welt begräbt—What is buried for this world is not for ever dead.K. v. Holtei.
Für Gerechte giebt es keine Gesetze—There are no laws for just men.German Proverb.
Furiosus absentis loco est—A madman is treated as one absent.Coke.
Furiosus furore suo punitur—A madman is punished by his own madness.Law.
Furor arma ministrat—Their rage finds them arms.Virgil.
Furor fit læsa sæpius patientia—Patience, when outraged often, is converted into rage.Proverb.
Furor iraque mentem præcipitant—Rage and anger hurry on the mind.Virgil.
Furor loquendi—A rage for speaking.
Furor poëticus—The poet’s frenzy.
Furor scribendi—A rage for writing.
Für seinen König muss das Volk sich opfern, / Das ist das Schicksal und das Gesetz der Welt—For its chief must the clan sacrifice itself; that is the destiny and law of the world.Schiller.
Fürst Bismarck glaubt uns zu haben, und wir haben ihn—Prince Bismarck thinks he has us, and we have him.Socialist organ.
Fürsten haben lange Hände und viele Ohren—Princes have long hands and many ears.German Proverb.
Further I will not flatter you, / That all I see in you is worthy love, / Than this; that nothing do I see in you / That should merit hate.King John, ii. 2.
Fury wasteth, as patience lasteth.Proverb.
Futurity is impregnable to mortal kin; no prayer pierces through heaven’s adamantine walls.Schiller.
Futurity is the great concern of mankind.Burke.
Futurity still shortens, and time present sucks in time to come.Sir Thomas Browne.
Fuyez les procés sur toutes les choses, la conscience s’y intéresse, la santé s’y altère, les biens s’y dissipent—Avoid lawsuits beyond all things; they pervert conscience, impair your health, and dissipate your property.La Bruyère.
Gäb es keine Narren, so gäb es keine Weisen—Were there no fools, there would be no wise men.German Proverb.
Gaieté de cœur—Gaiety of heart.French.
Gaiety is often the reckless ripple over depths of despair.Chapin.
Gaiety is the soul’s health; sadness is its poison.Stanislaus.
Gaiety overpowers weak spirits; good-humour recreates and revives them.Johnson.
Gaiety pleases more when we are assured that it does not cover carelessness.Madame de Staël.
Gain at the expense of reputation should be called loss.Publius Syrus.
’Gainst the tooth of time / And rasure of oblivion.Meas. for Meas., v. 1.
Galea spes salutis—Hope is the helmet of salvation.Motto.
Galeatum sero duelli pœnitet—After donning the helmet it is too late to repent of war, i.e., after enlistment.Juvenal.
Gallantry thrives most in a court atmosphere.Mme. Necker.
Gallicè—In French.
Gallus in sterquilinio suo plurimum potest—The cock is proudest on his own dunghill.Proverb.
Gambling is the child of avarice, but the parent of prodigality.Colton.
Gambling with cards, or dice, or stocks, is all one thing; it is getting money without giving an equivalent for it.Ward Beecher.
Game is a civil gunpowder, in peace / Blowing up houses with their whole increase.Herbert.
[Greek]—He who is about to marry is on the way to repentance.Greek Proverb.
Games of chance are traps to catch school-boy novices and gaping country squires, who begin with a guinea and end with a mortgage.Cumberland.
Gaming finds a man a cully and leaves him a knave.T. Hughes.
Gaming has been resorted to by the affluent as a refuge from ennui; it is a mental dram, and may succeed for a moment, but, like other stimuli, it produces indirect debility.Colton.
Gaming is the destruction of all decorum; the prince forgets at it his dignity, and the lady her modesty.Marchioness d’Alembert.
Gammel Mands Sagn er sielden usand—An old man’s sayings are rarely untrue.Danish Proverb.
[Greek]—Marriage is an evil men are eager to embrace.Mencius.
Gang to bed wi’ the lamb and rise wi’ the laverock (lark).Scotch Proverb.
Garçon—A boy; a waiter.French.
Garde à cheval—Horse-guards; mounted guard.French.
Garde à pied—Foot-guards.French.
Garde à vous—Attention.French.
Garde-chasse—Gamekeeper.French.
Garde du corps—A bodyguard.French.
Garde-feu—A fire-guard.French.
Garde-fou—A hand-rail.French.
Gardez—Keep it.French.
Gardez bien—Take care.French.
Gardez cela pour la bonne bouche—Keep that for a tit-bit.French Proverb.
Gardez la fol—Guard the faith.Motto.
Garments that have once a rent in them are subject to be torn on every nail, and glasses that are once cracked are soon broken; such is a good man’s name once tainted with just reproach.Bp. Hall.
Garrit aniles / Ex re fabellas—He relates old women’s tales very apropos.Horace.
Gar Vieles lernt man, um es wieder zu vergessen; / Um an den Ziel zu stehen, muss man die Bahn durchmessen—Much we learn only to forget it again; to stand by the goal, we must traverse all the way to it.Rückert.
Gâteau et mauvaise coutume se doivent rompre—A cake and a bad custom are fated to be broken.French Proverb.
Gâter une chandelle pour trouver une épingle—To waste a candle to find a pin.French Proverb.
Gather gear by every wile that’s justified by honour; / Not for to hide it in a hedge, nor for a train attendant; / But for the glorious privilege of being independent.Burns.
Gather the rosebuds while ye may, / Old Time is still a-flying, / And this same flower that smiles to-day, / To-morrow will be dying.Herrick.
Gathering gear (wealth) is pleasant pain.Scotch Proverb.
Gathering her brows like gathering storm, / Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.Burns.
Gato maullador nunca buen cazador—A mewing cat is never a good mouser.Spanish Proverb.
Gaude, Maria Virgo—Rejoice, Virgin Mary.
Gaudeamus—Let us have a joyful time.
Gaudent prænomine molles / Auriculæ—His delicate ears are delighted with a title.Horace.
Gaudet equis, canibusque, et aprici gramine campi—He delights in horses, and dogs, and the grass of the sunny plain.Horace.
Gaudet tentamine virtus—Virtue rejoices in being put to the test.
Gaudetque viam fecisse ruina—He rejoices at having made his way by ruin.Lucan, of Julius Cæsar.
Gave / His body to that pleasant country’s earth, / And his pure soul unto his captain Christ, / Under whose colours he had fought so long.Richard II., iv. i.
Gay hope is theirs by fancy fed, / Less pleasing when possest; / The tear forgot as soon as shed, / The sunshine of the breast.Gray.
Gear is easier gained than guided.Proverb.
Geben ist Sache des Reichen—Giving is the business of the rich.Goethe.
Gebrade duijven vliegen niet door de lucht—Roasted pigeons don’t fly through the air.Dutch Proverb.
Gebratene Tauben, die einem im Maul fliegen?—Do pigeons fly ready-roasted into one’s mouth?German Proverb.
Gebraucht der Zeit, sie geht so schell von hinnen, / Doch Ordnung lehrt euch Zeit gewinnen—Make the most of time, it glides away so fast; but order teaches you to gain time.Goethe.
Gebt ihr ein Stück, se gebt es gleich in Stücken—If your aim is to give a piece, be sure you give it in pieces.Goethe.
Gedanken sind zollfrei, aber nicht höllenfrei—Thoughts are toll-free, but not hell-free.German Proverb.
Gedenke zu leben—Think of living.Goethe.
Gedichte sind gemalde Fensterscheiben—Poems are painted window-panes, i.e., when genuine, they transmit heaven’s light through a contracted medium coloured by human feeling and fantasy.Goethe.
Gedult gaat boven geleerdheid—Patience excels learning.Dutch Proverb.
Gedwongen liefde vergaat haast—Love that is forced does not last.Dutch Proverb.
Geese are plucked as long as they have any feathers.Dutch Proverb.
Gefährlich ist’s, den Leu zu wecken, / Verderblich ist des Tigers Zahn; / Jedoch der schrecklichste der Schrecken, / Das ist der Mensch in seinem Wahn—Dangerous it is to rouse the lion, fatal is the tiger’s tooth, but the most frightful of terrors is man in his self-delusion.Schiller.
Gefährlich ist’s ein Mordgewehr zu tragen / Und auf den Schützen springt der Pfeil zurück—It is dangerous to carry a murderous weapon, and the arrow rebounds on the archer.Schiller.
Gefährlich ist’s mit Geistern sich gesellen—To fraternise with spirits is a dangerous game.Goethe.
Gefährte munter kürzt die Meilen—Lively companionship shortens the miles.German Proverb.
Gefühl ist alles; / Name ist Schall und Rauch / Umnebelnd Himmelsglut—Feeling is all; name is sound and smoke veiling heaven’s splendour.Goethe.
Gegen grosse Vorzüge eines andern giebt es kein Rettungsmittel als die Liebe—To countervail the inequalities arising from the great superiority of one over another there is no specific but love.Goethe.
Gegner glauben uns widerlegen, wenn sie ihre Meinung wieder holen und auf die unsrige nicht achten—Our adversaries think they confute us by repeating their own opinion and paying no heed to ours.Goethe.
Geheimnissvoll am lichten Tag / Lässt sich Natur des Schleiers nicht berauben, / Und was sie deinem Geist nicht offenbaren mag, / Das zwingst du ihr nicht ab mit Hebeln und mit Schrauben—In broad daylight inscrutable, Nature does not suffer her veil to be taken from her, and what she does not choose to reveal to the spirit, thou wilt not wrest from her by levers and screws.Goethe.
Geld beheert de wereld. Money rules the world.Dutch Proverb.
Geld est der Mann—Money makes (lit. is) the man.German Proverb.
Geld im Beutel vertreibt die Schwermuth—Money in the purse drives away melancholy.German Proverb.
Gelegenheit macht den Dieb—Opportunity makes the thief.German Proverb.
Gelehrte Dummkopf—A learned blockhead; dry-as-dust.
[Greek]—Ill-timed laughter in men is a grievous evil.Mencius.
Gemeen goed, geen goed—Common goods, no goods.Dutch Proverb.
Gemsen steigen hoch und werden doch gefangen—The chamois climb high, and yet are caught.German Proverb.
General abstract truth is the most precious of all blessings; without it man is blind; it is the eye of reason.Rousseau.
General infidelity is the hardest soil which the propagators of a new religion can have to work upon.Paley.
General suffering is the fruit of general misbehaviour, general dishonesty.Carlyle.
General truths are seldom applied to particular occasions.Johnson.
Generally all warlike people are a little idle, and love danger better than travail.Bacon.
Generally speaking, an author’s style is a faithful copy of his mind. If you would write a lucid style, let there first be light in your own mind; and if you would write a grand style, you ought to have a grand character.Goethe.
Generations are as the days of toilsome mankind; death and birth are the vesper and the matin bells that summon mankind to sleep, and to rise refreshed for new advancement.Carlyle.
Generosity during life is a very different thing from generosity in the hour of death; one proceeds from genuine liberality and benevolence, the other from pride or fear.Horace Mann.
Generosity is catching: and if so many escape it, it is somewhat for the same reason that countrymen escape the small-pox—because they meet with no one to give it to them.Lord Greville.
Generosity is the flower of justice.Hawthorne.
Generosity is the part of the soul raised above the vulgar.Goldsmith.
Generosity should never exceed ability.Cicero.
Generosity, wrong placed, becomes a vice. A princely mind will undo a private family.Fuller.
Generous souls are still most subject to credulity.Sir W. Davenant.
Geniesse, wenn du kannst und leide, wenn du musst, / Vergiss den Schmerz, erfrische das Vergnügen—Enjoy if thou canst, endure if thou must; / forget the pain and revive the pleasure.Goethe.
Genius and virtue, like diamonds, are best plain set.Emerson.
Genius always gives its best at first, prudence at last.Lavater.
Genius begins great works, labour alone finishes them.Joubert.
Genius believes its faintest presentiment against the testimony of all history, for it knows that facts are not ultimates, but that a state of mind is the ancestor of everything.Emerson.
Genius borrows nobly.Emerson.
Genius can never despise labour.Abel Stevens.
Genius cannot escape the taint of its time more than a child the influence of its begetting.Ouida.
Genius can only breathe freely in an atmosphere of freedom.J. S. Mill.
Genius counts all its miracles poor and short.Emerson.
Genius does not need a special language; it newly uses whatever tongue it finds.Stedman.
Genius does what it must, and talent does what it can.Owen Meredith.
Genius easily hews out its figure from the block, but the sleepless chisel gives it life.Willmott.
Genius, even as it is the greatest good, is the greatest harm.Emerson.
Genius ever stands with nature in solemn union, and what the one foretells the other will fulfil.Schiller.
Genius finds its own road and carries its own lamp.Willmott.
Genius grafted on womanhood is like to overgrow it and break its stem.Holmes.
Genius has privileges of its own; it selects an orbit for itself; and be this never so eccentric, if it is indeed a celestial orbit, we mere star-gazers must at last compose ourselves, must cease to cavil at it, and begin to observe it and calculate its laws.Carlyle.
Genius in poverty is never feared, because Nature, though liberal in her gifts in one instance, is forgetful in another.B. R. Haydon.
Genius invents fine manners, which the baron and the baroness copy very fast, and, by the advantage of a palace, better the instruction. They stereotype the lesson they have learned into a mode.Emerson.
Genius is always ascetic, and piety and love.Emerson.
Genius is always a surprise, but it is born with great advantages when the stock from which it springs has been long under cultivation.Holmes.
Genius is always consistent when most audacious.Stedman.
Genius is always impatient of its harness; its wild blood makes it hard to train.Holmes.
Genius is always more suggestive than expressive.Abel Stevens.
Genius is always sufficiently the enemy of genius by over-influence.Emerson.
Genius is a nervous disease.De Tours.
Genius is ever a secret to itself.Carlyle.
Genius is ever the greatest mystery to itself.Schiller.
Genius is inconsiderate, self-relying, and, like unconscious beauty, without any intention to please.I. M. Wise.
Genius is intensity of life; an overflowing vitality which floods and fertilises a continent or a hemisphere of being; which makes a nature many-sided and whole, while most men remain partial and fragmentary.H. W. Mabie.
Genius is lonely without the surrounding presence of a people to inspire it.T. W. Higginson.
Genius is mainly an affair of energy.Matthew Arnold.
Genius is not a single power, but a combination of great powers. It reasons, but it is not reasoning; it judges, but it is not judgment; imagines, but it is not imagination; it feels deeply and fiercely, but it is not passion. It is neither, because it is all.Whipple.
Genius is nothing but a great capacity for patience.Buffon.
Genius is nothing but labour and diligence.Hogarth.
Genius is nothing more than our common faculties refined to a greater intensity.Haydon.
Genius is nothing more than the effort of the idea to assume a definite form.Fichte.
Genius is nourished from within and without.Willmott.
Genius is only as rich as it is generous.Thoreau.
Genius is religious.Emerson.
Genius is that in whose power a man is.Lowell.
Genius is that power of man which by its deeds and actions gives laws and rules; and it does not, as used to be thought, manifest itself only by over-stepping existing laws, breaking established rules, and declaring itself above all restraint.Goethe.
Genius is the gold in the mine; talent is the miner who works and brings it out.Lady Blessington.
Genius is the power of carrying the feelings of childhood into the powers of manhood.Coleridge.
Genius is the transcendent capacity of taking trouble first of all.Carlyle.
Genius is the very eye of intellect and the wing of thought; it is always in advance of its time, and is the pioneer for the generation which it precedes.Simms.
Genius is to other gifts what the carbuncle is to the precious stones. It sends forth its own light, whereas other stones only reflect borrowed light.Schopenhauer.
Genius loci—The presiding genius of the place.
Genius makes its observations in shorthand; talent writes them out at length.Bovee.
Genius may at times want the spur, but it stands as often in need of the curb.Longinus.
Genius melts many ages into one…. A work of genius is but the newspaper of a century, or perchance of a hundred centuries.Hawthorne.
Genius must be born, and never can be taught.Dryden.
Genius of a kind is necessary to make a fortune, and especially a large one.La Bruyère.
Genius only commands recognition when it has created the taste which is to appreciate it.Froude.
Genius only leaves behind it the monuments of its strength.Hazlitt.
Genius should be the child of genius, and every child should be inspired.Emerson.
Genius, the Pythian of the beautiful, leaves its large truths a riddle to the dull.Bulwer Lytton.
Genius unexerted is no more genius than a bushel of acorns is a forest of oaks.Beecher.
Genius will reconcile men to much.Carlyle.
Genius works in sport, and goodness smiles to the last.Emerson.
Gens d’armes—Armed police.French.
Gens de bureau—Officials in a government office.French.
Gens de condition—People of rank.French.
Gens d’église—Churchmen.French.
Gens de guerre—Soldiers.French.
Gens de langues—Linguists.French.
Gens de lettres—Literary people.French.
Gens de lois—lawyers.French.
Gens de même famille—Birds of a feather.French.
Gens de peu—The lower classes.French.
Gens togata—The nation with the toga, i.e., the Roman.
Gentility is nothing else but ancient riches.Lord Burleigh.
Gentility without ability is waur (worse) than plain begging.Scotch Proverb.
Gentle passions brighten the horizon of our existence, move without wearying, warm without consuming, and are the badges of true strength.Feuchtersleben.
Gentle words, quiet words, are, after all, the most powerful words. They are more convincing, more compelling, more prevailing.W. Gladden.
Gentleman, in its primal, literal, and perpetual meaning, is a man of pure race.Ruskin.
Gentleman is a term which does not apply to any station, but to the mind and the feelings in every station.Talfourd.
Gentlemanliness is just another word for intense humanity.Ruskin.
Gentlemen have to learn that it is no part of their duty or privilege to live on other people’s toil; that there is no degradation in the hardest manual or the humblest servile labour, when it is honest.Ruskin.
“Gentlemen of the jury, you will now consider your verdict.”Lord Tenterden’s last words.
Gentleness corrects whatever is offensive in our manners.Blair.
Gentleness! more powerful than Hercules.Ninon de l’Enclos.
Gentleness, when it weds with manhood, makes a man.Tennyson.
Gently comes the world to those / That are cast in gentle mould.Tennyson.
Gently didst thou ramble round the little circle of thy pleasures, jostling no creature in thy way: for each one’s sorrows thou hadst a tear; for each man’s need thou hadst a shilling.Sterne’s Uncle Toby.
Gently, gently touch a nettle, / And it stings you for your pains; / Grasp it like a man of mettle, / And it soft as silk remains.Aaron Hill.
Genug ist über einer Sackvoll—Enough excels a sackful.German Proverb.