Happiness is a good cook, a good bank account and good digestion

I HAVE LOVED pithy sayings, witticisms, striking or witty remarks, proverbs, and wordplay all my life. During my first overseas trip, barely out of my teenage years, I bought a book of famous quotations published in 1960 from a street market stall in London, The Penguin Dictionary of Quotations. It’s a book of almost 700 pages in small print, and it entertained me for many hours on trains, buses, and in cheap backstreet rooms.

I recently stumbled upon the very same book in my bulging, disorganised bookshelves and once again derived hours of pleasure from it.

What struck me this time was how many of the quotations and sayings have become part of our everyday language without us realising it. People easily say, “Brevity is the soul of wit” or “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark”, “Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown” or “Hoist with his own petard” without realising they’re quoting a man who died in 1616: William Shakespeare. The 50 pages of Shakespeare’s witty words and remarks in the book once again emphasise his colossal contribution to the English language.

But it’s not just Shakespeare. Who first said, “Time is money”? Benjamin Franklin, a founding father of the US (1706–1790). And “Whom God wishes to destroy, he first makes mad”? The Greek writer and philosopher Euripides (480–406 BC).

“Our country, right or wrong”? The famous American naval commodore Stephen Decatur (1779–1820). The full quotation reads: “In her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong.”

Where does “J’accuse” (I accuse you) come from? It was the title of an open letter to the French president by the French writer and journalist Emile Zola (1840–1902) during the Dreyfus antisemitism affair.

Winston Churchill (1874–1965) was exceptionally witty, but few know that he was the first to use the term “iron curtain” after World War II. One of his most famous statements was about the Battle of Britain: “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.” He’s also the source of the concept of politicians saddling a tiger: “Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry.”

Then there’s the Roman statesman and legal scholar Marcus Tullius Cicero, whom I encountered again during my studies in Latin and private law at university. If you ever come across the words “cui bono” (who benefits?) or “summum bonum” (the highest good), remember that they are from Cicero’s pen. Another, fitting for our times: “Silent enim leges inter arma” – in times of war, laws are silent.

Here are a few quotations I underlined in pencil many years ago, starting with the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778):

• L’homme est né libre, et partout il est dans les fers – Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains. 
• Happiness: a good bank account, a good cook, and a good digestion.

The Irish writer, activist, and public intellectual Bernard Shaw (1856–1950):

• I’m only a beer teetotaller, not a champagne teetotaller.
• He knows nothing and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.
• An Englishman thinks he is moral when he is only uncomfortable.
• He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.
• The golden rule is that there are no golden rules.
• Every man over forty is a scoundrel.
• Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.

I must get into these wet clothes and into a dry Martini. – The American theatre critic and writer Alexander Woollcott (1878–1943).

When I am dead, I hope it may be said, ‘His sins were scarlet, but his books were read.’ – The French/English writer and politician Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953).

The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognise that we ought to control our thoughts. – Charles Darwin (1809–1882).

There are in England sixty different religious sects, but only one sauce. –  The Italian-born British naval commander Francesco Caracciolo (1752–1799).

Here are a few from the Irish-born British statesman and philosopher Edmund Burke (1729–1797):

• A king may make a nobleman, but he cannot make a gentleman.
• If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free; if our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed.
• It is a general popular error to imagine the loudest complainers for the public to be most anxious for its welfare.
• He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.

From the English writer and philosopher Samuel Butler (1835–1902):

• Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.
• An apology for the Devil – it must be remembered that we have only heard one side of the case. God has written all the books.
• The healthy stomach is nothing if not conservative. Few radicals have good digestions.
• There’s many a good tune played on an old fiddle.

The British poet George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788–1824):

• Now hatred is by far the longest pleasure; men love in haste, but they detest at leisure.
• Not to admire is all the art I know.
• All tragedies are finished by a death; all comedies are ended by a marriage.
• Society is now one polished horde; formed by two mighty tribes, the Bores and the Bored.
• Friendship may, and often does, grow into love, but love never subsides into friendship.

I am not against hasty marriages, where a mutual flame is fanned by an adequate income. – The British playwright Wilkie Collins (1824–1889).

The British poet, satirist, and politician William Congreve (1670–1729):

• Courtship to marriage, as a very witty prologue to a dull play.
• Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned; nor hell a fury, like a woman scorned.
• Love’s but the frailty of the mind; when 'tis not with ambition joined.
• ’Tis well enough for a servant to be bred at a university; but the education is a little too pedantic for a gentleman.

Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun. – The English playwright and composer Noël Coward (1899–1973).

The Roman poet Quintus Horatius Flaccus, also known as Horace (65–6 BC):

• Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero: Seize the day, with as little trust as possible in the future.
• Si possis recte, si non, quocumque modo rem: Do it the right way if you can, but do whatever it takes to make money.
• Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori: It is sweet and fitting to die for your country.

A sharp tongue is the only edged tool that grows keener with constant use. – The American writer Washington Irving (1783–1859).

The American president Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826):

• A little rebellion now and then is a good thing.
• The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

The English poet and intellectual Samuel Johnson (1709–1784):

• Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
• When two Englishmen meet, their first talk is of the weather.
• I am willing to love all mankind, except an American.
• All censure of a man’s self is oblique praise. It is in order to show how much he can spare.
• The noblest prospect that a Scotchman ever sees, is the high road that leads him to London.

The American president Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865):

• The Lord prefers common-looking people. That is the reason he makes so many of them.
• You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.
• The ballot is stronger than the bullet.

The American president Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945):

• Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
• In the field of world policy I would dedicate this nation to the policy of the good neighbour.
• A radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.
• A world founded upon four essential freedoms. The first is the freedom of speech and expression – everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way –everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want –everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear –everywhere in the world.

The more I see of men, the more I admire dogs. – The French writer and aristocrat Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, known as Madame de Sévigné (1626–1696).

A few from William Shakespeare (1564–1616):

• Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love.
• I would rather have a fool to make me merry than experience to make me sad.
• Neither a borrower nor a lender be; for loan oft loses both itself and friend.
• The better part of valour is discretion.
• Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying!
• Is it not strange that desire should so many years outlive performance.
• Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears./ I come to bury Caesar, not praise him. /The evil that men do lives after them,/ The good is oft interred with their bones.
• The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept.
• Friendship is constant in all other things; save in the office and affairs of love.
• Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were but little happy if I could say how much.
• Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.

♦ VWB ♦

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