Variant Quotes
More Variant Quotes
Variant translation: Pray to the I don't-know-who: Jesus Christ, I hope.
eugène ionesco— As quoted in Parasuicidality and Paradox : Breaking Through the Medical Model (2007) by Ross D. Ellenhorn, p. 55
For somehow this is tyranny's disease, to trust no friends. Variant translation: In every tyrant's heart there springs in the end this poison, that he cannot trust a friend.
Aeschylus— line 224
Variant translations: Men willingly believe what they wish to be true.
julius caesar— As quoted in The Adventurer No. 69 (3 July 1753) in The Works of Samuel Johnson (1837) edited by Arthur Murphy, p. 32
Variant translation: A poet must leave traces of his passage, not proofs. Only traces bring about dreams.
rené char— As quoted in Popular Dissent, Human Agency, and Global Politics (2000) by Roland Bleiker, p. 50
All those against the revolution must disappear and quickly be executed. Variant: All those against the revolution, that insist on their position, must disappear and quickly be executed.
ruhollah khomeini— Quoted by dissident cleric Hossein-Ali Montazeri, once in line to be Iran's supreme leader. . This statement is said to have been made after the Mojahedin-e Khalgh militant organization launched an offensive against Iranian troops from bases in Iraq.
Variant : If we are to believe certain narrow minded people — and what else can we call them? — humanity is confined within a circle of Popilius from which there is no escape, condemned to vegetate upon this globe, never able to venture into interplanetary space! That's not so! We are going to the moon, we shall go to the planets, we shall travel to the stars just as today we go from Liverpool to New York, easily, rapidly, surely, and the oceans of space will be crossed like the seas of the moon.
jules verne— Tr. Walter James Miller (1978)
Variant : The planet doesn't need new continents, it needs new men.
jules verne— Tr. Walter James Miller (1966)
Cf. Ovid , Fasti , IV, 311: The mind, conscious of rectitude, laughed to scorn the falsehood of report. Variant translations of mens sibi conscia recti (meaning "a good conscience"):
virgil— A mind conscious of its own rectitude.A mind conscious to itself of rectitude.A mind which is conscious to itself of rectitude.
Variant: It is by acts and not by ideas that people live.
anatole france— As quoted in The Ironic Temper : Anatole France and His Time (1932)
Variant translation: In questions of science the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.
Galileo Galilei— As quoted in Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men (1859) by François Arago, as translated by Baden Powell, Robert Grant, and William Fairbairn, p. 365
Variant translations: Love does not rule; but it trains, and that is more.
— As translated by Thomas Carlyle The Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily (1832)
It is perhaps well enough that the people of the Nation do not know or understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning. Variant: If the American people knew the corruption in our money system there would be revolution before morning.
— Attributed to Henry Ford by Charles Binderup (March 19, 1937), Congressional Record—House 81:2528. The quote is preceded by "It was Henry Ford who said, in substance, this", which indicates that this is likely just a paraphrase, not an exact quote.
Variant: Hatred without compassion cannot win minds, to conquer is not to convince.
— As quoted in Spanish Recognitions : The Roads to the Present (2004) by Mary Lee Settle, p. 134
Variant translations:
— Translated by William Acker
Variant: We are born amid feces and urine.
— Attributed to Augustine in "Select Proverbs of All Nations" (1824) by "Thomas Fielding" (John Wade), p. 216, and later in the form "The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page", as quoted in 20,000 Quips & Quotes (1995) by Evan Esar, p. 822; this has not been located in Augustine's writings, and may be a variant translation of an expression found in Le Cosmopolite (1753) by Fougeret de Monbron: "The universe is a sort of book, whose first page one has read when one has seen only one's own country."
Variant translations: The superior man acts before he speaks, and afterwards speaks according to his actions. The greater man does not boast of himself, But does what he must do. A good man does not give orders, but leads by example.
— Virtue (or the man of virtue) is not left to stand alone. He who practices it will have neighbors.
Often quoted as ‘The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.’ Variant translation: As often as we are mown down by you, the more we grow in numbers; the blood of the Christians is the seed.
— De Testimonio Animae (The Testimony of the Soul), 6.3
Variant translation: Nothing can be created out of nothing.
— Book I, line 268.
Variant translation: From the midst of the fountain of delights rises something bitter that chokes them all amongst the flowers.
— Book V, line 1117.
Variant translation: Hence all those tears shed.
— Act II, scene 5, line 15 (426).
Cf. Ovid , Fasti , IV, 311: The mind, conscious of rectitude, laughed to scorn the falsehood of report. Variant translations of mens sibi conscia recti (meaning "a good conscience"):
— A mind conscious of its own rectitude.
— A mind conscious to itself of rectitude.
— A mind which is conscious to itself of rectitude.
Variant translations:
— Not being untutored in suffering, I learn to pity those in affliction.
— Being not unacquainted with woe, I learn to help the unfortunate.
— No stranger to trouble myself I am learning to care for the unhappy.
Variant translation: O Trojans, do not trust the horse. Be it what it may, I fear the Grecians even when they offer gifts.
— Or had not men been fated to be blind.
— Line 54 (translated by John Dryden).
Variant translation: Far off, Oh keep far off, you uninitiated ones. Now, Aeneas, thou needest thy courage, now thy stout heart!
— Now, Aeneas, thou needest thy courage, now thy stout heart!
— Line 261; Sibyl's words to Aeneas as they enter the underworld.
— Variant: "Now, Aeneas, is the hour for courage, now for a dauntless heart!"
Variant translations of Malesuada Fames :
— Hunger persuading to evil.
— Hunger is a bad adviser.
Variant translation: Somewhat aged; but his godship's old age was still fresh and green.
— Towards the ferry and the shore
The multitudinous phantoms pour;
Matrons, and men, and heroes dead,
And boys and maidens, yet unwed,
And youths who funeral fires have fed
Before their parents' eye.
— Lines 305–308 (translated by John Conington).
Paraphrased Variant: Fairytales don’t tell children that dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairytales tell children that dragons can be killed.
gilbert keith chesterton— Appeared in Criminal Minds 2007 episode Seven Seconds (IMDB quote entry)
People are given a false alternative: the choice between an unenlightened belief and an enlightened unbelief. Most intellectuals seem to pay homage to the second Variant.
eugen drewermann— Quoted in Michael Meier and Marlène Schnieper, "Wir haben Gott zu einem Ding degradiert," Kath.ch.
Another Variant extends the comparisons to incude Catholics and Protestants:
martin niemöller— In Germany they first came for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up.
