De Oratore Quotes

By these pleasures it is permitted to relax the mind with play, in turmoils of the mind, or when our labors are light, or in great tension, or as a method of passing the time. A reliable witness is Cicero, when he says (De Oratore, 2): 'men who are accustomed to hard daily toil, when by reason of the weather they are kept from their work, betake themselves to playing with a ball, or with knucklebones or with dice, or they may also contrive for themselves some new game at their leisure.' ~ Gerolamo Cardano

There is a story that Simonides was dining at the house of a wealthy nobleman named Scopas at Crannon in Thessaly, and chanted a lyric poem which he had composed in honor of his host, in which he followed the custom of the poets by including for decorative purposes a long passage referring to Castor and Pollux; whereupon Scopas with excessive meanness told him he would pay him half the fee agreed on for the poem, and if he liked he might apply for the balance to his sons of Tyndaraus, as they had gone halves in the panegyric.

The story runs that a little later a message was brought to Simonides to go outside, as two young men were standing at the door who earnestly requested him to come out; so he rose from his seat and went out, and could not see anybody; but in the interval of his absence the roof of the hall where Scopas was giving the banquet fell in, crushing Scopas himself and his relations underneath the ruins and killing them; and when their friends wanted to bury them but were altogether unable to know them apart as they had been completely crushed, the story goes that Simonides was enabled by his recollection of the place in which each of them had been reclining at table to identify them for separate interment; and that this circumstance suggested to him the discovery of the truth that the best aid to clearness of memory consists in orderly arrangement.

He inferred that persons desiring to train this faculty must select localities and form ment ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

The death agony of the barricade was about to begin.
For, since the preceding evening, the two rows of houses in the Rue de la Chanvrerie had become two walls; ferocious walls, doors closed, windows closed, shutters closed.
A house is an escarpment, a door is a refusal, a facade is a wall. This wall hears, sees and will not. It might open and save you. No. This wall is a judge. It gazes at you and condemns you. What dismal things are closed houses. ~ Victor Hugo

I'm a very restless person. I'm always doing something. The creative process never stops. ~ Oscar De La Renta

Nocturnă

Uitarea venea... a venit.
O lacrimă cade jos, totul tace,
Lampa obosită a clipit,
Orice obiect atins şopteşte: lasă-mă-n pace...

De-acum...
Auzi, ploaia plânge pe drum
Pe un adânc tumult,
Pe urma unui mic pantof într-un parc
de demult...

Adorm... ascult...
Afară, la fereastră, toamna a spus:
- Of!

Nocturne

Oblivion comes . . . came.
A tear falls; total silence,
The tired lamp twinkles,
Every touched thing whispers, let me alone.

Now...
Listen, outside the rain sheds its tears ―
A serious dispute centers on
A scrap of a small shoe in an old park . . .

I sleep . . . I listen . . .
Outside a window, autumn says:
Oh! ~ George Bacovia

The opposite of what is noised about concerning men and things is often the truth.
[Fr., Le contraire des bruits qui courent des affaires ou des personnes est souvent la verite.] ~ Jean De La Bruyere

Those who believe that they believe in God, but without passion in their hearts, without anguish in mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, without an element of despair even in their consolation, believe only in the God idea, not God Himself. ~ Miguel De Unamuno

However far back I go into my childhood, nothing seems to me more characteristic of, or more familiar in, my interior economy than the appetite or irresistible demand for some 'Unique all-sufficing and necessary reality.' ~ Pierre Teilhard De Chardin

You become free like you always dreamed, yet you realise that every land is different and you do not belong anywhere yet you live everywhere and that we all share the same lands except you seem to be the only one who realises this fact ~ Yolanda De Iuliis

A hungry stomach cannot hear. ~ Jean De La Fontaine

Madame de Pompadour excelled at an art which the majority of human beings thoroughly despise because it is unprofitable and ephemeral: the art of living. ~ Nancy Mitford

Feminine virtue is nothing but a convenient masculine invention. ~ Ninon De L'Enclos

I have a very precise memory of the local train, the hot bricks and copper boxes filled with boiling water to warm us up. Someone in another compartment was playing the guitar. To the rhythm of the train's rocking movement, I heard the chorus "Porque yo to quiero, porque yo to quiero," and I traveled toward my Tonio telling myself, "Because I love you ... because I love you ~ Consuelo De Saint-Exupery

Movies are hard work. The public doesn't see that. The critics don't see it. But they're a lot of work. A lot of work. ~ Robert De Niro

What is denominated discretion in man we call cunning in brutes. ~ Jean De La Fontaine

The older a fool is, the worse he is. ~ Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Asked the boy to "consider himself at all times as one of his family." Washington was referring to his military family or aides-de-camp, the same way John Adams described the aide Alexander Hamilton as "one of General Washington's Family." So when Washington said "family," he meant "chummy minion." The orphaned Lafayette heard "son. ~ Sarah Vowell

I will say with Lorenzo de Medici that those who do not hope for another life are always dead to this one. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Jealousy is not love, but self-love. ~ Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Nor has his death the world deceiv'd than his wondrous life surprise d; if he like a madman liv'd least he like a wise one dy'd. ~ Miguel De Cervantes

The film festival measured a mile in length, from the Martinez to the Vieux Port, where sales executives tucked into their platters of fruits de mer, but was only fifty yards deep. For a fortnight the Croisette and its grand hotels willingly became a facade, the largest stage set in the world. Without realizing it, the crowds under the palm trees were extras recruited to play their traditional roles. As they cheered and hooted, they were far more confident than the film actors on display, who seemed ill at ease when they stepped from their limos, like celebrity criminals ferried to a mass trial by jury at the Palais, a full-scale cultural Nuremberg furnished with film clips of the atrocities they had helped to commit. ~ J.G. Ballard

I want to believe in prophecies more than policies. I want to listen to poets rather than pollsters. ~ Carolina De Robertis

All consolation that does not come from God is but desolation; when the soul has learned to receive no comfort but in God only, it has passed beyond the reach of desolation. ~ Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

In intimate family life, there comes a moment when children, willingly or no, become the judges of their parents. ~ Honore De Balzac

He is free who knows how to keep in his own hands the power to decide at each step, the course of his life, and who lives in a society which does not block the exercise of that power. ~ Salvador De Madariaga

Men set out on their way in express trains, but they do not know what they are looking for. Then they rush about, and get excited, and turn round and round. It is not worth the trouble ~ Antoine De Saint Exupery

He discriminated against neither the avaricious nor the prodigal: both were committed to the asylum; this led people to say that the alienist's concept of madness included practically everybody. ~ Machado De Assis

Intellect is a sin that must be atoned for by leading exactly the life of those who have none. ~ Madame De Stael

Nothing changes if we just feel shitty about being White. And nothing changes if we refuse to talk about it. The opposite of white pride does not have to be white shame. We can't push it away and pretend it's not us. We are not color-blind, we are not post-race, we do not get to reject our whiteness because it makes us feel bad…This does not get solved with a Celebration of Diversity Day and a coexist bumper sticker. (Kate Schatz) ~ Carolina De Robertis

The soul that has no established aim loses itself ~ Michel De Montaigne

I admonish Your Majesty, as the woman who gave you life and loves you like no other, to behave always in a manner that safeguards your immortal soul. Seek God's glory in the Holy Land rather than your own, that I may see you in heaven if never again in France. ~ Sophie Perinot

Whoever criticizes capitalism, while approving immigration, whose working class is its first victim, had better shut up. Whoever criticizes immigration, while remaining silent about capitalism, should do the same. ~ Alain De Benoist

Though perseverance does not come from our power, yet it comes from within our power. ~ Saint Francis De Sales

We made close to forty boxes today. Fifteen truffles (still selling well), but also a batch of coconut squares, some sour cherry gobstoppers, some bitter-coated orange peel, some violet creams, and a hundred or so lunes de miel, those little discs of chocolate made to look like the waxing moon, with her profile etched in white against the dark face.
It's such a delight to choose a box, to linger over the shape- will it be heart shaped, round, or square? To select the chocolates with care; to see them nestled between the folds of crunchy mulberry-colored paper; to smell the mingled perfumes of cream, caramel, vanilla, and dark rum; to choose a ribbon; to pick out a wrapping; to add flowers or paper hearts; to hear the silky whisssh of rice paper against the lid- ~ Joanne Harris

We are *all* we are, and all in a sense we care to dream we are. And for that matter, anything outlandish, bizarre, is a godsend in this rather stodgy life. It is after all just what the old boy said – it's only the impossible that's credible; whatever credible may mean... ~ Walter De La Mare

For among other things he had been counseled to bring me to love knowledge and duty by my own choice, without forcing my will, and to educate my soul entirely through gentleness and freedom. ~ Michel De Montaigne

When God endowed human beings with brains, He did not intend to guarantee them. ~ Baron De Montesquieu

The province of Texas is still part of the Mexican dominions, but it will soon contain no Mexicans; the same thing has occurred whenever the Anglo-Americans have come into contact with populations of a different origin. ~ Alexis De Tocqueville

The first thing I'd do [as a president] is de-regulate about 90-percent of the things that they've got regulation on, OK, including duck hunting. We're way over-regulated on everything. ~ Si Robertson

Belittling others is no pastime for those convinced of their own standing. There is terror behind haughtiness. It takes a punishing impression of our own inferiority to leave others feeling that they aren't good enough for us. ~ Alain De Botton

Death makes us all equal ... ~ Marie De Rabutin-Chantal, Marquise De Sevigne

Nigeria, with the oil sector, had the reputation of being corrupt and not managing its own public finances well. So what did we try to do? We introduced a fiscal rule that de-linked our budget from the oil price. ~ Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

Let us leave the cure of public evils to those quacks, the statesmen. ~ Honore De Balzac

To safeguard one's health at the cost of too strict a diet is a tiresome illness, indeed. ~ Francois De La Rochefoucauld