It's wiser being good than bad; / It's safer being meek than fierce; / It's fitter being sane than mad. / My own hope is, a sun will pierce / The thickest cloud earth ever stretch'd; / That after last returns the first, / Though a wide compass round be fetch'd; / That what began best can't end worst, / Nor what God blessèd once prove accurst. Browning.
It's your dead chicks take the longest hatchin'. George Eliot.
Ita lex scripta—Thus the law is written.
Ivory does not come from a rat's mouth. Chinese Pr.
J.
J'ai bonne cause—I have good cause or reason. 30 M.
J'ai en toujours pour principe de ne faire jamais par autrui ce que je pouvais faire par moi-même—I have ever held it as a maxim never to do that through another which it was possible for me to do myself. Montesquieu.
J'ai failli attendre—I was all but kept waiting. Louis XIV., as his carriage drove up just at the last moment.
J'ai graissé la patte au concierge—I have tipped the door-keeper (lit. greased his paw). Fr. Pr.
J'ai ris, me voilà désarmé—I was set a-laughing, and lo! I was at once disarmed. Piron.