|
|
Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants
thereof.
Topic: Liberty
Source: inscription on the Liberty Bell from Bibles's Leviticus 25:10
|
Food for the soul.
[Lat., Nutrimentum spiritus.]
Topic: Libraries
Source: inscription on the Berlin Royal Library
|
The medicine chest of the soul.
Topic: Libraries
Source: inscription of a library
|
Let us live then, and be glad
While young life's before us
After youthful pastime had,
After old age had and sad,
Earth will slumber over us.
[Lat., Gaudeamus igitur,
Juvenes dum sumus
Post pucundam juventutem.
Post molestam senectutem.
Nos habetit humus.]
Topic: Life
Source: (John Addington Symonds' translation)
|
Life is an uncharted ocean. The cautious mariner must needs take
Many soundings ere he conduct his barque to port in safety.
Topic: Life
Source: epigraph from Soundings by A. Hamilton Gibbs
|
Live fast, die young, leave a good-looking corpse.
Topic: Life
Source: Knock On Any Door (Nick Romano character), in a movie
|
Life's but a span, or a tale, or a word,
That in a trice, or suddaine, is rehearsed.
Topic: Life
Source: The Roxburghe Ballads--A Friend's Advice (pt. II, edited by William Chappell)
|
If you will do some deed before you die,
Remember not this caravan of death,
But have belief that every little breath
Will stay with you for an eternity.
Topic: Life
Source: The Roxburghe Ballads--A Friend's Advice (pt. II, edited by William Chappell)
|
"There beauty half her glory veils,
In cabs, those gondolas on wheels."
Topic: Livery
Source: said to be taken from "May Fair", a satire publication
|
It's love, it's love that makes the world go round.
Topic: Love
Source: a popular French song in "Chansons Nationales et Populaires de France", vol. II, p. 180
|
Oh, tell me whence Love cometh!
Love comes uncall'd, unsent.
Oh, tell me where Love goeth!
That was not Love that went.
Topic: Love
Source: Burden of a Woman, found in J.W. Ebsworth's "Roxburghe Ballads"
|
I seek for one as fair and gay,
But find none to remind me,
How blest the hours pass'd away
With the girl I left behind me.
Topic: Love
Source: The Girl I Left Behind Me
|
Greensleeves was all my joy,
Greensleeves was my delight,
Greensleeves was my heart of gold,
And who but Lady Greensleeves?
Topic: Love
Source: A new Courtly Sonnet of the Lady Greensleeves to the new tune of "Greensleeves", from "A Handful of
|
From the lone shielding on the misty island
Mountains divide us, and the waste of seas--
But still the blood is strong, the heart is Highland,
And we in dreams behold the Hebrides.
Topic: Love of Country
Source: Canadian Boat Song, first appeared in "Blackwood's Magazine" and attributed to various authors
|
Man only,--rash, refined, presumptuous Man--
Starts from his rank, and mars Creation's plan!
Born the free heir of nature's wide domain,
To art's strict limits bounds his narrow'd reign;
Resigns his native rights for meaner things,
For Faith and Fetters, Laws and Priests and Kings.
Topic: Man
Source: Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin--The Progress of Man (l. 55)
|
Who in this world of ours their eyes
In March first open shall be wise;
In days of peril firm and brave,
And wear a Bloodstone to their grave.
Topic: March
Source: March, in "Notes and Queries", May 11, 1889, p. 371
|
Who first beholds the light of day
In Spring's sweet flowery month of May
And wears an Emerald all her life,
Shall be a loved and happy wife.
Topic: May
Source: May, in "Notes and Queries", May 11, 1889, p. 371
|
Use three Physicians,
Still-first Dr. Quiet,
Next Dr. Merry-man
And Dr. Dyet.
Topic: Medicine
Source: Regimen Sanitatis Salernitanum, (edition 1607)
|
The physician heals, Nature makes well.
[Lat., Medicus curat, Natura sanat morbus.]
Topic: Medicine
Source: Regimen Sanitatis Salernitanum, (edition 1607)
|
As drifting logs of wood may haply meet
On ocean's waters surging to and fro,
And having met, drift once again apart,
So, fleeting is the intercourse of men.
E'en as a traveler meeting with the shade
Of some o'erhung tree, awhile reposes,
Then leaves its shelter to pursue his ways,
So men meet friends, then part with them for ever.
Topic: Meeting
Source: Code of Manu, translation in "Words of Wisdom"
|
Sublimity is the echo of a noble mind.
Topic: Mind
Source: Longinus of the Sublime (sect. 9)
|
Dollar Diplomacy.
Topic: Money
Source: term applied to Secretary Knox's activities in securing opportunities for the investment of American
|
Fourth, eleventh, ninth, and sixth,
Thirty days to each affix;
Every other thirty-one,
Except the second month alone.
Topic: Months
Source: common in Chester County, Pennsylvania, among the Friends
|
Thirty days hath September,
April, June, and November;
All the rest have thirty-one
Excepting February alone:
Which hath but twenty-eight, in fine,
Till lap year gives it twenty-nine.
Topic: Months
Source: common in New England States
|
Thirty days hath September,
April, June, and November;
February eight-and-twenty all alone,
And all the rest have thirty-one:
Unless that leap-year doth combine,
And give to February twenty-nine.
Topic: Months
Source: Return from Parnassus, (London 1606)
|
Transcendental moonshine.
Topic: Moon
Source: found in "Life of John Sterling", p. 84 (People's Ed.), applied to teaching of Coleridge
|
Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.
Topic: Mottoes
Source: inscription on cannon near ashes of John Bradshaw on top of hill near Martha Bay, Jamaica, it is als
|
But Bellenden we needs must praise,
Who as down the stairs she jumps
Sings o'er the hill and far away,
Despising doleful dumps.
- Unattributed Author,
Topic: Music
Source: Distracted Jockey's Lamentation--Pills to Purge Melancholy, found in "The Nursery Rhymes of England"
|
Tom he was a piper's son,
He learned to play when he was young;
Bug all the tune that he could play
Was "Over the hills and far away."
- Unattributed Author,
Topic: Music
Source: Distracted Jockey's Lamentation--Pills to Purge Melancholy, found in "The Nursery Rhymes of England"
|
But we that have but span-long life,
The thicker must lay on the pleasure;
And since time will not stay,
We'll add night to the day,
Thus, thus we'll fill the measure.
Topic: Night
Source: Duet printed 1795, probably of earlier date
|
Be aristocracy the only joy:
Let commerce perish--let the world expire.
Topic: Nobility
Source: Modern Gulliver's Travels (p. 192), (ed. 1796)
|
October's child is born for woe,
And life's vicissitudes must know;
But lay on Opal on her breast,
And hope will lull those woes to rest.
Topic: October
Source: October, in "Notes and Queries", May 11, 1889, p. 371
|
The deep slumber of a decided opinion.
Topic: Opinion
Source: Thoughts for the Cloister and Crowd, London, 1835, p. 21, quoted by Mill in "Liberty"
|
I have ten thousand for defense, but none to surrender; if you
want our weapons come and get them.
Topic: Patriotism
Source: a response of an ancient general
|
Our country, however bounded.
Topic: Patriotism
Source: toast founded on the speech of Winthrop
|
The February born will find
Sincerity and peace of mind;
Freedom from passion and from care,
If they the Pearl (also green Amethyst) will wear.
Topic: Pearls
Source: February, in "Notes and Queries", May 11, 1889, p. 371
|
Hier aupres de Charenton
Un serpent morait Jean Freron,
Que croyez-vous qu'il arriva?
Ce fut le serpent qui creva.
Topic: Poison
Source: imitation from the Greek, also found in Oeuvres Complets de Voltaire, III, p. 1002, 1817, printed as
|
Un gros serpent mordit Aurele.
Que croyez-vous qu'il arriva?
Qu' Aurele en mourut? Bagatelle!
Ce fut le serpent qui creva.
Topic: Poison
Source: in a manuscript commonplace book, probably written at the end of the 18th century, see "Notes and Qu
|
The White Plume of Navarre.
Topic: Politics
Source: name given to the New York "Tribune" during the U.S. Civil War
|
Practical politics consists in ignoring facts.
Topic: Politics
Source: name given to the New York "Tribune" during the U.S. Civil War
|
Doubt not but God who sits on high,
Thy secret prayers can hear;
When a dead wall thus cunningly
Conveys soft whispers to the ear.
Topic: Prayer
Source: verse inscribed in the Whispering Gallery of Gloucester Cathedral
|
O God, if in the day of battle I forget Thee, do not Thou forget
me.
Topic: Prayer
Source: attributed to a soldier by William King in "Anecdotes of his own time", p. 7 (ed. 1818)
|
I pray the prayer the Easterners do,
May the peace of Allah abide with you;
Wherever you stay, wherever you go,
May the beautiful palms of Allah grow;
Through days of labor, and nights of rest,
The love of Good Allah make you blest;
So I touch my heart--as the Easterners do,
May the peace of Allah abide with you.
Topic: Prayer
Source: Salaam Alaikum (Peace be with you.)
|
Sacred to the memory of printing, the art preservative of all
arts. This was first invented about the year 1440.
[Lat., Memoriae sacrum
Typographia
Ars artium omnium
Conservatrix
Hic primum inventa
Circa annum mccccxl.
Topic: Printing
Source: inscription on the facade of the house once occupied by Laurent Koster at Harlem
|
The asses' bridge.
[Lat., Pons Asinorum.]
Topic: Proverbial Phrases
Source: applied to Proposition 5 of the first book of Euclid
|
Mind your P's and Q's.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: possibly from the old custom of hanging a slate in a tavern with P and Q (for pints and quarts) unde
|
There are four kinds of people, three of which are to be avoided
and the fourth cultivated: those who don't know that they don't
know; those who know that they don't know; those who don't know
that they know; and those who know that they know.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: rendering of an Arab proverb
|
Wode has erys, felde has sigt.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: King Edward and the Shepherd, a manuscript (circa 1300)
|
The man that heweth over high,
Some chip falleth in his eye.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Story of Sir Eglamour of Artois, an English romantic story circa 1350, from a manuscript in the Garr
|
Snug as a bug in a rug.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: The Stratford Jubilee (II, 1, 1779), also in letter to Miss Georgiana Shipley
|
