Page:Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922).djvu/107

1

How like the leper, with his own sad cry
Enforcing his own solitude, it tolls!
That lonely bell set in the rushing shoals,
To warn us from the place of jeopardy!

Charms Tennyson Turner—The Buoy Bell.

BENEFITS

(See also Gifts, Philanthropy)

2

Beneficium non in eo quod fit aut datur consistit sed in ipso dantis aut facientis animo.

A benefit consists not in what is done or given, but in the intention of the giver or doer.

Seneca—De Beneficiis. I. 6.

Eodem animo beneficium debetur, quo datur.

A benefit is estimated according to the mind of the giver.

Seneca—De Beneficiis. I. 1.

Qui dedit beneficium taceat; narret, qui accepit.

Let him that hath done the good office conceal it; let him that hath received it disclose it.

Seneca—De Beneficiis. II. 11.

Inopi beneficium bis dat, qui dat celeriter.
He gives a benefit twice who gives quickly.
Syrus, in the collection of proverbs known as
the Proverbs of Seneca.

Beneficia usque eo Iseta sunt dum videntur
exsolvi posse; ubi multum antevenere pro gratia
odium redditur.

Benefits are acceptable, while the receiver thinks he may return them; but once exceeding that, hatred is given instead of thanks.

Tacitus—Annates. IV. 18.

BIRCH (TREE)

Betula

7

Rippling through thy branches goes the sunshine,
Among thy leaves that palpitate forever,
And in thee, a pining nymph had prisoned
The soul, once of some tremulous inland river,
Quivering to tell her woe, but ah! dumb, dumb
forever.

Lowell—The Birch Tree.

BIRDS

(Unclassified)

8

Birds of a feather will gather together.

Burton—Anatomy of Melancholy. Pt. III. Sec. I. Memb. 1. Subsect. 2.

(See also Minsheu)

9

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

Cervantes—Don Quixote. Pt. I. Ch. IV.

(See also Herbert, Heywood, Plutarch)

10

You must not think, sir, to catch old birds with chaff.

Cervantes—Don Quixote. Pt. I. Ch. IV.

11

Never look for birds of this year in the nests of the last.

Cervantes—Don Quixote. Pt. II. Ch. LXXIV.

12

Dame Nature's minstrels.

Gavin Douglas—Morning in May.

13

A bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter.

Ecclesiastes. X. 20.

(See also Henry IV)

14

To warm their little loves the birds complain.

Gray—Sonnet on the Death of Richard West.

(See also Somerville)

15

A feather in hand is better than a bird in the air.

Herbert—Jacula Prudentum.

(See also Cervantes)

16

Better one byrde in hand than ten in the wood.

Heywood—Proverbs. Pt. I. Ch. XI.

(See also Cervantes)

17

The nightingale has a lyre of gold,
The lark's is a clarion call,
And the blackbird plays but a boxwood flute,
But I love him best of all.
For his song is all the joy of life,
And we in the mad spring weather,
We two have listened till he sang
Our hearts and lips together.

W. E. Henley—Echoes.

15

 When the swallows homeward fly,
When the roses scattered he,
When from neither hill or dale,
Chants the silvery nightingale:
In these words my bleeding heart
Would to thee its grief impart;
When I thus thy image lose
Can I, ah! can I, e'er know repose?

Karl Herrlossohn—When the Swallows Homeward Fly.

16

I was always a lover of soft-winged things.

Victor Hugo—I Was Always a Lover.

17

Rara avis in terris, nigroque siniillima cygno.
A rare bird upon the earth, and exceedingly like a black swan.

Juvenal—Satires. VI. 165.

18

Do you ne'er think what wondrous beings these?
Do you ne'er think who made them, and who taught
The dialect they speak, where melodies
Alone are the interpreters of thought?
Whose household words are songs in many keys,
Sweeter than instrument of man e'er caught!

Longfellow—Tales of a Wayside Inn. The Poet's Tale. The Birds of Killingworth.

19

That which prevents disagreeable flies from feeding on your repast, was once the proud tail of a splendid bird.

Martial—Epigrams. Bk. XIV. Ep. 67.

20

Birdes of a feather will flocke togither.

Minsheu. (1599)

(See also Burton)