QUALITY
Things that have a common quality ever quickly seek their kind.
A demd, damp, moist, unpleasant body!
Hard as a piece of the nether millstone.
Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted?
Fine by defect, and delicately weak.
That air and harmony of shape express,
Fine by degrees, and beautifully less.
Come, give us a taste of your quality.
Innocence in genius, and candor in power, are both noble qualities.
Nothing endures but personal qualities.
QUARRELING
(See also Contention, Dissension)
Those who in quarrels interpose,
Must often wipe a bloody nose.
L'aimable siecle ou l'homme dit a l'homme,
Soyons freres, ou je t'assomine.
Those glorious days, when man said to man,
Let us be brothers, or I will knock you down.
Cadit statin simultas, ab altera parte deserta; nisi pariter, non pugnant.
A quarrel is quickly settled when deserted by one party: there is no battle unless there be two.
Put greatly to find quarrel in a straw
When honour's at the stake.
In a false quarrel there is no true valour.
Thou! why, thou wilt quarrel with a man that
hath a hair more, or a hair less, in his beard
than thou hast: thou wilt quarrel with a man
for cracking nuts, having no other reason but
because thou hast hazel eyes.
Thy head is as full of quarrels as an egg is full of meat.
The quarrel is a very pretty quarrel as it stands; we should only spoil it by trying to explain it.
I won't quarrel with my bread and butter.
O we fell out, I know not why,
And kiss'd again with tears.
Weakness on both sides is, as we know, the motto of all quarrels.
Let dogs delight to bark and bite,
For God hath made them so;
Let bears and lions growl and fight,
For 'tis their nature too.
But children you should never let
Such angry passions rise,
Your little hands were never made
To tear each other's eyes.
QUOTATION
There is not less wit nor invention in applying rightly a thought one finds in a book, than in being the first author of that thought. Cardinal du Perron has been heard to say that the happy application of a verse of Virgil has deserved a talent.
One whom it is easier to hate, but still easier to quote—Alexander Pope.
All which he understood by rote,
And, as occasion serv'd, would quote.
With just enough of learning to misquote.
Perverts the Prophets, and purloins the Psalms.
To copy beauties, forfeits all pretence
To fame—to copy faults, is want of sense.
The greater part of our writers, * * * have become so original, that no one cares to imitate them: and those who never quote in return are seldom quoted.
