Page:Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922).djvu/104

1

Quidquid coepit, et desinit.
Whatever begins, also ends.

Seneca—De Consolatione ad Polybium. I.

2

Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill.

Macbeth. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 56.

3

The true beginning of our end.

Midsummer Night's Dream. Act V. Sc. 1. L. 111.

4

C'est le commencement de la fin.
It is the beginning of the end.

 Ascribed to Talleyrand in the Hundred Days. Also to Gen. Augereau. (1814)

5

Le premier pas, mon fils, que Ton fait dans le monde,
Est celui dont depend le reste de nos jours.
The first step, my son, which one 'makes in the world, is the one on which depends the rest of our days.

Voltaire—L'Indiscret. I. 1.

(See also Du Deefand)

BELGIUM

6

Après des sicles d'esclavage,
Le Belge sortant du tombeau,
A reconquis par son courage,
Son nom, ses droits et son drapeau,
Et ta main souveraine et fière,
Peuple désormais indompté,
Grava sur ta vieille bannière
Le Roi, la loi, la liberté.

The years of slavery are past,
The Belgian rejoices once more;
Courage restores to him at last
The rights he held of yore.
Strong and firm his grasp will be—
Keeping the ancient flag unfurled
To fling its message on the watchful world:
For king, for right, for liberty.

Louis Dechez—La Brabanconne. Belgian National Anthem. Written during the Revolution of 1830. Music by François van Campenhout. Trans, by Florence Attenborough.

BELIEF

7

Ideo credendum quod incredibile.
It is believable because unbelievable.

Burton—Anatomy of Melancholy. Quoting Tertullian. (See Page 390 16.)

8

For fools are stubborn in their way,
As coins are harden'd by th' allay;
And obstinacy's ne'er so stiff
As when 'tis in a wrong belief.

Butler—Hudibras. Pt. III. Canto II. L. 481.

9

Fere libenter homines id, quod volunt, credunt.

Men willingly believe what they wish.

Cesar—Beuum Gallicum. III. 18.

(See also Young)

10

No iron chain, or outward force of any kind, could ever compel the soul of man to believe I or to disbelieve: it is his own indefeasible light, that judgment of his; he will reign and believe there by the grace of God alone!

Carlyle—Heroes and Hero Worship. Lecture IV.

11

There is no unbelief;
Whoever plants a seed beneath the sod
And waits to see it push away the clod,
He trusts in God.

Eliz. York Case—Unbelief.

12

Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; unbelief, in denying them.

Emerson—Montaigne.

13

Credat Judseus Apella non ego.

The Jew Apella may believe this, not I.

Horace—Satires. I. 5. 100.

14

Better trust all and be deceived,
And weep that trust, and that deceiving,
Than doubt one heart that, if believed,
Had blessed one's life with true believing.

Fanny Kemble.

15

thou, whose days are yet all spring,
Faith, blighted once, is past retrieving;
Experience is a dumb, dead thing;
The victory's in believing.

Lowell—To .

16

They believed—faith, I'm puzzled—I think I may call
Their belief a believing in nothing at all,
Or something of that sort; I know they all went
For a generalunion of total dissent.

Lowell—Fable for Critics. L. 851.

17

A man may be a heretic in the truth; and if
he believe things only because his pastor says so,
or the assembly so determines, without knowing
other reason, though his belief be true, yet the
very truth he holds becomes his heresy.

Milton—Areopagitica.

18

Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know.

Montaigne—Essays. Of Divine Ordinances. Bk. I. Ch.XXXI.

19

Tarde quae credita tedunt credimus.

We are slow to believe what if believed would hurt our feelings.

Ovid—Heroides. II. 9.

20

Increclules les plus creclules. Ils croient les miracles de Vespasien, pour ne pas croireceux de Moise.

The incredulous are the most credulous. They believe the miracles of Vespasian that they may not believe those of Moses.

Pascal—Pensèes. II. XVII. 120.

21

And when religious sects ran mad,
He held, in spite of all his learning.
That if a man's belief is bad,
It will not be improved by burning.

Praed—Poems of Life and Manners. Pt. II. The Vicar. St. 9.