Was it a friend or foe that spread these lies?
Nay, who but infants question in such wise,
'T was one of my most intimate enemies.
--
Fragment, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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Epops: Yet, certainly, the wise learn many things from their enemies; for caution preserves all things. From a friend you could not learn this, but your foe immediately obliges you to learn it. For example, the states have learned from enemies, and not from friends, to build lofty walls, and to possess ships of war. And this lesson preserves children, house, and possessions.
Chorus [leader]: It is useful, as it appears to me, to hear their arguments first; for one might learn some wisdom even from one's foes.
(tr. Hickie 1853, vol. 1, p. 322; l. 375 identical in SEA 1838, p. 236, and in Bartlett 1968, p. 91 or Archive.org)Aristophanes
The blame for Armageddon lies on man. And the millennium will come only when the average man exhibits a scientific integrity about all he is and does — instead of half of it. Many a psychological Archimedes has put signposts on the hard road man must follow if he is to avoid self-destruction and come into his own. A few very great modern scientists have added to the lore. Indications of what man may expect of himself are everywhere at hand. But most men must first be persuaded that the task lies ahead and not behind — that we are infants still, with loaded guns for toys.
Philip Wylie
To sit alone in the lamplight with a book spread out before you, and hold intimate converse with men of unseen generations — such is a pleasure beyond compare.
Yoshida Kenko
I have heard it said that a man caught between his wife and a Wise One often wishes for a dozen old enemies to fight instead. A man caught between a wife and three Wise Ones, and the wife a Wise One herself, must consider trying to slay Sightblinder.
Robert Jordan
Shakespeare one gets acquainted with without knowing how. It is a part of an Englishman's constitution. His thoughts and beauties are so spread abroad that one touches them every where, one is intimate with him by instinct.
William Shakespeare
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel
Rossetti, Christina
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