James Wood, comp. Dictionary of Quotations. 1899.
When bad men to Where peace
When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.Burke.
When bairns are young they gar their parents’ heads ache; when they are auld they make their hearts break.Scotch Proverb.
When baseness is exalted, do not bate / The place its honour for the person’s sake.George Herbert.
When beggars die, there are no comets seen; / The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.Julius Cæsar, ii. 2.
When brothers part for manhood’s race, / What gift may most endearing prove / To keep fond memory in her place, / And certify a brother’s love? / … No fading frail memorial give / To sooth his soul when thou art gone, / But wreathes of hope for aye to live, / And thoughts of good together done.Keble.
When caught by a tempest, wherever it be, / If it lightens and thunders, beware of a tree.Proverb.
When children stand quiet, they have done some harm.Proverb.
When children, we are sensualists; when in love, idealists.Goethe.
When clouds appear like rocks and towers, / The earth’s refreshed with frequent showers.Proverb.
When clouds appear, wise men put on their cloaks; / When great leaves fall, the winter is at hand.Richard III., ii. 3.
When death comes, it is never our tenderness that we repent of, but our severity.George Eliot.
When desperate ills demand a speedy cure, distrust is cowardice and prudence folly.Johnson.
When did friendship take / A breed for barren metal of his friend?Mer. of Ven., i. 2.
When difficulties are overcome they become blessings.Saying.
When each comes forth from his mother’s womb, the gate of gifts closes behind him.Emerson.
When every one minds his own business the work is done.Danish Proverb.
When firmness is sufficient, rashness is unnecessary.Napoleon.
When fools fall out for every flaw, / They run horn mad to go to law; / A hedge awry, a wrong plac’d gate, / Will serve to spend a whole estate.Saying.
When Fortune means to men most good, / She looks upon them with a threatening eye.King John, iii. 1.
When found, make a note of.Dickens.
When fresh sorrows have caused us to take some steps in the right way, we may not complain. We have invested in a life annuity, but the income remains.Mme. Swetchine.
When friends meet hearts warm.Scotch Proverb.
When friendships are real, they are not glass threads or frost-work, but the solidest things we know.Emerson.
When God gives light he gives it for all.Spanish Proverb.
When God will, no wind but brings rain.Proverb.
When God would punish a land, he deprives its rulers of wisdom.German and Italian Proverb.
When Goethe says that in every human condition foes lie in wait for us, “invincible save by cheerfulness and equanimity,” he does not mean that we can at all times be really cheerful, or at a moment’s notice; but that the endeavour to look at the better side of things will produce the habit, and that this habit is the surest safeguard against the danger of sudden evils.Leigh Hunt.
When Greeks joined Greeks, then was the tug of war.Lee.
When griping grief the heart doth wound, / And doleful dumps the mind oppress, / Then music, with her silver sound, / With speedy help doth lend redress.Romeo and Juliet, iv. 5.
When half-gods go, / The gods arrive.Emerson.
When he speaks, / The air, a charter’d libertine, is still.Henry V., i. 1.
When holy and devout religious men / Are at their beads, ’tis hard to draw them thence.Richard III., iii. 7.
When I am angry, I can pray well and preach well.Luther.
When I consider life, ’tis all a cheat. / Yet fool’d with hope, men favour the deceit; / Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay. / To-morrow’s falser than the former day; / Lies worse, and while it says we shall be blest / With some new joys, cuts off what we possest.Dryden.
When I have told the truth, my part with it is done; and if the world will not listen, the world will just do the other way.Carlyle.
When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times and to the latest.Thoreau.
When I strove after wisdom I appeared foolish to fools, and wise when I lived like them. The fool only esteems himself wise.Bodenstedt.
When I want any good bead-work done, I always choose a man, if suitable otherwise, with a long nose.Napoleon.
When I was happy I thought I knew men, but it was fated that I should know them in misfortune only.Napoleon.
When I wish to ascertain the real felicity of any rational man, I always inquire whom he has to love. If I find he has nobody, or does not love those he has, I pronounce him a being deep in adversity.Mrs. Inchbald.
When I’m not thanked at all, I’m thank’d enough; / I’ve done my duty, and I’ve done no more.Henry Fielding.
When ilka ane gets his ain, the thief will get the widdie (gallows).Scotch Proverb.
When in company, people will rather be entertained than instructed.Knegge.
When, in your last hour (think of this), all faculty in the broken spirit shall fade away and sink into inanity—imagination, thought, effort, enjoyment—then will the flower of belief, which blossoms even in the night, remain to refresh you with its fragrance in the last darkness.Jean Paul.
When industry builds upon nature, we may expect pyramids.Sir T. Browne.
When it goeth well with the righteous, the city rejoiceth: and when the wicked perish, there is shouting.Bible.
When it rains porridge, the beggar has no spoon.Danish Proverb.
When it’s dark at Dover, / It is dark all the world over.Proverb.
When labour is employed, labour can consume; when it is not employed, it cannot consume.Daniel Webster.
When love begins to sicken and decay / It useth an enforced ceremony.Julius Cæsar, iv. 2.
When love cools our fauts are seen.Scotch Proverb.
When love speaks, the voice of all the gods / Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.Love’s L’s. Lost, iv. 3.
When lovely woman stoops to folly / And finds, too late, that men betray, / What charm can soothe her melancholy? / What art can wash her guilt away?Goldsmith.
When loving hearts are separated, not the one which is exhaled to heaven, but the survivor it is which tastes the sting of death.Duchesse de Praslin.
When maidens sue, / Men give like gods.Meas. for Meas., i. 1.
When man arrives at his highest perfection, he will (as at the creation) be again dumb.Hawthorne.
When man seized the loadstone of science, the loadstar of superstition vanished in the clouds.W. R. Alger.
When matters are desperate, we must put on a desperate face.Burns.
When men add a new wing to their house they do not call the action virtue, but if they give to a fellow-creature for their own gratification, they demand of God a good mark for it.J. M. Barrie.
When men are lonely they stoop to any companionship.Lewis Wallace.
When men are pure, laws are useless; when men are corrupt, laws are broken.Disraeli.
When men grow virtuous in their old age, they only make a sacrifice to God of the devil’s leavings.Pope.
When monarch reason sleeps, this mimic wakes.Dryden.
When money’s taken, / Freedom’s forsaken.Proverb.
When musing on companions gone, / We doubly feel ourselves alone.Scott.
When nations are to perish in their sins, / ’Tis in the Church the leprosy begins; / The priest, whose office is, with zeal sincere, / To watch the fountain and preserve it clear, / Carelessly nods and sleeps upon the brink, / While others poison what the flock must drink.Cowper.
When Nature fills the sails, the vessel goes smoothly on; and when judgment is the pilot, the insurance need not be high.Sir T. Browne.
When Nature is sovereign there is no need of austerity or self-denial.Froude.
When Nature removes a great man, people explore the horizon for a successor; but none comes, and none will.Emerson.
When need is highest, help is nighest.German Proverb.
When neither he to whom we speak nor he who speaks to us understands, that is metaphysics.Voltaire.
When nothing is enjoyed, can there be greater waste?Thomson.
When on life we’re tempest driven, / A conscience but a canker, / A correspondence fixed wi’ heaven / Is sure a noble anchor.Burns.
When once a man is determined to believe, the very absurdity of the doctrine confirms him in his faith.Junius.
When once infidelity can persuade men that they shall die like beasts, they will soon be brought to live like beasts also.South.
When once our grace we have forgot, / Nothing goes right; we would, and we would not.Meas. for Meas., iv. 4.
When once the young heart of a maiden is stolen, / The maiden herself will steal after it soon.Moore.
When once you profess yourself a friend, endeavour to be always such. He can never have any true friends that will be often changing them. (?)
When one does nothing else but while time away, it must of necessity often be a burden.Goethe.
When one encourages the beautiful alone, and another encourages the useful alone, it takes them both to form a man.Goethe.
When one is in love, one wishes to be in fetters.Goethe.
When one is not received as one comes, this is a nether-fire pain.Goethe.
When one is truly in love, one not only says it, but shows it.Longfellow.
When one is young, one is nothing completely.Goethe.
When one thinks of the real agony one has gone through in consequence of false teaching, it makes human nature angry with the teachers who have added to the bitterness of life.General Gordon.
When our actions do not, / Our fears do make us traitors.Macbeth, iv. 1.
When our hatred is too keen, it places us beneath those we hate.La Rochefoucauld.
When our names are blotted out, and our place knows us no more, the energy of each social service will remain.J. Morley.
When people complain of life, it is almost always because they have asked impossible things from it.Renan.
When people laugh at their own jokes, their wit is very small beer, and is lost in its own froth.Spurgeon.
When people once are in the wrong, / Each line they add is much too long.Prior.
When Peter’s cock begins to crow, ’tis day.Quarles.
When pleasure can be had, it is fit to catch it.Johnson.
When pleasure is arrived, it is worthy of attention; when trouble presenteth itself, the same. Pain and pleasures have their revolutions like a wheel.Hitopadesa.
When poverty comes in at the door, love flies out at the window.Proverb.
When pride cometh, then cometh shame; but with the lowly is wisdom.Bible.
When remedies are past, the griefs are ended / By seeing the worst, which late on hopes depended.Othello, i. 3.
When rich villains have need of poor ones, poor ones may make what price they will.Much Ado, iii. 3.
When rogues fall out, honest men get their own.Proverb.
When shall we three meet again, in thunder, lightning, or in rain?Macbeth, i. 1.
When soldiers have been baptized in the fire of a battlefield, they have all one rank in my eyes.Napoleon.
When soon or late they reach that coast, / O’er life’s rough ocean driven, / May they rejoice, no wanderer lost, / A family in heaven.Burns.
When sorrows come, they come not single spies, / But in battalions.Hamlet, iv. 5.
When speech is given to a soul holy and true, time and its dome of ages becomes as a mighty whispering-gallery, round which the imprisoned utterance runs, and reverberates forever.James Martineau.
When sun is set the little stars will shine.R. Southwell.
When that the poor have cried. Cæsar hath wept; / Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.Julius Cæsar, iii. 2.
When the affections are moved there is no place for the imagination.Hume.
When the artist forgets himself in admiration of his work, there is a fatal inversion and subversion of all art whatsoever; and for Love to worship Venus, his own creation, except as an index and light to himself, is in reality Love’s apostasy, not his apotheosis.James Wood.
When the ass is given thee, run and take him by the halter; and when good luck knocks at the door, let him in, and keep him there.Spanish Proverb.
When the belly is empty, the body becomes spirit; when it is full, the spirit becomes body.Saadi.
When the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch; wherefore, in such circumstances, may it not sometimes be safer if both leader and led simply sit still?Carlyle.
When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul / Lends the tongue vows.Hamlet, i. 3.
When the cat’s away, / The mice will play.Proverb.
When the devil dies, he never lacks a chief mourner.Proverb.
When the fight begins within himself, / A man’s worth something.Browning.
When the fox preaches, take care of your geese.Proverb.
When the glede’s in the blue cloud, / The laverock lies still; / When the hound’s in the green wood, / The hind keeps the hill.Old ballad.
When the gods come among men, they are not known.Emerson.
When the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet, then all things are at risk. There is not a piece of science, but its flank may be turned to-morrow; there is not any literary reputation, nor the so-called eternal names of fame, that may not be revised and condemned.Emerson.
When the heart is afire, some sparks will fly out at the mouth.Proverb.
When the heart is heavy and low? / The beauty that on earth we find, / Or strain of music on the wind, / Shall touch it like an utter woe!Dr. Walter Smith.
When the heart is still agitated by the remains of a passion, we are more ready to receive a new one than when we are entirely cured.La Rochefoucauld.
When the heart of a man is sincere and tranquil, he is fain to enjoy nothing but himself; every movement, even corporeal movement, shakes the brimming nectar cup too rudely.Jean Paul.
When the hungry curate licks the knife, there is not much for the cleric.Proverb.
When the man’s fire and the wife’s tow, in comes the deil and blaws it in a lowe (flame).Scotch Proverb.
When the master passeth over all alike without distinction, then the endeavours of those who are capable of exertion are entirely lost.Hitopadesa.
When the million applaud you, seriously ask yourself what harm you have done; when they censure you, what good.Colton.
When the mind’s free, the body’s delicate.King Lear, iii. 4.
When the new light which we beg for shines in upon us, there be who envy and oppose, if it come not in first at their casements.Milton.
When the oak-tree is felled, the whole forest echoes with it; but a hundred acorns are planted silently by some unnoticed breeze.Carlyle.
When the Phœnix is fanning her funeral pyre, will there not be sparks flying?Carlyle.
When the power of imparting joy / Is equal to the will, the human soul / Requires no other heaven.Shelley.
When the quality of bravery is near, a great man’s terrors are at a distance. In the hour of misfortune such a great man overcometh bravery.Hitopadesa.
When the reason of old establishments is gone, it is absurd to keep nothing but the burden of them. This is superstitiously to embalm a carcase not worth an ounce of the gums that are used to embalm it.Burke.
When the sheep is too meek, all the lambs suck it.Spurgeon.
When the shore is won at last, / Who will count the billows past?Keble.
When the soul breathes through a man’s intellect, it is genius; when it breaks through his will, it is virtue; when it flows through his affection, it is love.Emerson.
When the strong box contains no more,… / Both friends and flatterers shun the door.Plutarch.
When the sun is highest, he casts the least shadow.Proverb.
When the tale of bricks is doubled, then comes Moses.Hebrew Proverb.
When the weather been maist fair, the dust flies highest in the air.Sir David Lindsay.
When the will’s ready the feet’s licht.Scotch Proverb.
When the wind (civic tumult) arises, worship the echo (retire into the country).Pythagoras.
When the world has once got hold of a lie, it is astonishing how hard it is to get it out of the world. You beat it about the head, till it seems to have given up the ghost, and lo! the next day it is as healthy as ever.Bulwer Lytton.
When they will not give a doit to relieve a lame beggar, they will lay out ten to see a dead Indian.Tempest, ii. 2.
When things are at their worst, they will mend.Proverb.
When things are once come to the execution, there is no secrecy comparable to celerity, like the motion of a bullet in the air, which flieth so swift as it outruns the eye.Bacon.
When thou dost purpose ought within thy power, / Be sure to do it, though it be but small.George Herbert.
When thou hast thanked thy God for every blessing sent, / What time will then remain for murmurs or lament?Trench.
When thou makest presents, let them be of such things as will last long; to the end they may be in some sort immortal, and may frequently refresh the memory of the receiver.Fuller.
When thou wishest to give thyself delight, think of the excellencies of those who live with thee; the energy of one, the modesty of another, the liberal kindness of a third.Marcus Aurelius.
When three know it, all know it.Proverb.
When thy judgments are in the earth the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.Bible.
When Time, who steals our years away, / Shall steal our pleasures too, / The mem’ry of the past will stay, / And half our joys renew.T. Moore.
When timorous knowledge stands considering, / Audacious ignorance hath done the deed.Daniel.
When, to gratify a private appetite, it is once resolved upon that an innocent and a helpless creature shall be sacrificed, ’tis an easy matter to pick up sticks enough from any thicket where it has strayed to make a fire to offer it up with.Sterne.
When two brethren strings are set alike, / To move them both but one of them we strike.Cowley.
When two friends have a common purse, one sings and the other weeps.Proverb.
When two friends part, they should lock up one another’s secrets and exchange their keys.Owen Feltham.
When two loving hearts are torn asunder, it is a shade better to be the one that is driven away into action, than the bereaved twin that petrifies at home.Charles Reade.
When unadorn’d, adorn’d the most.Thomson.
When was a god found agreeable to everybody?Carlyle.
When we are exalted by ideas, we do not owe this to Plato, but to the idea, to which also Plato was debtor.Emerson.
When we build (public edifices), let us think that we build for ever.Ruskin.
When we cannot get at the very thing we wish, never to take up with the next best in degree to it, that’s pitiful beyond description.Sterne.
When we can’t do as we would, we must do as we can.Proverb.
When we destroy an old prejudice, we have need of a new virtue.Madame de Staël.
When we discern justice, when we discern truth, we do nothing of ourselves; we allow a passage to its beams.Emerson.
When we have broken our god of tradition, and ceased from our god of rhetoric, then may God fire the heart with his presence.Emerson.
When we have not what we love, we must love what we have.Bussy-Rabutin.
When we meet with a natural style, we are surprised and delighted, for we expected to find an author, and we have found a man.Pascal.
When we our betters see bearing our woes, / We scarcely think our miseries our foes.King Lear, iii. 6.
When we rise in knowledge, as the prospect widens, the objects of our regard become more obscure, and the unlettered peasant, whose views are only directed to the narrow sphere around him, beholds nature with a finer relish, and tastes her blessings with a keener appetite, than the philosopher whose mind attempts to grasp a universal system.Goldsmith.
When we take people merely as they are, we make them worse; when we treat them as if they were what they should be, we improve them as far as they can be improved.Goethe.
When whins are out of bloom, kissing is out of fashion.Proverb.
When wine is in, nature comes out.George Meredith.
When words are scarce they’re seldom spent in vain, / For they breathe truth that breathe their words in pain.Richard II., ii. 1.
When words end, music begins; when they suggest, it realises.H. R. Haweis.
When worthy men fall out, only one of them may be faulty at the first; but if strife continue long, commonly both become guilty.Fuller.
When you are all agreed upon the time, quoth the vicar, I’ll make it rain.Proverb.
When you are compelled to choose between two hated evils, look both full in the face, and choose that which least hampers the spirit and fetters pious deeds.Goethe.
When you are down, poverty, like snowshoes, keeps your feet fast and prevents your rising.American Proverb.
When you are in doubt abstain.Zoroaster.
When you are predetermined to take one soul’s advice, act without consulting further with any soul living.Sterne.
When you are stung by slanderous tongues (die Lästerzunge), comfort yourself with this thought: it is not the worst fruits that are gnawed by wasps.G. A. Bürger.
When you cannot get dinner ready, put the clock back.Swift.
When you do not know what to do, it is a clear indication that you are to do nothing.Spurgeon.
When you find yourselves tempted, be sure to ask advice; and when you see another so, deal with him gently.Thomas à Kempis.
When you go to Rome, do as Rome does.St. Ambrose of Milan.
When yon grind your corn, give not the flour to the devil, and the bran to God.Italian Proverb.
When you have bought one fine thing, you must buy ten more to be all of a piece.Ben. Franklin.
When you have got so much true knowledge as is worth fighting for, you are bound to fight or to die for it, but not to debate about it any more.Ruskin.
When you have nothing to say, say nothing.Colton.
When you hear that your neighbour has picked up a purse of gold in the street, never run out into the same street, looking about you, in order to pick up such another.Goldsmith.
When you introduce a moral lesson, let it be brief.Horace.
When you know a thing, to hold that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it: this is knowledge.Confucius.
When you leave the unimpaired hereditary freehold to your children, you do but half your duty. Both liberty and property are precarious, unless the possessors have sense and spirit enough to defend them.Junius.
When you lie down with a short prayer, commit yourself into the hands of your faithful Creator; and when you have done, trust Him with yourself as you must do when you are dying.Jeremy Taylor.
When you organise a strike, it is war you organise; / But to organise our labour were the labour of the wise.Dr. Walter Smith.
When you see a man with a great deal of religion displayed in his shop-window, you may depend upon it he keeps a very small stock of it within.Spurgeon.
When you see a snake, never mind where he came from.Proverb.
When you see a woman paint, your heart needna faint.Scotch Proverb.
When your broth’s ready-made for you, you mun swallow the thickenin’, or else let the broth alone.George Eliot.
When your head did but ache, / I knit my handkerchief about your brows, / The best I had; a princess wrought it me; / And I did never ask it you again.King John, iv. 1.
Whence? O Heavens, whither? Sense knows not; faith knows not; only that it is through mystery to mystery, from God to God.Carlyle on the drama of life.
Whene’er a noble deed is wrought, / Whene’er is spoken a noble thought, / Our hearts, in glad surprise, / To higher levels rise.Longfellow.
Whenever a man talks loudly against religion, always suspect that it is not his reason, but his passions, which have got the better of his creed. A bad life and a good belief are disagreeable and troublesome neighbours; and when they separate, depend upon it, ’tis for no other cause but quietness’ sake.Sterne.
Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither is, in my opinion, safe.Burke.
Whenever I see a new-married couple more than ordinarily fond before faces, I consider them as attempting to impose upon the company or themselves; either hating each other heartily, or consuming that stock of love in the beginning of their course which should serve them throughout their whole journey.Goldsmith.
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way to the common feelings of mankind.Gibbon.
Whenever the people flock to see a miracle, it is a hundred to one but that they see a miracle.Goldsmith.
Whenever you find humour, you find pathos close by its side.Whipple.
Whensoever a man desireth anything inordinately, he is presently disquieted in himself.Thomas à Kempis.
Where content is there is a feast.Proverb.
Where do we find ourselves? In a series of which we do not know the extremes, and believe that it has none.Emerson.
Where drink goes in, wit goes out.Proverb.
Where else is the God’s presence manifested, not to our eyes only, but to our hearts, as in our fellow-men?Carlyle.
Where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.St. James.
Where friends are in earnest, each day brings its own gain, so that at last the year, when summed up, is of incalculable advantage. Details in reality constitute the life; results may be valuable, but they are more surprising than useful.Goethe.
Where God gives, envy harms not; and where he gives not, no labour avails.Latin Proverb.
Where God has built a church, there the devil would also build a chapel.Luther.
Where God helps, nought harms.Proverb.
Where have they who are running here and there in search of riches such happiness as those placid spirits enjoy who are gratified at the immortal fountain of happiness?Hitopadesa.
Where I am, there every one is.Rabbi Hillel.
Where idolatry ends, Christianity begins; and where idolatry begins, Christianity ends.Jacobi.
Where ignorance is bliss, / ’Tis folly to be wise.Gray.
Where is any author in the world / Teaches such beauty as a woman’s eye?Love’s L’s. Lost, iv. 3.
Where is the good of having a right to make both yourself and your neighbours miserable?… Mutual accommodation is the law of the world, or its inhabitants would all be wretched together.Mrs. Gatty.
Where is the man who has the power and skill / To stem the torrent of a woman’s will? / For if she will, she will, you may depend on’t; / And if she won’t, she won’t, and there’s an end on’t.Dane John Monument at Canterbury.
Where it is weakest, the thread breaketh.Proverb.
Where law ends, tyranny begins.Fielding.
Where lies are easily admitted, the father of lies will not easily be excluded.Quarles.
Where love reigns, disturbing jealousy doth call himself affection’s sentinel.Shakespeare.
Where man is, are the tropics; where he is not, the ice-world.Ruskin.
Where Nature’s end of language is declined, / And men talk only to conceal the mind. (?)
Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the multitude of counsellers there is safety.Bible.
Where no fault is, there needs no pardon.Proverb.
Where no hope is left, is left no fear.Milton.
Where no oxen are, the crib is clean.Proverb.
Where no wood is, there the fire goeth out: so where there is no tale-bearer, the strife ceaseth.Bible.
Where none thou canst discern, make for thyself a path.Goethe.
Where once Truth’s flame has burnt, I doubt / If ever it go fairly out.Hannah More.
Where one is wise, two are happy.Proverb.
Where one man shapes his life by precept and example, there are a thousand who have it shaped for them by impulse and by circumstances.Lowell.
Where one member suffers, all the members suffer with it.St. Paul.
Where peace / And rest can never dwell, hope never comes, / That comes to all.Milton.