Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Pen
Art thou a pen, whose task shall be
To drown in ink
What writers think?
Oh, wisely write,
That pages white
Be not the worse for ink and thee.
Ethel Lynn Beers—The Gold Nugget.
Whose noble praise
Deserves a quill pluckt from an angel’s wing.
Dorothy Berry—Sonnet. Prefixed to Diana Primrose’s Chain of Pearls. (1699).
Beneath the rule of men entirely great
The pen is mightier than the sword.
Bulwer-Lytton—Richelieu. Act II. Sc. 2.
Hinc quam sit calamus sævior euse, patet.
From this it appears how much more cruel the pen may be than the sword.
Burton—Anatomy of Melancholy. Pt. I. Sec. XXI. Mem. 4. Subsec. 4.
Oh! nature’s noblest gift—my gray-goose quill!
Slave of my thoughts, obedient to my will,
Torn from thy parent-bird to form a pen,
That mighty instrument of little men!
Byron—English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. L. 7.
The pen wherewith thou dost so heavenly sing
Made of a quill from an angel’s wing.
Henry Constable—Sonnet. Found in Notes to Todd’s Milton. Vol. V. P. 454. (Ed. 1826.)
For what made that in glory shine so long
But poets’ Pens, pluckt from Archangels’ wings?
John Davies—Bien Venu.
The pen is mightier than the sword.
Franklin—Oration. (1783).
Anser, apie, vitellus, populus et regna gubernant.
Goose [pen] bee [wax] and calf [parchment] govern the world.
Quoted by James Howell. Letters. Bk. II. Letter 2.
The pen became a clarion.
Longfellow—Monte Cassino. St. 13.
The swifter hand doth the swift words outrun:
Before the tongue hath spoke the hand hath done.
Martial—Epigrams. Bk. XIV. Ep. 208. Trans. by Wright. (On a shorthand writer.)
The sacred Dove a quill did lend
From her high-soaring wing.
F. Nethersole. Prefixed to Giles Fletcher’s Christ’s Victorie.
Non sest aliena res, quæ fere ab honestis negligi solet, cura bene ac velociter scribendi.
Men of quality are in the wrong to undervalue, as they often do, the practise of a fair and quick hand in writing; for it is no immaterial accomplishment.
Quintilian—De Institutione Oratorio. I. 5.
Qu’on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j’y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.
Attributed to Richelieu by Fournier—L’Esprit dans l’Histoire. Ch. XLI. P. 255. (1883).
Tant la plume a eu sous le roi d’avantage sur l’épée.
So far had the pen, under the king, the superiority over the sword.
Saint Simon—Mémoires. Vol. III. P. 517. (1702). (Ed. 1856).
Let there be gall enough in thy ink, though thou write with a goose-pen, no matter.
Twelfth Night. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 52.
You write with ease, to show your breeding, But easy writing’s curst hard reading.
R. B. Sheridan—Clio’s Protest. See Moore’s Life of Sheridan. Vol. I. P. 55.
The feather, whence the pen
Was shaped that traced the lives of these good men,
Dropped from an Angel’s wing.
Wordsworth—Ecclesiastical Sonnets. Pt. III. V. Walton’s Book of Lives.