Dictum Quotes
More Dictum Quotes
Most of my poetry lies beyond the SF field, yet here I am corralled into 'SF poetry' as part of this poetry weekend. Of course, some might say, 'you've made your own bed — now you must lie in it!' But, while fully accepting that dictum, I'm not yet quite prepared to lie down...
brian aldiss— As quoted in web article "The Brian Aldiss Connection", The Zone
A dictum [Beckett] quotes from his favourite philosopher, the second-generation Cartesian Arnold Geulincx (1624-1669) suggests his overall stance toward the political: ubi nihil vales, ibi nihil velis, which may be glossed: Don’t invest hope or longing in an arena where you have no power.
j. m. coetzee— “The Making of Samuel Beckett,” New York Review of Books, vol. LVI, no. 7 (April 30, 2009), p. 13
When governments and other vested interests attack me personally I usually regard it as a vindication, otherwise they would use facts. That's why I believe in the wonderful Claud Cockburn dictum, 'Never believe anything until it is officially denied.' It has certainly been my experience.
john pilger— John Pilger, This much i know, The Observer, 13 November 2005
There is a deep connection between Bernoulli's dictum and John Kelly's 1956 publication. It turns out that Kelly's prescription can be restated as this simple rule: When faced with a choice of wagers or investments, choose the one with the highest geometric means of outcomes.
william poundstone— Part Four, St. Petersburg Wager, Natures Admonition To Avoid The Dice, p. 191
Nullumst iam dictum quod non dictum sit prius.
terence— In fact, nothing is said that has not been said before.
— Prologue, Line 41.
— Variant translation: Nothing has yet been said that’s not been said before.
Contemporary philosophy illustrates Hegel’s dictum that philosophy is its own time apprehended in thought, for in our age philosophy yields to the objectifying technical impulse and loses its ancient task of pursuing the Socratic ideal of the wisdom of the examined life.
donald phillip verene— p. 191 (Philosophy and the Return to Self-Knowledge (1997))
I feel that, you know, the enormous luck I've had in being able to make a living, and to never have had to have written one word that I didn't want to write, to be able to have satisfied that dictum I set for myself, which was not to work for pay, but to be paid for my work just to be able to satisfy those standards that I set for myself has been an enormous privilege.
leonard cohen— Interview with BBC Radio 1FM (1994)
Turgenev upheld the freedom of different societies to pursue different paths of development and of individuals to pursue, even in opposition to powerful historical forces, their own goals and values. Here Turgenev endorsed the celebrated dictum of Alexander Herzen, with whom he disagreed on other matters: that history has no libretto. Human history is a realm of contingency and unpredictability, in which each generation faces conflicts that have no ideal solution.
john n. gray— 'Isaiah Berlin: The Value of Decency' (p.105)
Galen , in the third section of his book, "The Use of the Limbs," says correctly that it would be in vain to expect to see living beings formed of the blood of menstruous women and the semen virile, who will not die, will never feel pain, or will move perpetually, or shine like the sun. This dictum of Galen is part of the following more general proposition: Whatever is formed of matter receives the most perfect form possible in that species of matter; in each individual case the defects are in accordance with that individual matter.
maimonides— Compare Gottfried Leibniz argument for the "best of all possible worlds" in his Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of EvilCh.12
The closed language does not demonstrate and explain it communicates decision, dictum, command. Where it defines, the definition becomes “separation of good from evil;” it establishes unquestionable
herbert marcuse— p. 101 (One-Dimensional Man (1964))
Haec omnibus insidiis temptatus elicientium cogentiumque se ad querelas nullam umquam occasionem dedit, perinde obliterato suorum casu ac si nihil cuiquam accidisset, quae vero ipse pateretur incredibili dissimulatione transmittens tantique in avum et qui iuxta erant obsequii, ut non immerito sit dictum nec servum meliorem ullum nec deteriorem dominum fuisse.
suetonius— The courtiers tried every trick to lure or force him into making complaints against Tiberius; always, however, without success. He not only failed to show any interest in the murder of his relatives, but affected an amazing indifference to his own ill-treatment, behaving so obsequiously to his adoptive grandfather and to the entire household, that someone said of him, very neatly: "Never was there a better slave, or a worse master!"Ch. 10
The dictum that truth always triumphs over persecution, is one of those pleasant falsehoods which men repeat after one another till they pass into commonplaces, but which all experience refutes. History teems with instances of truth put down by persecution. If not suppressed for ever, it may be thrown back for centuries.
john stuart mill— John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, Ch. II: Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion, pp. 36-37 (1859)
Si quid dictum est per jocum, Non æquum est id te serio prævortier.
— Plautus, Amphitruo, III. 2. 39.
Nullum est jam dictum quod non dictum sit prius.
— Nothing is said nowadays that has not been said before.
— Terence, Eunuchus, Prologue. XLI.
How necessary it is carefully to consider the language of learned Judges, especially when you are dealing with language which is admitted to be only a dictum and not a decision, and when it is attempted to use that language for the purpose of founding on it an article of a code of law.
— James, L.J., Dawson v. Bank of Whitehaven (1877), L. R. 6 Ch. D. 226.
An old Judge is quoted as saying, 'An obiter dictum , in the language of the law, is a gratuitous opinion, an individual impertinence.'
— Author unidentified.
I am not much of a dictionary maker, but I believe I could improve upon either and say, 'An obiter dictum is the passing opinion of a Judge expressed when it is not called for.'
— Author unidentified.
Surely it is time to examine into the meaning of words and the nature of things, and to arrive at simple facts, not received upon the dictum of learned authorities, but upon attentive personal observation of what is passing around us.
— Frances Wright, in Fanny Wright Unmasked by Her Own Pen, 1850, p.5
He [ Galileo ] quoted by way of orthodox support Tertullian's dictum that we know God first by nature, then by revelation.
— Edwin Arthur Burtt, The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Science (1925)
Galen, in the third section of his book, "The Use of the Limbs," says correctly that it would be in vain to expect to see living beings formed of the blood of menstruous women and the semen virile, who will not die, will never feel pain, or will move perpetually, or shine like the sun. This dictum of Galen is part of the following more general proposition: Whatever is formed of matter receives the most perfect form possible in that species of matter; in each individual case the defects are in accordance with that individual matter.
— Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190)
Nullumst iam dictum quod non dictum sit prius.
— In fact, nothing is said that has not been said before.
— Prologue, Line 41.
— Variant translation: Nothing has yet been said that’s not been said before.
Haec omnibus insidiis temptatus elicientium cogentiumque se ad querelas nullam umquam occasionem dedit, perinde obliterato suorum casu ac si nihil cuiquam accidisset, quae vero ipse pateretur incredibili dissimulatione transmittens tantique in avum et qui iuxta erant obsequii, ut non immerito sit dictum nec servum meliorem ullum nec deteriorem dominum fuisse.
— The courtiers tried every trick to lure or force him into making complaints against Tiberius; always, however, without success. He not only failed to show any interest in the murder of his relatives, but affected an amazing indifference to his own ill-treatment, behaving so obsequiously to his adoptive grandfather and to the entire household, that someone said of him, very neatly: "Never was there a better slave, or a worse master!"
— Ch. 10
Contemporary philosophy illustrates Hegel’s dictum that philosophy is its own time apprehended in thought, for in our age philosophy yields to the objectifying technical impulse and loses its ancient task of pursuing the Socratic ideal of the wisdom of the examined life.
donald phillip verene— Donald Phillip Verene, Philosophy and the Return to Self-Knowledge (1997), p. 191
dictum sapienti sat est.
— A word to the wise is sufficient.
— Terence, Phormio, III. 3. 8. Plautus, Persa, Act IV, scene 7. Generally quoted "verbum sapienti satis est".
dictum sapienti sat est.
— A word to the wise is enough.
— Persa, Act IV, scene 7, line 19
— Variant translation: A sentence is enough for a sensible man. (translator unknown)
— More commonly found as Verbum sapienti (same meaning) and abbreviated to verb. sap. ; proverbially, “A word to the wise is sufficient”
