Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources. Rev. James Wood
40 stepped to the gallows between the hangman and a monk. Dut. Pr.
Bad is by its very nature negative, and can do nothing; whatsoever enables us to do anything, is by its very nature good. Carlyle.
Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny. Burke.
Bad men excuse their faults; good men will leave them. Ben Jonson.
Bal abonné—A subscription ball. Fr.
Bal champêtre—A country ball. Fr. 45
Ballon d'essai—A balloon sent up to ascertain the direction of the wind; any test of public feeling. Fr.
Banish the canker of ambitious thoughts. 2 Hen. VI., i. 2.
Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease. Dryden.
Barba bagnata è mezza rasa—A beard well lathered is half shaved. It. Pr.
Barbæ tenus sapientes—Wise as far as the beard 50 goes. Pr.
Barbarism is no longer at our frontiers; it lives side by side with us. Amiel.
Barbarism is the non-appreciation of what is excellent. Goethe.
Barbarus hic ego sum, quia non intelligor ulli—I am a barbarian here, for no one understands what I say. Ovid.
Barbouillage—Scribbling. Fr.
Barking dogs seldom bite. Pr. 55
Bas bleu—A blue-stocking. Fr.
Base envy withers at another's joy, / And hates that excellence it cannot reach. Thomson.
Base in kind, and born to be a slave. Cowper.
Base men, being in love, have then a nobility in their natures more than is native to them. Othello, ii. 1.
Base souls have no faith in great men. Rousseau. 60
Bashfulness is an ornament to youth, but a reproach to old age. Arist.
Bashfulness is but the passage from one season of life to another. Bp. Hurd.
Basis virtutum constantia—Constancy is the basis of all the virtues. M.
Battering the gates of heaven with storms of prayer. Tennyson.
Battle's magnificently stern array. Byron.
Be a philosopher; but, amidst all your philosophy, be still a man. Hume.
Beard was never the true standard of brains. Fuller.
Bear one another's burdens. St. Paul.
Bear wealth, poverty will bear itself. Pr. 5
Be a sinner and sin manfully (fortiter), but believe and rejoice in Christ more manfully still. Luther to Melanchthon.
Be as you would seem to be. Pr.
Beatæ memoriæ—Of blessed memory.
Beati monoculi in regione cæcorum—Blessed are the one-eyed among those who are blind. Pr.
Beatus ille qui procul negotiis, / Ut prisca 10 gens mortalium, / Paterna rura bobus exercet suis, / Solutus omni fœnore—Happy the man who, remote from busy life, is content, like the primitive race of mortals, to plough his paternal lands with his own oxen, freed from all borrowing and lending. Hor.
Beaucoup de mémoire et peu de jugement—A retentive memory and little judgment. Fr. Pr.
Beau idéal—Ideal excellence, or one's conception of perfection in anything. Fr.
Beau monde—The fashionable world. Fr.
Beauté et folie sont souvent en compagnie—Beauty and folly go often together. Fr. Pr.
Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll; / 15 Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul. Pope.
Beautiful it is to understand and know that a thought did never yet die; that as thou, the originator thereof, hast gathered it and created it from the whole past, so thou wilt transmit to the whole future. Carlyle.
Beauty blemished once, for ever's lost. Shakespeare.
Beauty can afford to laugh at distinctions; it is itself the greatest distinction. Bovee.
Beauty carries its dower in its face. Dan. Pr.
Beauty depends more on the movement of the 20 face than the form of the features. Mrs. Hall.
Beauty doth varnish age, as if new-born, / And gives the crutch the cradle's infancy. / O, 'tis the sun that maketh all things shine. Love's L's. Lost, iv. 3.
Beauty draws us with a single hair. Pope.
Beauty is a good letter of introduction. Ger. Pr.
Beauty is a hovering, shining, shadowy form, the outline of which no definition holds. Goethe.
Beauty is an all-pervading presence. Channing. 25
Beauty is a patent of nobility. G. Schwab.
Beauty is as summer fruits, which are easy to corrupt and cannot last. Bacon.
Beauty is a witch, / Against whose charms faith melteth into blood. Much Ado, ii. 1.
Beauty is bought by judgment of the eye, / Not utter'd by base sale of chapmen's tongues. Love's L's. Lost, ii. 1.
Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good. 30 Shakespeare.
Beauty is everywhere a right welcome guest. Goethe.
Beauty is never a delusion. Hawthorne.
Beauty is the flowering of virtue. Gr. Pr.
Beauty is the highest principle and the highest aim of art. Goethe.
Beauty is the pilot of the young soul. Emerson. 35
Beauty is the purgation of superfluities. Michael Angelo.
Beauty is truth, truth beauty—that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. Keats.
Beauty is worse than wine; it intoxicates both holder and the beholder. Zimmermann.
Beauty, like wit, to judges should be shown; / Both most are valued where they best are known. Lyttelton.
Beauty lives with kindness. Two Gen. of 40 Ver., iv. 2.
Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold. As You Like It, i. 3.
Beauty should be the dowry of every man and woman. Emerson.
Beauty stands / In the admiration