Variant Quotes
More Variant Quotes
Édouard Fournier, in L'Espirit dans l'Historie (1867), 3rd edition, Ch. 51, p. 260, disputes the traditional attribution, and suggests various agents of Richelieu might have been the actual author. Variant translations: Give me six lines written by the most honest man in the world, and I will find enough in them to hang him.
cardinal richelieu— Attributed in Dictionary of Foreign Phrases and Classical Quotations (1908) edited by Hugh Percy Jones, p. 327
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
Variant: Give him an inch and he'll take a mile.
— (Strauss 1998, p. 240)
Variant : There was the class of superstitious people; they are not content simply to ignore what is true, they also believe what is not true.
jules verne— Tr. Walter James Miller (1978)
Variant translation: Oh the shark has pretty teeth dear, And he shows them pearly white Just a jack-knife has Macheath dear And he keeps it out of sight.
bertolt brecht— Marc Blitzstein translation; largely used for Louis Armstrong's and Bobby Darin's pop renditions of "The Ballad of Mack the Knife"
The only great spirit of our time.
Albert Camus— As quoted in Between the Human and the Divine: The Political Thought of Simone Weil (1988), by Mary G. Dietz (Introduction, p. xiv)
Variant translations: The original style is not the style which never borrows of any one, but that which no other person is capable of reproducing.
françois-rené de chateaubriand— As translated by Charles I. White (1856) Part 2, Book 1, Chapter 3
Variant translations: A sincere man am I From the land where palm trees grow, And I want before I die My soul's verses to bestow.
josé martí— "A Sincere Man Am I", as translated by Manuel A. Tellechea, in Versos Sencillos: Simple Verses (1997) ISBN 1558852042
Variant translation: I feign no hypotheses.
isaac newton— As translated by Alexandre Koyré (1956)
No natural boundary seems to be set to the efforts of man; and what is not yet done is only what he has not yet attempted to do. Variant: What is not yet done is only what we have not yet attempted to do.
alexis de tocqueville— Chapter XVIII
Variant: A poem is never finished; it is only abandoned.
paul valéry— Widely misquoted, this is a paraphrase of Valéry by W. H. Auden in 1965. See W. H. Auden: Collected Poems (2007), ed. Edward Mendelson, "Author's Forewords", p. xxx
Variant: Familiarity breeds contempt, but concealment excites interest.
— It is with life just as with swimming; that man is the most expert who is the most disengaged from all encumbrances.
— Apologia; seu, Pro Se de Magia (Apologia; or, A Discourse on Magic), ch. 21; p. 268.
Variant translations: Inasmuch as love grows in you, in so much beauty grows; for love is itself the beauty of the soul.
— Ten Homilies on the First Epistle of John (1995), The Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, Ninth Homily, §9, as translated by H. Browne and J. H. Meyers
Variant translation: Every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better
— Clement Freud, as quoted in The Observer (27 December 1964)
Variant: Mind is the Master Power that molds and makes, And we are mind. And ever more we take the tool of thought, and shaping what we will, bring forth a thousand joys, or a thousand ills. We think in secret, and it comes to pass, environment, is but our looking glass
james allen— James Allen, As A Man Thinketh (1902)
Variant translations:
— The most profound respect is due to children.
— The greatest reverence is due to a child.
Variant translations: Though others were at liberty, you are not at liberty. Even though it is permitted for others, it isn't permitted for you.
— Act IV, scene 6, line 1 (805).
Variant translations:
— So strong is custom formed in early years.
— Such force hath custom tender plants upon.
— So much depends on habit in the tender years of youth.
Variant translations:
— If small things may be compared with great.
— If one may compare small things with great.
— If it be allowable to compare small things with great.
Variant translation: Maybe one day we shall be glad to remember even these things.
— Through various hazards and events we move.
— Line 204 (translated by John Dryden).
Variant translation: They are able because they seem to be so.
— Cf. Dryden's translation:
His blooming beauty, with his tender tears,
Had brib'd the judges for the promis'd prize.
— Cf. Conington's translation:
[W]orth appears with brighter shine
When lodged within a lovely shrine.
Variant translation: More lovely virtue, in a lovely form.
— Let me be suffered to extend
Compassion to a hapless friend.
— Line 350 (translated by John Conington).
Variant translation of Superanda omnis fortuna ferendo est :
— Every misfortune is to be subdued by patience.
Variant translations: Time heals all wounds. Time assuages sorrow. Terence , Heauton Timorumenos ( The Self-Tormentor )
— Trinh Xuan Thuan, Chaos and Harmony (2001)
Variant translation: A genius is someone who discovers that the falling stone and the moon that falls represent one and the same phenomenon.
— George Bernard Shaw, in lines for the portrayal of Julius Caesar, in Caesar and Cleopatra (1898) Act I
Variant translation: All life is bound together by mutual support and interdependence. V
— Swami Vivekananda, in Paper On Hinduism Read at the Parliament on 19th September, 1893
The most powerful programming language is Lisp. If you don't know Lisp (or its Variant, Scheme), you don't appreciate what a powerful language is. Once you learn Lisp you will see what is missing in most other languages.
— Richard Stallman, [How I do my computing]
Many variants on this exist, notably “Great lovers are made, not born.” and “(Great) leaders are made, not born.” A Variant on “One is not born wise, but becomes wise” from Seneca On Anger 2.10.6; see: Christian and Pagan in the Roman Empire: the witness of Tertullian, by Tertullian, Robert Dick Sider, p. 38, footnote 79.
— Apologeticus, 39, describing how Christianity is mocked by its enemies.
