Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Change
J’avais vu les grands, mais je n’avais pas vu les petits.
I had seen the great, but I had not seen the small.
Alfieri—Reason for Changing his Democratic Opinions.
Nè spegner può per star nell’acqua il foco;
Nè può stato mutar per mutar loco.
Such fire was not by water to be drown’d,
Nor he his nature changed by changing ground.
Ariosto—Orlando Furioso. XXVIII. 89.
Joy comes and goes, hope ebbs and flows
Like the wave;
Change doth unknit the tranquil strength of men.
Love lends life a little grace,
A few sad smiles; and then,
Both are laid in one cold place,
In the grave.
Matthew Arnold—A Question. St. 1.
Il n’y a rien de changé en France; il n’y a qu’un Français de plus.
Nothing has changed in France, there is only a Frenchman the more.
Proclamation pub. in the Moniteur, April, 1814, as the words of Comte D’Artois (afterwards Charles X), on his entrance into Paris. Originated with Count Beugnot. Instigated by Talleyrand. See M. de Vaulabelle—Hist. des Deux Restaurations. 3d Édit. II. Pp. 30, 31. Also Contemporary Review, Feb., 1854.
Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure.
Robert Browning—Rabbi Ben Ezra. St. 27.
Weep not that the world changes—did it keep
A stable, changeless state, it were cause indeed to weep.
Bryant—Mutation.
Full from the fount of Joy’s delicious springs
Some bitter o’er the flowers its bubbling venom flings.
Byron—Chide Harold. Canto I. St. 82.
I am not now
That which I have been.
Byron—Chide Harold. Canto IV. St. 185.
And one by one in turn, some grand mistake
Casts off its bright skin yearly like the snake.
Byron—Don Juan. Canto V. St. 21.
A change came o’er the spirit of my dream.
Byron—Dream. St. 3.
Shrine of the mighty! can it be,
That this is all remains of thee?
Byron—Giaour. L. 106.
How chang’d since last her speaking eye
Glanc’d gladness round the glitt’ring room,
Where high-born men were proud to wait—
Where Beauty watched to imitate.
Byron—Parisina. St. 10.
To-day is not yesterday: we ourselves change; how can our Works and Thoughts, if they are always to be the fittest, continue always the same? Change, indeed, is painful; yet ever needful; and if Memory have its force and worth, so also has Hope.
Carlyle—Essays. Characteristics.
Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis. Astra regunt homines, sed regit astra Deus.
Times change and we change with them. The stars rule men but God rules the stars. Cellarius—Harmonia Macrocosmica. (1661). The phrase “Tempora mutantur” or “Omnia mutantur” attributed by Borbonius to Emperor Lotharius I, in Delitiæ Poetarum Germanorum. Cicero—De Officiis. Bk. I. Ch. 10. Ovid—Metamor. Bk. III. 397. Lactantius. Bk. III. Fable V. Holinshed—Description of Great Britain. (1571).
Sancho Panza by name is my own self, if I was not changed in my cradle.
Cervantes—Don Quixote. Pt. II. Ch. XXX.
An id exploratum cuiquam potest esse, quomodo sese habitarum sit corpus, non dico ad annum sed ad vesperam?
Can any one find out in what condition his body will be, I do not say a year hence, but this evening?
Cicero—De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum. II. 228.
Non tam commutandarum, quam evertendarum rerum cupidi.
Longing not so much to change things as to overturn them.
Cicero—De Officiis. II. 1.
Nihil est aptius ad delectationem lectoris quam temporum varietates fortunæque vicissitudines.
There is nothing better fitted to delight the reader than change of circumstances and varieties of fortune.
Cicero—Epistles. V. 12.
Nemo doctus unquam (multa autem de hoc genere scripta sunt) mutationem consili inconstantiam dixit esse.
No sensible man (among the many things that have been written on this kind) ever imputed inconsistency to another for changing his mind.
Cicero—Epistolæ ad Atticus. XVI. 7. 3.
Asperius nihil est humili cum surgit in altum.
Nothing is more annoying than a low man raised to a high position.
Claudianus—In Eutropium. I. 181.
Still ending, and beginning still.
Cowper—The Task. Bk. III. L. 627.
On commence par être dupe,
On finit par être fripon.
We begin by being dupe, and end by being rogue.
Deschamps—Réflexion sur le Jeu.
Change is inevitable in a progressive country,
Change is constant.
Benj. Disraeli—Edinburgh, Oct. 29, 1867.
Will change the Pebbles of our puddly thought
To Orient Pearls.
Du Bartas—Divine Weekes and Workes, Second Week, Third Day. Pt. 1.
Good to the heels the well-worn slipper feels
When the tired player shuffles off the buskin;
A page of Hood may do a fellow good
After a scolding from Carlyle or Ruskin.
Holmes—How not to Settle It.
Nor can one word be chang’d but for a worse.
Homer—Odyssey. Bk. VIII. L. 192. Pope’s trans.
Non si male nunc et olim
Sic erit.
If matters go badly now, they will not always be so.
Horace—Carmina. II. 10. 17.
Plerumque gratæ divitibus vices.
Change generally pleases the rich.
Horace—Carmina. III. 29. 13.
Non sum qualis eram.
I am not what I once was.
Horace—Carmina. IV. 1. 3.
Amphora cœpit
Instituti; currente rota cur urceus exit?
A vase is begun; why, as the wheel goes round, does it turn out a pitcher?
Horace—Ars Poetica. XXI.
Quo teneam vultus mutantem Protea nodo?
With what knot shall I hold this Proteus, who so often changes his countenance?
Horace—Epistles. I. 1. 90.
Quod petiit spernit, repetit quod nuper omisit.
He despises what he sought; and he seeks that which he lately threw away.
Horace—Epistles. I. 1. 98.
Diruit, ædificat, mutat quadrata rotundis.
He pulls down, he builds up, he changes squares into circles.
Horace—Epistles. I. 1. 100.
Optat ephippia bos piger, optat arare caballus.
The lazy ox wishes for horse-trappings, and the steed wishes to plough.
Horace—Epistles. I. 14. 43.
Deus hæc fortasse benigna
Reducet in sedem vice.
God perchance will by a happy change restore these things to a settled condition.
Horace—Epistles. XIII. 7.
There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse; as I have found in travelling in a stage-coach, that it is often a comfort to shift one’s position and be bruised in a new place.
Washington Irving—Tales of a Traveller. Preface.
So many great nobles, things, administrations,
So many high chieftains, so many brave nations.
So many proud princes, and power so splendid,
In a moment, a twinkling, all utterly ended.
Jacopone—De Contemptu Mundi. Abraham Coles—Trans. in “Old Gems in New Settings.” P. 75.
As the rolling stone gathers no moss, so the roving heart gathers no affections.
Mrs. Jameson—Studies. Detached Thoughts. Sternberg’s Novels.
Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?
Jeremiah. XIII. 23.
He is no wise man that will quit a certainty for an uncertainty.
Samuel Johnson—The Idler. No. 57.
The world goes up and the world goes down.
And the sunshine follows the rain;
And yesterday’s sneer and yesterday’s frown
Can never come over again.
Charles Kingsley—Songs. II.
Coups de fourches ni d’étrivières,
Ne lui font changer de manières.
Neither blows from pitchfork, nor from the lash, can make him change his ways.
La Fontaine—Fables. II. 18.
Time fleeth on,
Youth soon is gone,
Naught earthly may abide;
Life seemeth fast,
But may not last—
It runs as runs the tide.
Leland—Many in One. Pt. II. St. 21.
I do not allow myself to suppose that either the convention or the League, have concluded to decide that I am either the greatest or the best man in America, but rather they have concluded it is not best to swap horses while crossing the river, and have further concluded that I am not so poor a horse that they might not make a botch of it in trying to swap.
Lincoln, to a delegation of the National Union League who congratulated him on his nomination as the Republican candidate for President, June 9, 1864. As given by J. F. Rhodes—Hist. of the U. S. from the Compromise of 1850. Vol. IV. P. 370. Same in Nicolay and Hay Lincoln’s Complete Works. Vol. II. P. 532. Different version in Appleton’s Cyclopedia. Raymond—Life and Public Services of Abraham Lincoln. Ch. XVIII. P. 500. (Ed. 1865) says Lincoln quotes an old Dutch farmer, “It was best not to swap horses when crossing a stream.”
All things must change
To something new, to something strange.
Longfellow—Keramos. L. 32.
But the nearer the dawn the darker the night,
And by going wrong all things come right;
Things have been mended that were worse,
And the worse, the nearer they are to mend.
Longfellow—Tales of a Wayside Inn. The Baron of St. Castine. L. 265.
Omnia mortali mutantur lege creata,
Nec se cognoscunt terræ vertentibus annis,
Et mutant variam faciem per sæcula gentes.
Everything that is created is changed by the laws of man; the earth does not know itself in the revolution of years; even the races of man assume various forms in the course of ages.
Manilius—Astronomica. 515.
Do not think that years leave us and find us the same!
Owen Meredith (Lord Lytton)—Lucile. Pt. II. Canto II. St. 3.
Weary the cloud falleth out of the sky,
Dreary the leaf lieth low.
All things must come to the earth by and by,
Out of which all things grow.
Owen Meredith (Lord Lytton)—The Wanderer. Earth’s Havings. Bk. III.
To-morrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.
Milton—Lycidas. L. 193.
In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds
On half the nations, and with fear of change
Perplexes monarchs.
Milton—Paradise Lost. Bk. I. L. 597.
Nous avons changé tout cela.
We have changed all that.
Molière—Le Médecin Malgré lui. II. 6.
Saturninus said, “Comrades, you have lost a good captain to make him an ill general.”
Montaigne—Of Vanity. Bk. III. Ch. IX.
All that’s bright must fade,—
The brightest still the fleetest;
All that’s sweet was made
But to be lost when sweetest.
Moore—National Airs. All That’s Bright Must Fade.
Omnia mutantur, nihil interit.
All things change, nothing perishes.
Ovid—Metamorphoses. XV. 165.
My merry, merry, merry roundelay
Concludes with Cupid’s curse,
They that do change old love for new,
Pray gods, they change for worse!
George Peele—Cupid’s Curse; From the Arraignment of Paris.
Till Peter’s keys some christen’d Jove adorn,
And Pan to Moses lends his Pagan horn.
Pope—Dunciad. Bk. III. L. 109.
See dying vegetables life sustain,
See life dissolving vegetate again;
All forms that perish other forms supply;
(By turns we catch the vital breath and die.)
Pope—Essay on Man. Ep. III. L. 15.
Alas! in truth, the man but chang’d his mind,
Perhaps was sick, in love, or had not dined.
Pope—Moral Essays. Ep. I. Pt. II.
Manners with Fortunes, Humours turn with Climes,
Tenets with Books, and Principles with Times.
Pope—Moral Essays. Ep. I. Pt. II.
Tournoit les truies au foin.
Turned the pigs into the grass. (Clover.)
Rabelais—Gargantua. (Phrase meaning to change the subject.)
Corporis et fortunæ bonorum ut initium finis est. Omnia orta occidunt, et orta senescunt.
As the blessings of health and fortune have a beginning, so they must also find an end. Everything rises but to fall, and increases but to decay.
Sallust—Jugurtha. II.
With every change his features play’d,
As aspens show the light and shade.
Scott—Rokeby. Canto III. St. 5.
As hope and fear alternate chase
Our course through life’s uncertain race.
Scott—Rokeby. Canto VI. St. 2.
When change itself can give no more,
’Tis easy to be true.
Sir Chas. Sedley—Reasons for Constancy.
Hereditary
Rather than purchased; what he cannot change,
Than what he chooses.
Antony and Cleopatra. Act I. Sc. 4. L. 14.
This world is not for aye, nor ’tis not strange
That even our loves should with our fortunes change. –
Hamlet. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 210.
That we would do,
We should do when we would; for this “would” changes
And hath abatements and delays as many
As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents;
And then this “should” is like a spendthrift sigh,
That hurts by easing.
Hamlet. Act IV. Sc. 7. L. 119.
The love of wicked men converts to fear;
That fear to hate, and hate turns one or both
To worthy danger and deserved death.
Richard II. Act V. Sc. 1. L. 65.
All things that we ordained festival,
Turn from their office to black funeral;
Our instruments to melancholy bells,
Our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast,
Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change,
Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse,
And all things change them to the contrary.
Romeo and Juliet. Act IV. Sc. 5. L. 84.
I am not so nice,
To change true rules for old inventions.
Taming of the Shrew. Act III. Sc. 1. L. 80.
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Tempest. Act I. Sc. 2. L. 396.
Life may change, but it may fly not;
Hope may vanish, but can die not;
Truth be veiled, but still it burneth;
Love repulsed,—but it returneth.
Shelley—Hellas. Semi-chorus.
Men must reap the things they sow,
Force from force must ever flow,
Or worse; but ’tis a bitter woe
That love or reason cannot change.
Shelley—Lines Written among the Euganean Hills. L. 232.
Nought may endure but Mutability.
Shelley—Mutability.
Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent;
This, like thy glory, Titan! is to be
Good, great, and joyous, beautiful and free;
This is alone Life, Joy, Empire and Victory.
Shelley—Prometheus. Act IV.
This sad vicissitude of things.
Laurence Sterne—Sermons. XVI. The Character of Shimel.
The life of any one can by no means be changed after death; an evil life can in no wise be converted into a good life, or an infernal into an angelic life: because every spirit, from head to foot, is of the character of his love, and therefore, of his life; and to convert this life into its opposite, would be to destroy the spirit utterly.
Swedenborg—Heaven and Hell. 527.
Corpora lente augescent, cito extinguuntur.
Bodies are slow of growth, but are rapid in their dissolution.
Tacitus—Agricola. II.
Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward let us range.
Let the great world spin forever down the ringing grooves of change.
Tennyson—Locksley Hall. St. 91.
The stone that is rolling can gather no moss.
Who often removeth is suer of loss.
Tusser—Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry. Lessons. St. 46.
So, when a raging fever burns,
We shift from side to side by turns;
And ’tis a poor relief we gain
To change the place, but keep the pain.
Isaac Watts—Hymns and Spiritual Songs. Bk. II. 146.
Life is arched with changing skies:
Rarely are they what they seem:
Children we of smiles and sighs—
Much we know, but more we dream.
William Winter—Light and Shadow.
“A jolly place,” said he, “in times of old!
But something ails it now; the spot is curst.”
Wordsworth—Hart-leap Well. Pt. II.
As high as we have mounted in delight
In our dejection do we sink as low.
Wordsworth—Resolution and Independence. St. 4.
I heard the old, old men say,
“Every thing alters,
And one by one we drop away.”
They had hands like claws, and their knees
Were twisted like the old thorn trees
By the waters.
I heard the old, old men say,
“All that’s beautiful drifts away
Like the waters.”
W. B. Yeats—The Old Men admiring themselves in the Water.