Familiar Quotations / A Collection of Passages, Phrases, and Proverbs Traced to / Their Sources in Ancient and Modern Literature

by Unknown

[97:1] A little too wise, they say, do ne'er live long.—Middleton: The Phœnix, act i. sc. 1.

[97:2] Off with his head! so much for Buckingham!—Cibber: Richard III. (altered), act iv. sc. 3.

[98:1] A weak invention of the enemy.—Cibber: Richard III. (altered), act v. sc. 3.

[98:2] See Spenser, page [27].

[100:1] For men use, if they have an evil tourne, to write it in marble: and whoso doth us a good tourne we write it in duste.—Sir Thomas More: Richard III. and his miserable End.

All your better deeds

Shall be in water writ, but this in marble.

Beaumont and Fletcher: Philaster, act v. sc. 3.

L'injure se grave en métal; et le bienfait s'escrit en l'onde.

(An injury graves itself in metal, but a benefit writes itself in water.)