James Wood, comp. Dictionary of Quotations. 1899.
Compound for sins to Credulity
Compound for sins they are inclined to / By damning those they have no mind to.Butler.
Comprendre c’est pardonner—To understand is to pardon.Madame de Staël.
Compte rendu—Report, return.French.
Con agua pasada no muele molino—The mill grinds corn with water that has passed.Spanish Proverb.
Con amore—With love; earnestly.Italian.
Con arte e con inganno si vive mezzo l’anno; con inganno si vive l’altra parte—People live with art and deception one half the year, and with deception and art the other half.Italian Proverb.
Conceal not the meanness of thy family, nor think it disgraceful to be descended from peasants; for when it is seen thou art not thyself ashamed, no one will endeavour to make thee so.Cervantes.
Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works.Hamlet, iii. 4.
Conceit may puff a man up, but never prop him up.Ruskin.
Concentration is the secret of strength in politics, in war, in trade, in short, in all the management of human affairs.Emerson.
Concio ad clerum—An address to the clergy.
Concordia discors—A jarring or discordant concord.Ovid.
Concordia res parvæ crescunt, discordia maximæ dilabuntur—With concord small things increase, with discord the greatest go to ruin.Sallust.
Concours—A competition.French.
Condemnable idolatry is insincere idolatry—a human soul clinging spasmodically to an Ark of the Covenant, which it half feels is now a phantasm.Carlyle.
Condemn the fault, and not the actor of it! / Why, every fault’s condemned ere it be done.Meas. for Meas., ii. 2.
Condense some daily experience into a glowing symbol, and an audience is electrified.Emerson.
Con dineros no te conocerás, sin dineros no te conocerán—With money you would not know yourself; without it, no one would know you.Spanish Proverb.
Condition, circumstance, is not the thing, / Bliss is the same in subject or in king.Pope.
Conditions are pleasant or grievous to us according to our sensibilities.Lewis Morris.
Con el Rey y con la Inquisicion, chitos—With the King and the Inquisition, hush!Spanish Proverb.
Confessed faults are half mended.Scotch Proverb.
Confess yourself to Heaven; / Repent what’s past; avoid what is to come; / And do not spread the compost on the weeds, / To make them ranker.Hamlet, iii. 4.
Confess you were wrong yesterday; it will show you are wise to-day.Proverb.
Confidence imparts a wondrous inspiration to its possessor. It bears him on in security, either to meet no danger or to find matter of glorious trial.Milton.
Confidence in another man’s virtue is no slight evidence of a man’s own.Montaigne.
Confidence in one’s self is the chief nurse of magnanimity.Sir P. Sidney.
Confidence is a plant of slow growth in an aged bosom.Chatham.
Confidence is a thing not to be produced by compulsion. Men cannot be forced into trust.Daniel Webster.
Confido, conquiesco—I trust, and am at rest.Motto.
Confine your tongue, lest it confine you.Proverb.
Confrère—A brother monk or associate.French.
Confusion now hath made his masterpiece. / Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope / The Lord’s anointed temple, and stole thence / The life o’ the building.Macbeth, ii. 1.
Confusion worse confounded.Milton.
Congé d’élire—A leave to elect.French.
Con poco cervello si governa il mondo—The world is governed with small wit.Italian Proverb.
Conquer we shall, but we must first contend; / ’Tis not the fight that crowns us, but the end.Herrick.
Conscia mens recti famæ mendacia risit—The mind conscious of integrity ever scorns the lies of rumour.Ovid.
Conscience does make cowards of us all; / And thus the native hue of resolution / Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought; / And enterprises of great pith and moment, / With this regard, their currents turn awry, / And lose the name of action.Hamlet, iii. 1.
Conscience is but a word that cowards use, / Devised at first to keep the strong in awe; / Our strong arms be our conscience, swords our law.Richard III., v. 3.
Conscience is our magnetic needle; / reason, our chart.Joseph Cook.
Conscience is the chamber of justice.Origen.
Conscience is the compass of the unknown.Joseph Cook.
Conscience is the sentinel of virtue.Johnson.
Conscience is the voice of the soul; the passions, of the body.Rousseau.
Conscience is wiser than science.Lavater.
Conscientia mille testes—Conscience is equal to a thousand witnesses.Proverb.
Con scienza—With a knowledge of the subject.Italian.
Consecrated is the spot which a good man has trodden.Goethe.
Consecration is going out into the world where God Almighty is, and using every power for His glory.Ward Beecher.
Conseil d’état—Council of state.
Consensus facit legem—Consent makes the law.Law.
Consequitur quodcunque petit—He attains to whatever he aims at.Motto.
Conservatism is the pause on the last movement.Emerson.
Consideration, like an angel, came, / And whipp’d th’ offending Adam out of him, / Leaving his body as a paradise, / To envelop and contain celestial spirits.Henry V., i. 1.
Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin; and yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.Jesus.
Consilio et animis—By counsel and courage.Motto.
Conspicuous by its absence.Lord John Russell.
Constans et fidelitate—Constant and with faithfulness.Motto.
Constant attention wears the active mind, / Blots out her powers, and leaves a blank behind.Churchill.
Constantia et virtute—By constancy and virtue.Motto.
Constantly choose rather to want less than to have more.Thomas à Kempis.
Constant occupation prevents temptation.Italian Proverb.
Constant thought will overflow in words unconsciously.Byron.
Consuetudinis magna vis est—The force of habit is great.Cicero.
Consuetudo est altera lex—Custom is a second law.Law.
Consuetudo est secunda natura—Custom is a second nature.St. Augustine.
Consuetudo pro lege servatur—Custom is observed as law.Law.
Consult duty, not events.Landor.
Contaminate our fingers with base bribes?… I’d rather be a dog; and bay the moon than such a Roman.Julius Cæsar, iv. 3.
Contas na maõ, e o demonio no coraçaõ—Rosary in the hand, and the devil in the heart.Portuguese Proverb.
Contemni est gravius stultitiæ quam percuti—To be despised is more galling to a foolish man than to be whipped.
Contemporaries appreciate the man rather than his merit; posterity will regard the merit rather than the man.Colton.
Contempt is a dangerous element to sport in; a deadly one, if we habitually live in it.Carlyle.
Contempt is a kind of gangrene, which, if it seizes one part of a character, corrupts all the rest by degrees.Johnson.
Contempt is the only way to triumph over calumny.Madame de Maintenon.
Contented wi’ little, an’ cantie (cheerily happy) wi’ mair.Burns.
Content if hence th’ unlearn’d their wants may view, / The learn’d reflect on what before they knew.Pope.
Contention is a hydra’s head; the more they strive, the more they may.Burton.
Contention, like a horse / Full of high feeding, madly hath broken loose, / And bears all down before him.2 Henry IV., i. 1.
Contentions fierce, / Ardent, and dire, spring from no petty cause.Scott.
Contentions for trifles can get but a trifling victory.Sir P. Sidney.
Content is better than riches.Proverb.
Content is the true philosopher’s stone.Proverb.
Contentment, as it is a short road and pleasant, has great delight and little trouble.Epictetus.
Contentment consisteth not in adding more fuel, but in taking away some fire.Fuller.
Contentment is natural wealth.Socrates.
Contentment will make a cottage look as fair as a palace.W. Secker.
Contentment without money is the philosopher’s stone.Lichtwer.
Content’s a kingdom, and I wear that crown.Heywood.
Content thyself to be obscurely good; / When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, / The post of honour is a private station.Addison.
Content with poverty, my soul I arm; / And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm.Dryden after Horace.
Contesa vecchia tosto si fa nuova—An old feud is easily renewed.Italian Proverb.
Conticuere omnes, intentique ora tenebant—All were at once silent and listened intent.Virgil.
Continued eloquence wearies.Pascal.
Contra bonos mores—Against good morals.
Contra malum mortis, non est medicamen in hortis—Against the evil of death there is no remedy in the garden.
Contraria contrariis curantur—Contraries are cured by contraries.
Contrast increases the splendour of beauty, but it disturbs its influence; it adds to its attractiveness, but diminishes its power.Ruskin.
Contrat social—The social compact, specially Rousseau’s theory thereof.
Contra verbosos noli contendere verbis; / Sermo datur cunctis, animi sapientia paucis—Don’t contend with words against wordy people; speech is given to all, wisdom to few.Cato.
Contredire, c’est quelquefois frapper à une porte, pour savour s’il y a quelqu’un dans la maison—To contradict sometimes means to knock at the door in order to know whether there is any one in the house.French Proverb.
Contre fortune bon cœur—Against change of fortune set a bold heart.Proverb.
Contre les rebelles, c’est cruauté que d’estre humain et humanité d’estre cruel—Against rebels it is cruelty to be humane, and humanity to be cruel.Corneille Muis.
Contre-temps—A mischance.French.
Contrivances of the time / For sowing broadcast the seeds of crime.Longfellow.
Contumeliam si dicis, audies—If you utter abuse, you must expect to receive it.Plautus.
Conversation enriches the understanding; but solitude is the school of genius.Gibbon.
Conversation in society is found to be on a platform so low as to exclude science, the saint, and the poet.Emerson.
Conversation is an abandonment to ideas, a surrender to persons.A. B. Alcott.
Conversation is an art in which a man has all mankind for competitors.Emerson.
Conversation is a traffic; and if you enter into it without some stock of knowledge to balance the account perpetually, the trade drops at once.Sterne.
Conversation will not corrupt us if we come to the assembly in our own garb and speech, and with the energy of health to select what is ours and reject what is not.Emerson.
Converse with a mind that is grandly simple, and literature looks like word-catching.Emerson.
Conversion—a grand epoch for a man; properly the one epoch; the turning-point which guides upwards, or guides downwards, him and his activities for evermore.Carlyle.
Conversion is the awakening of a soul to see into the awful truth of things; to see that Time and its shows all rest on Eternity, and this poor earth of ours is the threshold either of heaven or hell.Carlyle.
Convey a libel in a frown, / And wink a reputation down.Swift.
Convey thy love to thy friend as an arrow to the mark; not as a ball against the wall, to rebound back again.Quarles.
Conviction, never so excellent, is worthless till it convert itself into conduct.Carlyle.
Copia verborum—Superabundance of words.
Coraçaõ determinado, naõ soffre conselho—He brooks no advice whose mind is made up.Portuguese Proverb.
Coram domino rege—Before our lord the king.
Coram nobis—Before the court.
Coram non judice—Before one who is not a judge.
Corbies (crows) and clergy are kittle shot (hard to hit).Scotch Proverb.
Corbies dinna pick oot corbies’ een, i.e., harm each other.Scotch Proverb.
Cordon bleu—A skilful cook (lit. a blue ribbon).French.
Cordon sanitaire—A guard to prevent a disease spreading.French.
Corn is gleaned with wind, and the soul with chastening.George Herbert.
Cor nobile, cor immobile—A noble heart is an immovable heart.
Coronat virtus cultores suos—Virtue crowns her votaries.Motto.
Corpo ben feito naõ ha mester capa—A body that is well made needs no cloak.Portuguese Proverb.
Corpora lente augescunt, cito extinguuntur—All bodies are slow in growth, rapid in decay.Tacitus.
Corporations cannot commit treason, nor be outlawed nor excommunicated, for they have no souls.Coke.
Corporations have neither bodies to be punished nor souls to be damned.Thurlow.
Corporis et fortunæ bonorum, ut initium, finis est. Omnia orta occidunt, et aucta senescunt—The blessings of health and fortune, as they have a beginning, must also have an end. Everything rises but to fall, and grows but to decay.Sallust.
Corpo satollo non crede all’ affamato—A satisfied appetite does not believe in hunger.Italian Proverb.
Corps d’armée—A military force.French.
Corps diplomatique—The diplomatic body.French.
Corpus Christi—Festival in honour of the Eucharist or body of Christ.
Corpus delicti—The body of the offence.Law.
Corpus sine pectore—A body without a soul.Horace.
Correct counting keeps good friends.Gaelic Proverb.
Correction does much, but encouragement does more.Goethe.
Correction is good, administered in time.Danish Proverb.
Corre lontano chi non torna mai—He runs a long way who never turns.Italian Proverb.
Corrigenda—Corrections to be made.
Corrupted freemen are the worst of slaves.Garrick.
Corruption is like a ball of snow, when once set a rolling it must increase.Colton.
Corruptions can only be expiated by the blood of the just ascending to heaven by the steps of the scaffold.De Tocqueville.
Corruptio optimi pessima—The corruption of the best is the worst.Anonymous.
Corruptissima in republica plurimæ leges—In a state in which corruption abounds laws are very numerous.Tacitus.
Cor unum, via una—One heart, one way.Maxim.
Corvées—Forced labour, formerly exacted of the peasantry in France.French.
Cosa ben fatta è fatta due volte—A thing well done is twice done.Italian Proverb.
Cosa fatta, capo ha—A thing which is done has a head, i.e., it is never done till completed.Italian Proverb.
Cosa mala nunca mucre—A bad thing never dies.Spanish Proverb.
Così fan tutti—So do they all.Italian.
Cos ingeniorum—A whetstone to their wit.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, / But not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy; / For the apparel oft proclaims the man.Hamlet, i. 3.
Costumbre hace ley—Custom becomes law.Spanish Proverb.
Could everything be done twice, it would be done better.German Proverb.
Could great men thunder / As Jove himself does, Jove would ne’er be quiet; / For every pelting, petty officer / Would use his heaven for thunder; nothing but thunder.Meas. for Meas., ii. 2.
Could we forbear dispute and practise love, / We should agree as angels do above.Waller.
Could you see every man’s career in life, you would find a woman clogging him … or cheering him and goading him.Thackeray.
Couleur de rose—A flattering representation.French.
Count art by gold, and it fetters the feet it once winged.Ouida.
Count the world not an inn, but an hospital; and a place not to live in, but to die in.Colton.
Countries are well cultivated, not as they are fertile, but as they are free.Montesquieu.
Coup de grace—The finishing stroke.French.
Coup de main—A bold effort; a surprise.
Coup de pied—A kick.French.
Coup de soleil—Stroke of the sun.French.
Coup d’essai—First attempt.French.
Coup d’état—A sudden stroke of policy.French.
Coup de théâtre—Theatrical effect.French.
Coup d’œil—A glance of the eye; a prospect.
Courage against misfortune, and reason against passion.Proverb.
Courage and modesty are the most unequivocal of virtues, for they are of a kind that hypocrisy cannot imitate.Goethe.
Courage consists in equality to the problem before us.Emerson.
Courage consists not in blindly overlooking danger, but in meeting it with the eyes open.Jean Paul.
Courage consists not in hazarding without fear, but being resolutely minded in a just cause.Plutarch.
Courage! even sorrows, when once they are vanished, quicken the soul, as rain the valley.Sails.
Courage is generosity of the highest order, for the brave are prodigal of the most precious things.Colton.
Courage is on all hands considered an essential of high character.Froude.
Courage is the wisdom of manhood; foolhardiness, the folly of youth.Proverb.
Courage mounteth with occasion.King John, ii. 1.
Courage never to submit or yield.Milton.
Courage of soul is necessary for the triumphs of genius.Madame de Staël.
Courage of the soldier awakes the courage of woman.Emerson.
Courage, or the degree of life, is as the degree of circulation of the blood in the arteries.Emerson.
Courage sans peur—Courage without fear.French.
Courage, sir, / That makes man or woman look their goodliest.Tennyson.
Courage, so far as it is a sign of race, is peculiarly the mark of a gentleman or a lady; but it becomes vulgar if rude or insensitive.Ruskin.
Courtesy costs nothing.Proverb.
Courtesy is cumbersome to him that kens it not.Scotch Proverb.
Courtesy is often sooner found in lowly sheds with smoky rafters, than in tapestry halls and courts of princes, where it first was named.Milton.
Courtesy itself must convert to disdain, if you come in her presence.Much Ado, i. 1.
Courtesy never broke one’s crown.Gaelic Proverb.
Courtesy of temper, when it is used to veil churlishness of deed, is but a knight’s girdle around the breast of a base clown.Scott.
Courtship consists in a number of quiet attentions, not so pointed as to alarm, nor so vague as not to be understood.Sterne.
Coûte qu’il coûte—Let it cost what it may.French.
Cover yourself with honey and the flies will fasten on you.Proverb.
Covetous men need money least, yet most affect it; and prodigals, who need it most, do least regard it.Theod. Parker.
Covetousness bursts the bag.Proverb.
Covetousness is a sort of mental gluttony, not confined to money, but greedy of honour and feeding on selfishness.Chamfort.
Covetousness is ever attended with solicitude and anxiety.Ben. Franklin.
Covetousness is rich, while modesty goes barefoot.Phædrus.
Covetousness, like jealousy, when it has once taken root, never leaves a man but with his life.T. Hughes.
Covetousness often starves other vices.Scotch Proverb.
Covetousness swells the principal to no purpose, and lessens the use to all purposes.Jeremy Taylor.
Covetousness, which is idolatry.St. Paul.
Coward dogs / Most spend their mouths when what they seem to threaten / Runs far before them.Henry V., ii. 4.
Cowardice is the dread of what will happen.Epictetus.
Cowards are cruel, but the brave / Love mercy, and delight to save.Gay.
Cowards die many times before their deaths; / The valiant never taste of death but once. / Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, / It seems to me most strange that men should fear; / Seeing that death, a necessary end, / Will come when it will come.Julius Cæsar, ii. 2.
Cowards falter, but danger is often overcome by those who nobly dare.Queen Elizabeth.
Cowards father cowards, and base things sire base; / Nature hath meal and bran; contempt and grace.Cymbeline, iv. 2.
Cowards tell lies, and those that fear the rod.George Herbert.
Crabbed age and youth / Cannot live together.Shakespeare.
Craftiness is a quality in the mind and a vice in the character.Sanial Dubay.
Craft maun hae claes (clothes), but truth gaes naked.Scotch Proverb.
Crafty men contemn studies; simple men admire them; and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use; but that is wisdom without them, and above them won by observation.Bacon.
Craignez honte—Fear shame.Motto.
Craignez tout d’un auteur en courroux—Fear the worst from an enraged author.French.
Crambe repetita—Cabbage repeated (kills).Juvenal.
Cras credemus, hodie nihil—To-morrow we will believe, but not to-day.Proverb.
Crea el cuervo, y sacarte ha los ojos—Breed up a crow and he will peck out your eyes.Spanish Proverb.
Creaking waggons are long in passing.Frisian Proverb.
Created half to rise and half to fall, / Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all: / Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl’d; / The glory, jest, and riddle of the world.Pope.
Creation is great, and cannot be understood.Carlyle.
Creation lies before us like a glorious rainbow; but the sun that made it lies behind us, hidden from us.Jean Paul.
Creation’s heir, the world, the world is mine.Goldsmith.
Creation sleeps! ’Tis as the general pulse / Of life stood still, and Nature made a pause, / An awful pause, prophetic of her end.Young.
Credat Judæus Apella—Apella, the Jew, may believe that; I cannot.Horace.
Crede quod est quod vis—Believe that that is which you wish to be.Ovid.
Crede quod habes, et habes—Believe that you have it, and you have it.
Credit keeps the crown o’ the causey—i.e., is not afraid to show its face.Scotch Proverb.
Creditors have better memories than debtors.Proverb.
Credo, quia absurdum—I believe it because it is absurd.Tertullian.
Credula res amor est—Love is a credulous affection.Ovid.
Credula vitam / Spes fovet, et fore cras semper ait melius—Credulous hope cherishes life, and ever whispers to us that to-morrow will be better.Tibullus.
Credulity is perhaps a weakness almost inseparable from eminently truthful characters.Tuckerman.
Credulity is the common failing of inexperienced virtue.Johnson.