James Wood, comp. Dictionary of Quotations. 1899.
Love knows to Make haste slowly
Love knows nothing of labour.Italian Proverb.
Love labour; for if thou dost not want it for food, thou may’st for physic.William Penn.
Love laughs at locksmiths.Proverb.
Love lessens the woman’s refinement and strengthens the man’s.Jean Paul.
Love lieth deep; Love dwells not in lip-depths; / Love laps his wings on either side the heart / … Absorbing all the incense of sweet thoughts, / So that they pass not to the shrine of sound.Tennyson.
Love lightens labour and sweetens sorrow.Proverb.
Love like a shadow flies when substance love pursues; / Pursuing that that flies, and flying what pursues.Merry Wives, ii. 2.
Love, like fire, cannot subsist without continual motion, and ceases to exist as soon as it ceases to hope or fear.La Rochefoucauld.
Love, like men, dies oftener of excess than hunger.Jean Paul.
Love likes not shallow mirth.Dr. Walter Smith.
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; / And therefore is wing’d Cupid painted blind.Mid. N.’s Dream, i. 1.
Love makes labour light.J. G. Holland.
Love makes obedience lighter than liberty.W. R. Alger.
Love makes time pass away, and time makes love pass away.French Proverb.
Love me little, love me long, / Is the burden of my song; / Love that is too hot and strong / Burneth soon to waste; / Still I would not have thee cold, / Not too backward or too bold; / Love that lasteth till ’tis old / Fadeth not in haste.Old Ballad.
Love me, love my dog.Proverb.
Love mocks all sorrows but its own, and damps each joy he does not yield.Lady Dacre.
Love moderately; long love doth so; / Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.Romeo and Juliet, ii. 6.
Love must be as much a light as a flame.Thoreau.
Love must be taken by stratagem, not by open force.Goldsmith.
Love never reasons, but profusely gives—gives, like a thoughtless prodigal, its all, and trembles then lest it has done too little.Hannah More.
Love not pleasure; love God. This is the everlasting Yea, wherein all contradiction is solved: wherein whoso walks and works, it is well with him.Carlyle.
Love not sleep, lest thou come to poverty.Bible.
Love not thyself, nor give thy humours way; / God gave them to thee under lock and key.George Herbert.
Love of gain never made a painter, but it has marred many.W. Allston.
Love of glory can only create a great hero; contempt of it creates a great man.Talleyrand.
Love of men cannot be bought by cash payment; and without love men cannot endure to be together.Carlyle.
Love of power, merely to make flunkeys come and go for you, is a love, I should think, which enters only into the minds of persons in a very infantine state.Carlyle.
Love of truth shows itself in being able everywhere to find and value what is good.Goethe.
Love on his lips and hatred in his heart: / His motto—constancy, his creed—to part.Byron.
Love one human being with warmth and purity, and thou wilt love the world. The heart, in that celestial sphere of love, is like the sun in its course. From the drop on the rose to the ocean, all is for him a mirror, which he fills and brightens.Jean Paul.
Love one time layeth burdens, another time giveth wings.Sir P. Sidney.
Love ought to raise a low heart and not humble a high one.Ariosto.
Love ower het (hot) soon cools.Scotch Proverb.
Love prefers twilight to daylight.Holmes.
Love reckons hours for months, and days for years; and every little absence is an age.Dryden.
Love requires not so much proofs as expressions of love.Jean Paul.
Love rules his kingdom without a sword.Proverb.
Love rules the camp, the court, the grove, / And men below and saints above; / For love is heaven, and heaven is love.Scott.
Love rules without a sword and binds without a cord.Proverb.
Love rules without law.Italian Proverb.
Love sees what no eye sees; hears what no ear hears; and what never rose in the heart of man love prepares for its object.Lavater.
Love seldom haunts the breast where learning lies, / And Venus sets ere Mercury can rise.Pope.
Love should have some rest and pleasure in himself, / Not ever be too curious for a boon, / Too prurient for a proof against the grain / Of him ye say ye love.Tennyson.
Love should not be all on one side.Proverb.
Love shows, even to the dullest, the possibilities of the human race.Helps.
Love silence rather than speech in these tragic days, when for very speaking the voice of man has fallen inarticulate to man.Carlyle.
Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.Twelfth Night, iii. 1.
Love strikes one hour—love. Those never loved / Who dream that they loved once.Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Love that can flow, and can admit increase, / Admits as well an ebb, and may grow less.Suckling.
Love the good and forgive the bad.Gaelic Proverb.
Love, the last relay and ultimate outpost of eternity.Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
Love the sense of right and wrong confounds; / Strong love and proud ambition have no bounds.Dryden.
Love thinks nae ill, envy speaks nae gude.Scotch Proverb.
Love thyself, and many will hate thee.Anonymous.
Love to a yielding heart is a king, but to a resisting is a tyrant.Sidney.
Love to make others happy; yes, surely at all times, so far as you can. But at bottom that is not the aim of any life. Do not think that your life means a mere searching in gutters for fallen creatures to wipe and set up…. In our life there is no meaning at all except the work we have done.Carlyle.
Love too late can never glow.Keble.
Love took up the harp of life, and smote on all the chords with might; / Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, passed in music out of sight.Tennyson.
Love-verses, writ without any real passion, are the most nauseous of all conceits.Shenstone.
Love waits for love, though the sun be set, / And the stars come out, the dews are wet, / And the night-winds moan.Dr. Walter Smith.
Love—what a volume in a word, an ocean in a tear!Tupper.
Love, when founded in the heart, will show itself in a thousand unpremeditated sallies of fondness; but every cool deliberate exhibition of the passion only argues little understanding or great insincerity.Goldsmith.
Love which hath ends will have an end.Dryden.
Love, which is only an episode in the life of a man, is the entire history of a woman’s life.Madame de Staël.
Love, which is the essence of God, is not for levity, but for the total worth of man.Emerson.
Love will creep where it cannot go.Proverb.
Love will find its way / Through paths where wolves would fear to prey.Byron.
Love will subsist on wonderfully little hope, but not altogether without it.Scott.
Love with men is not a sentiment, but an idea.Mme. de Girardin.
Love without return is like a question without an answer.German Proverb.
Love worketh no ill to his neighbour; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.St. Paul.
Love works a different way in different minds, / The fool enlightens and the wise he blinds.Dryden.
Love yet lives, and patience shall find rest.Keble.
Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you, bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you.Jesus.
Love your neighbour, but don’t tear down the fence.German Proverb.
Love yourself, and in that love / Not unconsidered leave your honour.Henry VIII., i. 2.
Love’s fire, if it once go out, is hard to kindle.Proverb.
Love’s heralds should be thoughts, / Which ten times faster glide than the sun’s beams / Driving back shadows over lowering hills.Romeo and Juliet, ii. 5.
Love’s not love / When it is mingled with regards that stand / Aloof from the entire point.King Lear, i. 1.
Love’s of a strangely open simple kind, / And thinks none sees it ’cause itself is blind.Cowley.
Love’s of itself too sweet; the best of all / Is when love’s honey has a dash of gall.Herrick.
Love’s plant must be watered with tears and tended with care.Danish Proverb.
Love’s reasons without reason.Cymbeline, iv. 2.
Love’s sweetest meanings are unspoken; the full heart knows no rhetoric of words, and resorts to the pantomime of sighs and glances.Bovee.
Love’s the noblest frailty of the mind.Dryden.
Love’s true function in the world is as the regenerator and restorer of social life, the reconciler and uniter of living men.James Wood.
Love’s voice doth sing as sweetly in a beggar as a king.Decker.
Lovely, far more lovely, the sturdy gloom of laborious indigence than the fawning simper of thriving adulation.Goldsmith.
Loveliness does more than destroy ugliness; it destroys matter. A mere touch of it in a room, in a street, even on a door-knocker, is a spiritual force.Prof. Drummond.
Loveliness / Needs not the foreign aid of ornament, / But is, when unadorn’d, adorn’d the most.Thomson.
Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, / Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend / More than cool reason ever comprehends.Mid. N.’s Dream, v. 1.
Lovers are as punctual as the sun.Goethe.
Lovers are never tired of each other; they always speak of themselves.La Rochefoucauld.
Lovers break not hours, / Unless it be to come before their time; / So much they spur their expedition.Two Gent. of Verona, v. 1.
Lovers’ purses are tied with cobwebs.Proverb.
Lovers (Verliebte) see only each other in the world, but they forget that the world sees them.Platen.
Lovers’ time runs faster than the clock.Proverb.
Loving goes by haps; some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.Much Ado, iii. 1.
Lowliness is the base of every virtue, and he who goes the lowest builds the safest.Bailey.
Lowliness is young ambition’s ladder, / Whereto the climber-upward turns his face; / But when he once attains the upmost round, / He then unto the ladder turns his back, / Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees / By which he did ascend.Julius Cæsar, ii. 1.
Loyal à la mort—Loyal to death.Motto.
Loyal en tout—Loyal in all.Motto.
Loyal je serai durant ma vie—I will be loyal during my life.Motto.
Loyauté m’oblige—Loyalty binds me.Motto.
Loyauté n’a honte—Loyalty feels no shame.Motto.
Lubrici sunt fortunæ gressus—The footsteps of fortune are slippery.
Lubricum linguæ non facile in pœnam est trahendum—A slip of the tongue ought not to be rashly punished.Law.
[Greek]—When the candle is taken away, every woman is alike.Greek Proverb.
Luck is ever waiting for something to turn up. Labour, with keen eyes and strong will, will turn up something. Luck relies on chance, labour on character.Cobden.
Luck is everything in promotion.Cervantes.
Luck is the idol of the idle.Proverb.
Luck, mere luck, may make even madness wisdom.Douglas Jerrold.
Luck seeks those who flee, and flees those who seek it.German Proverb.
Lucri bonus est odor ex re / Qualibet—The smell of gain is good, from whatever it proceeds.Juvenal.
Luctantem Icariis fluctibus Africum / Mercator metuens, otium et oppidi / Laudat rura sui: mox reficit rates / Quassas, indocilis pauperiem pati—The merchant, dreading the southwest wind wrestling with the Icarian waves, praises retirement and the rural life of his native town, but soon he repairs his shattered bark, incapable of being taught to endure poverty.Horace.
Ludere cum sacris—To trifle with sacred things.
Ludit in humanis divina potestas rebus, / Et certain præsens vix habet hora fidem—The divine power sports with human affairs so much that we can scarcely be sure of the passing hour.Ovid.
Lugete o Veneres Cupidinesque—Weep, all ye Venuses and Cupids.Catullus.
Lull’d in the countless chambers of the brain, / Our thoughts are linked by many a hidden chain; / Awake but one, and lo! what myriads rise! / Each stamps its image as the other flies.Rogers.
Lupo agnum eripere postulant—They insist on snatching the lamb from the wolf.Plautus.
Lupo ovem commisisti—You have put the sheep to the care of the wolf.Terence.
Lupus in fabula—It is the wolf in the story; talking of him, he appeared.
Lupus non curat numerum (ovum)—The wolf is not scared by the number of the sheep.Proverb.
Lupus pilum mutat, non mentem—The wolf changes his coat, but not his disposition.Proverb.
Lusisti satis, edisti satis, atque bibisti; / Tempus abire tibi est—Thou hast amused thyself enough, hast eaten and drunk enough; ’tis time for thee to depart.Horace.
Lust—hard by fate.Milton.
Lust is a sharp spur to vice, which always putteth the affections into a false gallop.St. Ambrose.
Lust is an enemy to the purse, a canker to the mind, a corrosive to the conscience, a weakness of the wit, a besotter of the senses, and a mortal bane to all the body.Pliny.
Lust is, of all the frailties of our nature, / What most we ought to fear; the headstrong beast / Rushes along, impatient of the course; / Nor hears the rider’s call, nor fears the rein.Rowe.
Lust of gain, in the spirit of Cain, is it better or worse / Than the heart of the citizen hissing in war on his own hearthstone?Tennyson.
Lust und Liebe sind die Fittiche / Zu grossen Thaten—Ambition and love are the wings to great deeds.Goethe.
Lust yielded to is a pleasant madness, but it is a desperate madness when opposed.Bp. Hall.
Lusus naturæ—A freak of nature.
Luther’s shoes don’t fit every country parson.German Proverb.
Luther’s words are half battles.Jean Paul.
Luxuriæ desunt multa, avaritiæ omnia—Luxury is in want of many things; avarice, of everything.Publius Syrus.
Luxuriant animi rebus plerumque secundis; / Nec facile est æqua commoda mente pati—The feelings generally run riot in prosperity; and to bear good fortune with evenness of mind is no easy task.Ovid.
Luxury is a nice master, hard to be pleased.Sir G. Mackenzie.
Luxury is an enticing pleasure, a bastard mirth, which hath honey in her mouth, gall in her heart, and a sting in her tail.Victor Hugo.
Luxury possibly may contribute to give bread to the poor; but if there were no luxury, there would be no poor.H. Home.
Lydius lapis—A Lydian or test stone.
Lying and stealing live next door to each other.Proverb.
Lying is a breach of promise; for whoever seriously addresses his discourse to another tacitly promises to speak the truth, because he knows the truth is expected.Paley.
Lying is a disgraceful vice, “affording testimony,” as Plutarch says, “that one first despises God and then fears men.”Montaigne.
Lying is the strongest acknowledgment of the force of truth.Hazlitt.
Lying lips are an abomination unto the Lord.Bible.
Lying may be pernicious in its general tendency, and therefore criminal, though it produce no particular or visible mischief to any one.Paley.
Lying pays no tax.Proverb.
Lying rides on debt’s back.Proverb.
Lynx envers nos pareils, et taupes envers nous—Lynx-eyed to our neighbours, and mole-eyed to ourselves.La Fontaine.
Lyrical poetry is much the same in every age, as the songs of the nightingales in every spring-time.Heine.
Ma vie est un combat—My life is a battle.Voltaire.
Macbeth does murder sleep, the innocent sleep; / Sleep, that knits up the ravell’d sleeve of care, / The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath, / Balm of hurt minds, great Nature’s second course, / Chief nourisher in life’s feast.Macbeth, ii. 2.
Mach’ dich nicht zu hoch, die Thür ist niedrig—Don’t carry your head too high; the door is low.German Proverb.
Mach’ es Wenigen recht: Vielen gefallen ist schlimm—Be content to please a few; to please many is bad.Schiller.
Machines cannot increase the possibilities of life, only the possibilities of idleness.Ruskin.
Macht, was ihr wollt; nur lasst mich ungeschoren—Produce what ye like, only leave me unmolested (lit. unshorn).Goethe.
Mächtig in Werke, nicht in Worte—Mighty in deeds, not in words.German Proverb.
Macies et nova febrium / Terris incubuit cohors—A wasting disease and an unheard-of battalion of fevers have swooped down on the earth.Horace.
Macte nova virtute, puer, sic itur ad astra—Go on in new deeds of valour, my son! That is the way to the stars.Virgil.
Macte virtute—Persevere in virtue; go on and prosper.
Macte virtute diligentiaque esto—Persevere in virtue and diligence.Livy.
Maculæ quas incuria fudit—The blemishes, or errors, which carelessness has produced.Horace.
Mad bulls cannot be tied up with a pack-thread.Proverb.
Mad dogs cannot live long.Proverb.
Mad people think others mad.Proverb.
Madame fut douce envers la mort, comme elle l’était envers tout le monde—She was gentle towards death, as she was towards every one.Bossuet.
Madness in great ones must not unwatch’d go.Hamlet, iii. 1.
Madness is consistent, which is more than can be said for poor reason. Our passions and principles are steady in frenzy, but begin to shift and waver as we return to reason.Sterne.
Madness is the last stage of human debasement. It is the abdication of humanity. Better to die a thousand times!Napoleon.
Madruga y verás, trabaja y habrás—Rise betimes, and you will see; labour diligently, and you will have.Spanish Proverb.
Magalia quondam—Formerly humble huts stood here.Virgil.
Magasins de nouveautés—Linen-draper’s, or fancy goods’, shop.French.
Magis gaudet quam qui senectam exult—He rejoices more than an old man who has put off old age, i.e., has become young again.Proverb.
Magis magni clerici non sunt magis sapientes—The greatest scholars are not the wisest men.Proverb.
Magister alius casus—Misfortune is a second master.Pliny the elder.
Magister artis ingeniique largitor / Venter—The belly (i.e., hunger or necessity) is the teacher of arts and the bestower of genius.Persius.
Magister dixit—The master has said so.
Magistratum legem esse loquentem, legem autem mutum magistratum—A judge is a speaking law, law a silent judge.Cicero.
Magistratus indicat virum—Office shows the man.Motto.
Magna Charta—The Great Charter (obtained from King John in 1215).
Magna civitas, magna solitudo—A great city is a great desert.Greek and Latin Proverb.
Magna comitante caterva—A great crowd accompanying.Virgil.
Magna est admiratio copiose sapienterque dicentis—Great is our admiration of the orator who speaks with fluency and discretion.Cicero.
Magna est veritas et prævalebit—Truth is mighty, and will in the end prevail.
Magna est vis consuetudinis: hæc ferre laborem, contemnere vulnus et dolorem docet—Great is the power of habit: teaching us as it does to bear fatigue and to despise wounds and pain.Cicero.
Magna fuit quondam capitis reverentia cani, / Inque suo pretio ruga senilis erat—Great was the respect paid of old to the hoary head, and great the honour to the wrinkles of age.Ovid.
Magna servitus est magna fortuna—A great fortune is a great slavery.Seneca.
Magna vis est, magnum nomen, unum et idem sentientis senatus—Great is the power, great the authority, of a senate which is unanimous in its opinions.Cicero.
Magnæ felicitates multum caliginis mentibus humanis objiciunt—Great and sudden prosperity has a deadening (lit. densely darkening) effect on the human mind.Seneca.
Magnæ fortunæ comes adest adulatio—Adulation is ever the attendant on great wealth.
Magnanimiter crucem sustine—Bear up bravely under the cross.Motto.
Magnanimity is the good sense of pride, and the noblest way of acquiring applause.La Rochefoucauld.
Magnanimity owes to prudence no account of its motives.Vauvenargues.
Magnas inter opes inops—Poor in the midst of great wealth.Horace.
Magni animi est injurias despicere—It is the mark of a great mind to despise injuries.Seneca.
Magni animi est magna contemnere, ac mediocria malle quam nimia—It is a sign of a great mind to despise greatness, and to prefer things in measure to things in excess.Seneca.
Magni est ingenii revocare mentem a sensibus, et cogitationem a consuetudine abducere—It argues a mind of great native force to be able to emancipate itself from the thraldom of the senses, and to wean its thoughts from old habits.Cicero.
Magni nominis umbra—The shadow of a great name.Lucan.
Magni refert quibuscum vixeris—It matters a great deal with whom you live.Proverb.
Magnificat—The song of the Virgin Mary (lit. she magnifies).Luke i. 44–45.
Magnificence cannot be cheap, for what is cheap cannot be magnificent.Johnson.
Magnis excidit ausis—He failed in bold attempts.Ovid.
Magno conatu magnas nugas—By great efforts to obtain great trifles.Terence.
Magno cum periculo custoditur, quod multis placet—That is guarded at great risk which is coveted by many.Publius Syrus.
Magno de flumine mallem / Quam ex hoc fonticulo tantundem sumere—I had rather take my glass of water from a great river like this than from this little fountain.Horace, in reproof of those who lay by large stores and never use them.
Magnorum haud unquam indignus avorum—Never unworthy of his illustrious ancestors.Virgil.
Magnum est argumentum in utroque fuisse moderatum—It speaks volumes for man that, when placed in quite different situations, he displays in each the same spirit of moderation.
Magnum hoc ego duco / Quod placui tibi qui turpi secernis honestum—I account it a great honour that I have pleased a man like you, who know so well to discriminate between the base and the honourable.Horace.
Magnum hoc vitium vino est, / Pedes captat primum; luctator dolosus est—This is the great fault of wine; it first trips up the feel: it is a cunning wrestler.Plautus.
Magnum pauperies opprobrium jubet / Quidvis aut facere aut pati—Poverty, that deep disgrace, bids us do or suffer anything.Horace.
Magnum vectigal est parsimonia—Thrift is a great revenue.Cicero.
Magnus ab integro sæclorum nascitur ordo—The great cycle of the ages begins its round anew.Virgil.
Magnus Alexander corpore parvus erat—The great Alexander was small in stature.Proverb.
Magnus animus remissius loquitur et securius—The talk of a great soul is at once more careless and confident than that of other men.Seneca.
Magnus Apollo—A great oracle.
Magnus sine viribus ignis / Incassum furit—A great fire, unless you feed it, spends its rage in vain.Virgil.
Mãi aguçosa, filha preguiçosa—A busy mother makes slothful daughters.Portuguese Proverb.
Maidens’ bairns and bachelors’ wives are aye weel bred.Scotch Proverb.
Maidens, like moths, are ever caught with glare, / And Mammon wins his way where seraphs might despair.Byron.
Maidens should be mild and meek, / Swift to hear, and slow to speak.Proverb.
Maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives.As You Like It, iv. 1.
Maids should be seen and not heard.Proverb.
Maids want nothing but husbands, and when they have them they want everything.Somerset Proverb.
Maids well summered, and warm kept, are like flies at Bartholomew-tide—blind, though they have their eyes.Henry V., v. 2.
Maintien le droit—Maintain the right.Motto.
Mair by luck than gude guiding (management).Scotch Proverb.
Mais au moindre revers funeste / Le masque tombe, l’homme reste / Et le héros s’évanouit—But at the least sad reverse the mask drops off, the man remains, and the hero vanishes.J. B. Rousseau.
Mais de quoi sont composées les affaires du monde? Du bien d’autrui—By of what is the business of the world made up? Of the wealth of other people.Béroalde Verville.
Matson d’arrêt—A jail, a prison.French.
Maison de force—A house of correction.French.
Maître Jacques—A handy fellow who is ready to undertake all kinds of work.French.
Major e longinquo reverentia—Respect is greater at a distance.Tacitus.
Major famæ sitis est quam / Virtutis; quis enim virtutem amplectitur ipsam, / Præmia si tollas?—The thirst for fame is greater than that for virtue; for, if you take away its reward, who would embrace virtue?Juvenal.
Major hereditas venit unicuique nostrum a jure et legibus, quam a parentibus—A more valuable inheritance falls to each of us in our civil and legal rights than comes to us from our fathers.Cicero.
Major privato visus, dum privatus fuit, et omnium consensu capax imperii, nisi imperasset—He was regarded as greater than a private individual so long as he remained one, and, by the consent of all, would have been deemed worthy to rule had he never ruled.Tacitus, of the Emperor Galba.
Major rerum mihi nascitur ordo—A greater succession of events presents itself to my muse.Virgil.
Major sum quam cui possit Fortuna nocere / Multaque ut eripiat, multo mihi plura relinquet. / Excessere metum mea jam bona—I am above being injured by fortune; though she snatch away much, more will remain to me. The blessings I now enjoy transcend fear.Ovid.
Majore tumultu / Planguntur nummi quam funera, nemo dolorem / Fingit in hoc casu / … Ploratur lacrimis amissa pecunia veris—Money is bewailed with a greater tumult than death. No one feigns grief in this case…. The loss of money is deplored with true tears.Juvenal.
Majoresque cadunt altis de montibus umbræ—And the shadows lengthen as they fall from the lofty mountains.Virgil.
Majori cedo—I retire before my superior.
Majority is applied to number, and superiority to power.Johnson.
Majus et minus non variant speciem—Greater and less don’t change the nature of a thing.
Make a crutch of your cross.Proverb.
Make a virtue of necessity.Burton.
Make all sure, and keep all pure.Proverb.
Make clean thy conscience; hide thee there.Quarles.
Make clean work, and leave no tags. Allow no delays when you are at a thing; do it and be done with it.Prof. Blackie.
Make doors fast upon a woman’s wit, and it will out at the casement; shut that, and ’twill out at the keyhole.As You Like It, iv. 1.
Make every bargain clear and plain, / That none may afterwards complain.Proverb.
Make good cheese, if you make little.Proverb.
Make haste slowly.Proverb.