Dear little head, that lies in calm content
Within the gracious hollow that God made
In every human shoulder, where He meant
Some tired head for comfort should be laid.
An elegant Sufficiency, Content,
Retirement, rural Quiet, Friendship, Books,
Ease and alternate Labor, useful Life,
Progressive Virtue, and approving Heaven!
Vivite felices, quibus est fortuna peracta
Jam sua.
Be happy ye, whose fortunes are already completed.
Vergil—^Sneid. III. 493.
This is the charm, by sages often told,
Converting all it touches into gold:
Content can soothe, where'er by fortune placed,
Can rear a garden in the desert waste.
Henry Kirk White—Clifton Grove. L. 130.
There is a jewel which no Indian mines can buy,
No chymic art can counterfeit;
It makes men rich in greatest poverty,
Makes water wine; turns wooden cups to gold;
The homely whistle to sweet music's strain,
Seldom it comes;—to few from Heaven sent,
That much in little, all in naught, Content.
John Wilbye—Madrigales. There Is a Jewel.
CONTENTION
(See also Dissension, Quarrelling)
Did thrust (as now) in others' corn his sickle.
Du Bartas—Divine Weekes and Workcs. Second Week, Second Day. Pt. II.
He that wrestles with us strengthens our
nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist
is our helper.
Burke—Reflections on the Revolution in France.
Vol.111. P. 195.
'Tis a hydra's head contention; the more they
strive the more they may: and as Praxiteles did
by his glass, when he saw a scurvy face in it,
brake it in pieces; but for that one he saw many
more as bad in a moment.
| author = Burton
| work = Anatomy of Melancholy.
| place = Pt. II.
Sc. 3. Mem. 7.
Et le combat cessa, faute de combattants.
And the combat ceased, for want of combatants.
Corneille—Le Cid. IV. 3.
Great contest follows, and much learned dust
Involves the combatants; each claiming truth,
And truth disclaiming both.
So when two dogs are fighting in the streets,
When a third dog one of the two dogs meets:
With angry teeth he bites him to the bone,
And this dog smarts for what that dog has done.
Henry Fielding—Tom Thumb the Great. Act
I. Sc. 5. L. 55.
| seealso = (See also {{sc|Smart)
Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between
thee and me.
Genesis. XIII. 8.
When individuals approach one another with
deep purposes on both sides they seldom come at
once to the matter which they have most at
heart. They dread the electric shock of a too
sudden contact with it.
Nath. Hawthorne—The Marble Faun. Vol.
II. Ch.XXII.
Not hate, but glory, made these chiefs contend;
And each brave foe was in his soul a friend.
But curb thou the high spirit in thy breast,
For gentle ways are best, and keep aloof From sharp contentions.
A man of strife and a man of contention.
Jeremiah. XV. 10.
Mansit concordia discors.
Agreement exists in disagreement.
Lucan—Pharsalia. I. 98.
Ducibus tantum de funere pugna est.
The chiefs contend only for their place of
burial.
Lucan—Pharsalia. VI. 811.
If a house be divided against itself, that house
cannot stand.
Mark. III. 25.
Irritabis crabrones.
You will stir up the hornets.
Plautus—Amphitruo. Act II. 2. 75.
A continual dropping in a very rainy day and
a contentious woman are alike.
Proverbs. XXVII. 15.
Irriter les freslons.
Stir up the hornets.
Rabelais—Pantagruel.
Contentions fierce,
Ardent, and dire, spring from no petty cause.
Scott—Peter of the Peak. Ch. XL.
Tota hujus mundi concordia ex discordibus constat.
The whole concord of this world consists in discords.
Thus when a barber and collier fight,
The barber beats the luckless collier—white;
The dusty collier heaves his ponderous sack,
And, big with vengeance, beats the barberblack.
In comes the brick-dust man. with grime o'erAnd beats the collier and the barber—red;
Black, red, and white, in various clouds are toss'd,
And in the dust they raise the combatants are lost.
