James Wood, comp. Dictionary of Quotations. 1899.
Nur immer zu! to Of the eyes
Nur immer zu! wir wollen es ergründen, / In deinem Nichts hoff’ ich das All zu finden—Only let us still go on! we will yet fathom it. In thy nothing hope I to find the all.Goethe.
Nur in der eignen Kraft ruht das Schicksal jeder Nation—Only in its own power rests the destiny of every nation.Count v. Moltke, in 1880.
Nur in der Schule selbst ist die eigentliche Vorschule—The true preparatory school is only the school itself.Goethe.
Nur in schwülen Prüfungsstunden / Sprosst die Palme, die den Sieger krönt—Only in the stifling hours of trial does the palm shoot forth which decks the brow of the victor.Salis-Seewis.
Nur in Träumen wohnt das Glück der Erde—Only in dreams does the happiness of the earth dwell.Rückert.
Nur Liebe darf der Liebe Blume brechen—Only love may break the flower of love.Schiller.
Nur stets zu sprechen, ohne was zu sagen, / Das war von je der Redner grosste Gabe—To but speak on without saying anything has ever been the greatest gift of the orator.Platen.
Nur vom Edeln kann das Edle stammen—Only from the noble soul can what is noble come.Schiller.
Nur vom Nutzen wird die Welt regiert—It is only by show of advantage that the world is governed.Schiller.
Nur was wir selber glauben, glaubt man uns—People give us credit only for what we ourselves believe.Gutzkow.
Nur wer die Last wirklich selbst trägt, kennt ihr Gewicht—Only he who really bears the burden knows its weight.Klinger.
Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt / Weiss, was ich leide!—Only he who knows what yearning is knows what I suffer.Goethe.
Nur wer sich recht des Lebens freut, / Trägt leichter, was es Schlimmes beut—Only he who enjoys life aright finds it easier to bear the evils of it.Bodenstedt.
Nur wer vor Gott sich fühlet klein / Kann vor den Menschen mächtig sein—He only who feels himself little in the eye of God can hope to be mighty in the eyes of men.Arndt.
Nur zwei Tugenden giebt’s. O, wären sie immer vereinigt, / Immer die Güte auch gross, immer die Grösse auch gut!—There are only two virtues, were they but always united: goodness always also great, and greatness always also good.Schiller.
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.Burns.
Nusquam tuta fides—There is nowhere any true honour.Virgil.
Nutrimentum spiritus—Nourishment for the spirit!Inscription on the Royal Library at Berlin.
Nutritur vento, vento restinguitur ignis: / Lenis alit flammas, grandior aura necat!—Fire is fed by the wind and extinguished by the wind: a gentle current feeds it, too strong a one puts it out!Ovid.
Nuts are given us, but we must crack them ourselves.Proverb.
Nymph, in thy orisons / Be all my sins remembered.Hamlet, iii. 1.
O banish the tears of children! Continual rains upon the blossoms are hurtful.Jean Paul.
O bitte um Leben noch! du fühlst, mit deinen Mängeln, / Dass du noch wandeln kannst nicht unter Gottes Engeln—O still pray for life; thou feelest that with those faults of thine thou canst not walk among the angels of God.Rückert.
[Greek]—Life is short, art is long.Greek.
O blicke nicht nach dem was jedem fehlt; / Betrachte, was noch einem jeden bleibt—O look not at what each comes short in; consider what each still retains.Goethe.
[Greek]—What each one wishes that he also thinks.Demosthenes.
O cæca nocentum / Consilia, O semper timidum scelus!—Oh, how infatuated are the counsels of the guilty! Oh, how cowardly wickedness ever is!Statius.
O cives, cives, quærenda pecunia primum est; / Virtus post nummos—O citizens, citizens, you must seek for money first, for virtue after cash.Horace.
O Corydon, Corydon, secretum divitis ullum / Esse putas? Servi ut taceant, jumenta loquentur, / Et canis, et postes, et marmora—O Corydon, Corydon, do you think anything a rich man does can be kept secret? Even if his servants say nothing, his beasts of burden, and dogs, and door-posts, and marble slabs will speak.Juvenal.
O cunning enemy, that, to catch a saint, / With saints dost bait thy hook.Meas. for Meas., ii. 2.
O curvæ in terris animæ et cœlestium inanes!—Oh ye souls bent down to earth and void of everything heavenly.Persius.
O das Leben hat Reize, die wir nie gekannt—Oh, life has charms which we have never known.Schiller.
O das Leben ist ein langer, langer Seufzer vor dem Ausgehen des Athmens—Oh, life is a long, long sigh before emitting the breath.Jean Paul.
O dass die Weisheit halb so eifrig wäre / Nach Schülern und Bekehrten, als der Spott—Oh, that Wisdom were half as zealous for disciples and converts as Ridicule is.Grillparzer.
O dass es ewig bliebe, / Das Doppelglück der Töne wie der Liebe—Oh, that it would stay for ever, the double bliss of the tones as well as of the love.Goethe.
O dass sie ewig’ grünen bliebe / Die schöne Zeit der jungen Liebe—Oh, that it remained for ever green, the fair season of early love.Schiller.
O dearest, dearest boy, my heart / For better love would seldom yearn, / Could I but teach the hundredth part / Of what from thee I learn.Wordsworth.
O der Magnet des Wahns zieht mächtig—Oh, how powerfully the magnet of illusion attracts.Gutzkow.
O ein Fürst hat keinen Freund, kann keinen Freund haben—Oh, a ruler has no friend, and can have none.Lessing.
O faciles dare summa Deos, eademque tueri / Difficiles—How gracious the gods are in bestowing honours, how averse to ensure our tenure of them.Lucan.
O fallacem hominum spem—How deceitful is the hope of men.Cicero.
O flesh, flesh, how thou art fishified.Romeo and Juliet, ii. 4.
O formose puer, nimium ne crede colori—Oh, beauteous boy, trust not too much to the bloom on thy cheeks.Virgil.
O fortunate adolescens, qui tuæ virtutis Homerum præconem inveneris—Oh, happy youth, to have a Homer as the publisher of thy valour.Alexander the Great at the tomb of Achilles.
O fortunatos nimium, sua si bona norint, / Agricolas, quibus ipsa, procul discordibus armis, / Fundit humo facilem victum justissima tellus—Oh, how happy the tillers of the ground are, if they but knew their blessings; for whom, far from the clash of arms, the all-righteous earth pours forth from her soil an easy sustenance.Virgil.
O foulest Circæan draught! thou poison of popular applause; madness is in thee, and death; thy end is bedlam and the grave.Carlyle.
O glücklich! wer noch hoffen kann, / Ans diesem Meer des Irrtums aufzutauchen. / Was man nicht weiss, das eben brauchte man, / Und was man weiss, kann man nicht brauchen—Oh, happy he who can still hope to emerge from this sea of error! What one does not know is exactly what one should want to know, and what one knows is what one has no use for.Faust, in Goethe.
O God, that bread should be so dear, / And flesh and blood so cheap!T. Hood.
O Gott! das Leben ist doch schön—O God! life is nevertheless beautiful.Schiller.
O Gott, wie schränkt sich Welt und Himmel ein, / Wenn unser Herz in seinen Schranken banget—O God, how contracted the world and heaven becomes when our heart becomes uneasy within its barriers.Goethe.
O guard thy roving thoughts with jealous care, for speech is but the dial-plate of thought; and every fool reads plainly in thy words what is the hour of thy thought.Tennyson.
O’ guid advisement comes nae ill.Burns.
O Heaven! were man / But constant, he were perfect; that one error / Fills him with faults; makes him run through all sins.Two Gent. of Verona, v. 4.
O Herz, versuch’ es nur! so leicht ist’s gut zu sein: / Und es zu scheinen ist so eine schwere Pein—O heart, only try! To be good is so easy, and to appear so is such a heavy burden.Rückert.
O homines ad servitutem paratos!—Oh, men, how ye prepare yourselves for slavery!Tacitus.
O how full of briars is this working-day world.As You Like It, i. 3.
O how wretched / Is that poor man that hangs on princes’ favours! / There is betwixt that smile he would aspire to, / That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin, / More pangs and fears than wars or women have; / And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer, / Never to hope again.Henry VIII., iii. 2.
O hush the noise, ye men of strife, / And hear the angels sing!Sears.
O, if this were seen, / The happiest youth—viewing his progress through / What perils past, what crosses to ensue— / Would shut the book and sit him down and die.2 Henry IV., iii. 1.
O ja, dem Herrn ist alles Kinderspiel—Oh, yes, everything is but child’s play to the gentleman.Mephistopheles in Goethe.
O judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts, / And men have lost their reason!Julius Cæsar, iii. 2.
O kaum bezwingen wir das eigne Herz; / Wie soll die rasche Jugend sich bezähmen!—Oh, we can hardly subdue our own heart; how shall impetuous youth restrain itself!Schiller.
O l’amour d’une mère! amour que nul n’oublie! / Pain merveilleux, que Dieu partage et multiplie! / Table toujours servie au paternel foyer! / Chacun en a sa part, et tous l’ont tout entier—Oh, the love of a mother, love no one forgets; miraculous bread which God distributes and multiplies; board always spread by the paternal hearth, whereat each has his portion, and all have it entire!Victor Hugo.
O Leben, wie bist du so bitter und hart—Oh, Life, how bitter and harsh thou art!Scheffel.
O let my books be then the eloquence / And dumb presagers of my speaking breast.Browning.
O let thy vow, / First made to heaven, first be to heaven perform’d…. It is religion that doth make vows kept.King John, iii. 1.
“O Liberty, what crimes have been committed in thy name!”Madame Roland, as she bowed to the statue of Liberty at the place of execution.
O Life, an age to the miserable, a moment to the happy.Bacon.
O life! how pleasant is thy morning, / Young Fancy’s rays the hills adorning! / Cold-pausing Caution’s lessons scorning, / We frisk away, / Like schoolboys at th’ expected warning, / To joy and play.Burns.
O life! thou art a galling load / Along a rough, a weary road, / To wretches such as I!Burns (Despondency).
[Greek]—The Word became man, that we might become gods.Athanasius.
O Lord, that lend’st me life, / Lend me a heart replete with thankfulness!2 Henry VI., i. 1.
O love, be moderate, allay thy ecstasy; / In measure rain thy joy; scant this excess; / I feel too much thy blessing! Make it less, / For fear I surfeit.Mer. of Ven., iii. 2.
O magna vis veritatis, quæ … facile se per se ipsa defendit—Oh, mighty force of truth that by itself so easily defends itself!Cicero.
O major tandem, parcas, insane, minori—Oh, thou who art a greater madman: spare me, I pray, who am not so far gone.Horace.
[Greek]—The man who has not been scourged is not educated.Menander.
O mighty Cæsar! dost thou lie so low? / Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils, / Shrunk to this little measure?Julius Cæsar, iii. 1.
O mihi præteritos referat si Jupiter annos!—Oh, that Jove would but give me back the years that are past!Virgil.
O miseras hominum mentes! O pectora cæca!—Oh, how wretched are the minds of men! oh, how blind their hearts!Lucretius.
O miseri quorum gaudia crimen habent!—O wretched ye whose joys are tainted with guilt!Pseudo-Gallus.
O most lame and impotent conclusion!Othello, ii. 1.
O munera nondum / Intellecta Deum—Oh, that the gifts of the gods should not yet be understood.Lucan.
O my prophetic soul! mine uncle.Hamlet, i. 5.
O Nature! Ha! why do I not name thee God? Art thou not the “living garment of God?” O Heavens! is it, in very deed, He then that ever speaks through thee; that lives and loves in thee, that lives and loves in me?Carlyle.
O never / Shall sun that morrow see.Macbeth, i. 5.
O nimium nimiumque oblite tuorum—Too, too forgetful of thy kin.Ovid.
O nimm der Stunde wahr, eh’ sie entschlüpft. / So selten kommt der Augenblick im Leben / Der wahrhaft wichtig ist und gross—Take note of the hour ere it slips past; so seldom does the moment come which is truly fateful and great.Schiller.
O noctes cœnæque deum!—Oh, nights and suppers of the gods!Horace.
O passi graviora!—Oh, ye who have suffered greater misfortunes than these!Virgil.
[Greek]—He who has many friends has no friends.Diogenes Laertius.
[Greek]—The aim of the wise man is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain.Aristotle.
O place and greatness, millions of false eyes / Are stuck upon thee! Volumes of report / Run with these false and most contrarious quests / Upon thy doings! thousand scapes of wit / Make thee the father of their idle dreams, / And rack thee in their fancies.Meas. for Meas., iv. 1.
O pudor! O pietas!—O modesty! O piety!Martial.
O purblind race of miserable men! / How many among us at this very hour / Do forge a lifelong trouble for ourselves, / By taking true for false, or false for true; / Here, thro’ the feeble twilight of this world / Groping, how many, until we pass and reach / That other, where we see as we are seen!Tennyson.
O qualis facies et quali digna tabella!—Oh, what a face and what a picture it would have been a subject for!Juvenal.
O quanta species cerebrum non habet!—Oh, that such beauty should be devoid of brains!Phædrus.
O quantum in rebus inane!—Oh, what a void there is in things!Persius.
O ruin’d piece of nature! This great world / Shall so wear out to nought.King Lear, iv. 6.
O rus quando te aspiciam? quandoque licebit / Nunc veterum libris, nunc somno et inertibus horis / Ducere sollicitæ jucunda oblivia vitæ?—Oh, country, when shall I see thee, and when shall I be permitted to quaff a sweet oblivion of anxious life, now from the books of the ancients, now from sleep and idle hours?Horace.
O sancta damnatio!—Oh, holy condemnation!
O sancta simplicitas!—Oh, holy simplicity!John Huss at the stake, on seeing an old woman hurrying up with a faggot to throw on the pile.
O si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses—If you had only held your peace, you would have remained a philosopher.Boëthius.
O sleep, / It is a gentle thing, / Beloved from pole to pole!Coleridge.
O sleep, O gentle sleep, / Nature’s soft nurse! how have I frighted thee, / That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down, / And steep my senses in forgetfulness!2 Henry IV., iii. 1.
O sons of earth, attempt ye still to rise, / By mountains piled on mountains, to the skies? / Heav’n still with laughter the vain toil surveys, / And buries madmen in the heaps they raise.Pope.
O sprich mir nicht von jener bunten Menge / Bei deren Anblick uns der Geist entflieht—Oh, speak not to me of the motley mob, at the very sight of which our spirit takes flight!Goethe.
O süsse Stimme! Willkommener Ton / Der Muttersprach’ in einem fremden Lande!—Oh, sweet voice, much-welcome sound of our mother-tongue in a foreign land!Goethe.
O tempora, O mores!—Oh, the times! oh, the manners!Cicero.
O that estates, degrees, and offices / Were not derived corruptly, and that clear honour / Were purchased by the merit of the wearer! / How many then would cover that stand bare; / How many be commanded that command; / How much low peasantry would then be glean’d / From the true seed of honour; and how much honour, /’ Pick’d from the chaff and ruin of the times, / To be new-varnish’d.Mer. of Ven., ii. 9.
O that men’s ears should be / To counsel deaf, but not to flattery!Timon of Athens, i. 2.
O that way madness lies.King Lear, iii. 4.
O that you could turn your eyes toward the napes of your necks, and make but an interior survey of your good selves!Coriolanus, ii. 1.
O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!St. Paul.
O the wound of conscience is no scar, and Time cools it not with his wing, but merely keeps it open with his scythe.Jean Paul.
O these deliberate fools, when they do choose / They have the wisdom by their wit to lose.Mer. of Ven., ii. 9.
O these naughty times / Put bars between the owners and their rights.Mer. of Ven., iii. 2.
O Thor, wer nicht im Augenblick den wahren Augenblick ergreift, / Wer, was er liebt, im Auge, und dennoch nach der Seite schweift—Oh, fool, he seizes not the true moment in the moment who has what he loves before his eye, and still swerves from it.Platen.
O Thou, / Passionless bride, divine Tranquillity, / … Thou carest not / How roughly men may woo thee, so they win!Tennyson.
O thou who hast still a father and a mother, thank God for it in the day when thy soul is full of joyful tears, and needs a bosom wherein to shed them.Jean Paul.
O thoughts of men accurst! / Past and to come seem best; things present, worst.2 Henry IV., i. 3.
O Tugend, Tugend, wie schön bist du! / Welch’ göttlich Meisterstück sind Seelen, / Die sich hinauf bis zu dir erheben—O virtue, virtue, how fair art thou! what a divine masterpiece are the souls that raise themselves up to thee!Klopstock.
O wad some pow’r the giftie gie us / To see oursels as ithers see us! / It wad frae mony a blunder free us, / And foolish notion; / What airs in dress and gait wad lea’e us, / And e’en devotion!Burns.
O Wahrheit, deinen edeln Wein / Musst du mit Wasser mischen; / Denn willst du ihn rein auftischen, / So nimmt er den Kopf den Gästen ein—O Truth, thy noble wine thou must mix with water, for wert thou to serve it out pure, it would get into the heads of the guests and turn them.Rückert.
O was im Traum die innre Stimme spricht / Das wird uns Wahrheit, wenn die Sonne leuchtet—Oh, how that which the inner voice speaks in our dreaming becomes truth to us when the sun shines!Schillerbuch.
O was müssen wir der Kirche Gottes halber leiden, rief der / Abt, als ihm das gebratene Huhn die Finger versengte—“What must we suffer for the Church of God’s sake!” exclaimed the Abbot when the roast fowl burnt his fingers.German Proverb.
O was sind wir Grossen auf der Woge der Menschheit? Wir glauben sie zu beherrschen, und sie treibt uns auf und nieder, hin und her—Ah! what are we great ones on the wave of humanity? We fancy we rule over it, and it sways us up and down, hither and thither.Goethe.
O well for him whose will is strong! / He suffers, but he will not suffer long; / He suffers, but he cannot suffer wrong.Tennyson.
O wer weiss, / Was in der Zeiten Hintergrunde schlummert?—Oh, who knows what slumbers in the background of the times?Schiller.
O what a goodly outside falsehood hath!Mer. of Ven., i. 3.
O what a noble mind is here o’erthrown! / The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s eye, tongue, sword; / The expectancy and rose of the fair state, / The glass of fashion, and the mould of form, / The observed of all observers, quite, quite down!Hamlet, iii. 1.
O what a tangled web we weave / When first we practise to deceive.Scott.
O what a world is this, when what is comely / Envenoms him that bears it!As You Like It, ii. 3.
O what a world of vile ill-favoured faults / Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a-year!Merry Wives, iii. 4.
O what men dare do! what men may do! / What men daily do, not knowing what they do!Much Ado, iv. 1.
O woman! in our hours of ease / Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, / And variable as the shade / By the light of quivering aspen made; / When pain and anguish wring the brow, / A ministering angel thou.Scott.
O ye loved ones, that already sleep in the noiseless Bed of Rest, whom in life I could only weep for and never help; and ye who, wide-scattered, still toil lonely in the monster-bearing desert, dyeing the flinty ground with your blood,—yet a little while, and we shall all meet There, and our Mother’s bosom will screen us all; and Oppression’s harness, and Sorrow’s fire-whip, and all the Gehenna bailiffs that patrol and inhabit ever-vexed Time, cannot thenceforth harm us any more.Carlyle.
O yet we trust that somehow good / Will be the final goal of ill.Tennyson.
Oaks fall when reeds stand.Proverb.
Oars alone can ne’er prevail / To reach the distant coast; / The breath of heav’n must swell the sail, / Or all the toil is lost.Cowper.
Oaths are straws,… and holdfast is the only dog.Henry V., ii. 3.
Ob es vom Herzen kommt, das magst du leicht verstehen: / Denn was vom Herzen kommt, muss dir zum Herzen gehen—Easily may’st thou know whether it comes from the heart; for what comes from the heart goes straight to thine.Körner.
Obedience alone gives the right to command.Emerson.
Obedience is better than sacrifice.Proverb from Bible.
Obedience is our universal duty and destiny; wherein whoso will not bend must break.Carlyle.
Obedience is the bond of rule.Tennyson.
Obedience is woman’s duty on earth; hard endurance is her heavy lot; by severe service she must be purified; but she who has served here is great up yonder.Schiller.
Obey something, and you will have a chance of finding out what is best to obey. But if you begin by obeying nothing, you will end by obeying Beelzebub and all his seven invited friends.Ruskin.
Obey thy parents; keep thy word justly; swear not; set not thy sweet heart on proud array.King Lear, iii. 4.
Obiter cantare—To sing as one goes along; to sing by the way.
Obiter dicta—Remarks by the way; passing remarks.
Obiter dictum—A thing said in passing.
Objects close to the eye shut out much larger objects on the horizon; and splendours born only of the earth eclipse the stars. So a man sometimes covers up the entire disc of eternity with a dollar, and quenches transcendent glories with a little shining dust.Chapin.
Objects imperfectly discerned take forms from the hope or fear of the beholder.Johnson.
Objects in pictures should be so arranged as by their very position to tell their own story.Goethe.
Oblatam occasionem tene—Seize the opportunity that is offered.
Obligation is thraldom, and thraldom is hateful.Hobbes.
Oblivion is the dark page whereon memory writes her light-beam characters and makes them legible; were it all light, nothing could be read there, any more than if it were all darkness.Carlyle.
Oblivion is the rule, and fame the exception, of humanity.Rivarol.
Oblivion is the second death, which great minds dread more than the first.De Boufflers.
Obreros a no ver dineros a perder—Not to watch your workmen is to lose your money.Spanish Proverb.
Obruat illud male partum, male retentum, male gestum imperium—Let that power fall which has been wrongfully acquired, wrongfully retained, and wrongfully administered.Cicero.
Obscuris vera involvens—Shrouding, or concealing, truth in obscurity or darkness.Virgil.
Obscurity and affectation are the two great faults of style.Macaulay.
Obscurity and Innocence, twin-sisters, escape temptations which would pierce their gossamer armour in contact with the world.Chamfort.
Obscurum per obscurius—Explaining something obscure by what is more obscure.
Obsequium amicos, veritas odium parit—Obsequiousness procures us friends; speaking the truth, enemies.Terence.
Observe this short but certain aphorism, “Forsake all, and thou shalt find all.”Thomas à Kempis.
Observe thyself as thy greatest enemy would do; so shalt thou be thy greatest friend.Jeremy Taylor.
Observation is an old man’s memory.Swift.
Observation may trip now and then without throwing you, for her gait is a walk; but inference always gallops, and if she stumbles, you are gone.Holmes.
Observation more than books, experience rather than persons, are the prime educators.A. B. Alcott.
Obstinacy and heat in argument are surest proofs of folly.Montaigne.
Obstinacy is ever most positive when it is most in the wrong.Mme. Necker.
Obstinacy is the result of the will’s forcing itself into the place of the intellect.Schopenhauer.
Obstinacy is the strength of the weak.Lavater.
Obstupui, steteruntque comæ, et vox faucibus hæsit—I was astounded; my hair stood on end, and my voice stuck fast in my throat.Virgil.
Obtuseness is sometimes a virtue.Rivarol.
Occasio facit furem—Opportunity makes the thief.Proverb.
Occasion reins the motions of the stirring mind.Owen Feltham.
Occasionem cognosce—Know your opportunity.
Occasions do not make a man frail, but they show what he is.Thomas à Kempis.
Occidit miseros crambe repetita magistros—Cabbage repeated is the death of the wretched masters.Juvenal.
Occupation is the scythe of Time.Napoleon.
Occupet extremum scabies!—Murrain take the hindmost!Horace.
Ocean is a mighty harmonist.Wordsworth.
Oculi tanquam speculatores altissimum locum obtinent—The eyes, like sentinels, occupy the highest place in the body.Cicero.
Oculis magis habenda fides quam auribus—It is better to trust to our eyes than our ears.
Oculus domini saginat equum—The master’s eye makes the horse fat.Proverb.
Oderint dum metuant—Let them show hate, provided they fear.Cicero.
Oderunt hilarem tristes, tristemque jocosi, / Sedatum celeres, agilem gnavumque remissi—Sad men dislike a gay spirit, and the jocular a sad; the quick-witted dislike the sedate, and the careless the busy and industrious.Horace.
Oderunt peccare boni virtutis amore—Good men shrink from wrong out of love for virtue.Horace.
Odi profanum vulgus et arceo—I hate the profane rabble, and keep them far from me.Horace.
Odi puerulos præcoci ingenio—I hate boys of precocious talent.Cicero.
Odi, vedi, e taci, se vuoi viver in pace—Listen, see, and say nothing, if you wish to live in peace.Italian Proverb.
Odia qui nimium timet, regnare nescit—He who dreads hostility too much is unfit to bear rule.Seneca.
Odimus accipitrem quia semper vivit in armis—I hate the hawk because he always lives in arms.Ovid.
Odium theologicum—Theological hatred; the animosity engendered by differences of theological opinion.
Odora canum vis—The sharp scent of the hounds.Virgil.
O’ercome thyself, and thou may’st share / With Christ His Father’s throne, and wear / The world’s imperial wreath.Keble.
Of a life of luxury the fruit is luxury.Thoreau.
Of a thoroughly crazy and defective artist we may indeed say he has everything from himself; but of an excellent one, never.Goethe.
Of all actions of a man’s life, his marriage does least concern other people: yet of all actions of our life, ’tis most meddled with by other people.John Selden.
Of all attainable liberties, be sure first to strive for leave to be useful.Ruskin. (?)
Of all blinds that shut up men’s vision the worst is self. (?)
Of all days, the one that is most wasted is that on which one has not laughed.Chamfort.
Of all earthly music, that which reaches the farthest into heaven is the beating of a loving heart.Ward Beecher.
Of all evils in story-telling, the humour of telling tales one after another in great numbers is the least supportable.Steele.
Of all God’s gifts to the sight of man, colour is the holiest, the most divine, the most solemn.Ruskin.
Of all great poems Love is the absolute and the essential foundation.C. Fitzhugh.
Of all man’s work of art, a cathedral is greatest. A vast and majestic tree is greater than that.Ward Beecher.
Of all men, a philosopher should be no swearer; for an oath, which is the end of controversies in law, cannot determine any here, where reason only must induce.Sir Thomas Browne.
Of all plagues, good Heaven, thy wrath can send, / Save, save, O save me from the candid friend!Canning.
Of all pleasures, the fruit of labour is the sweetest.Vauvenargues.
Of all points of faith the being of a God is encompassed with most difficulty, and yet borne in upon our minds with most power.John Newman.
Of all rights of man the right of the ignorant man to be guided by the wiser, to be gently or forcibly held in the true course by him, is the indisputablest.Carlyle.
Of all studies, study your present condition.Proverb.
Of all the cants which are canted in this canting world,—though the cant of hypocrites may be the worst,—the cant of criticism is the most tormenting!Sterne.
Of all the characters of cruelty, I consider that as the most odious which assumes the garb of mercy.Fox.
Of all the great masters, there is not one who did not paint his own present world, plainly and truly.Ruskin.
Of all the marvellous works of the Deity, perhaps there is nothing that angels behold with such supreme astonishment as a proud man.Colton.
Of all the passions that possess mankind, / The love of novelty rules most the mind; / In search of this, from realm to realm we roam, / Our fleets come fraught with every folly home.Foote.
Of all the possessions of a man, next to the gods, his soul is the mightiest, being the most his own.Plato.
Of all the pulpits from which human voice is ever sent forth, there is none from which it reaches so far as from the grave.Ruskin.
Of all the superstitions which infest the brains of weak mortals, the belief in prophecies, presentiments, and dreams, seems to me amongst the most pitiful and pernicious.Goethe.
Of all the tyrants that the world affords, / Our own affections are the fiercest lords.E. Stirling.
Of all thieves, fools are the worst; they rob you of time and temper.Goethe.
Of all things, knowledge is esteemed the most precious treasure; because of its incapacity to be stolen, to be given away, or even to be consumed.Hitopadesa.
Of all those arts in which the wise excel, / Nature’s chief masterpiece is writing well.Duke of Buckingham.
Of all wild beasts, preserve me from a tyrant; and of all tame, a flatterer.Ben Jonson.
Of big words and feathers many go to the pound.German Proverb.
Of error we can talk for ever, but truth demands that we should lay it to heart and apply it.Goethe.
Of four things every man has more than he knows—of sins, and debts, and years, and foes.Persian Proverb.
Of God’s light I was not utterly bereft, if my as yet sealed eyes, with their unspeakable longing, could nowhere see Him; nevertheless in my heart He was present, and His heaven-written law still stood legible and sacred there.Carlyle.
Of great men no one should speak but one who is as great as they, so as to be able to see all round them.Goethe.
Of great riches there is no real use, except it be in the distribution; the rest is but conceit.Bacon.
Of hasty counsel take good heed, for very rarely haste is speed.Dutch Proverb.
Of how few lives does not stated duty claim the greater part?Johnson.
Of illustrious men all the earth is the sepulchre, and it is not the inscribed column in their own land which is the record of their virtues, but the unwritten memory of them in the hearts and minds of all mankind.Thucydides.
Of its own unity, the soul gives unity to whatso it looks on with love.Carlyle.
Of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.Bible.
Of more than earth can earth make none possesst; / And he that least / Regards this restless world, shall in this world find rest.Quarles.
Of other tyrants short the strife, / But Indolence is king for life: / The despot twists, with soft control, / Eternal fetters round the soul.Hannah More.
Of pleasures, those which occur most rarely give the greatest delight.Epictetus.
Of real evils the number is great; of possible evils there is no end.Johnson.
Of the Beautiful we are seldom capable, oftener of the Good; and how highly should we value those who endeavour, with great sacrifices, to forward that good among their fellows!Goethe.
Of the eyes that men do glare withal, so few can see.Carlyle.