Dictum Diei: All men by nature desire to know

"All men by nature desire to know. An indication of this is the delight we take in our senses; for even apart from their usefulness they are loved for themselves; and above all others the sense of sight."

- Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book 1

Dictum Diei: I bleed!

"I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!"

-Percy Bysshe Shelley, from "Ode to the West Wind"

This is in my opinion, perhaps the most hilarious line in English Romantic poetry. I can't read this line without imagining Shelley tripping into a bush, and immediately fainting with a shriek at the sight of his own blood. My image isn't appropriate in context of the poem, perhaps, but I still maintain that this is a rubbish line.

Dictum Diei: Approving what we like

"How quick come the reasons for approving what we like!"

- Jane Austen, Persuasion

Dictum Diei: Man's life as cheap as beast's

King Lear to Ragan:
O, reason not the need: our basest beggars
Are in the poorest thing superfluous:
Allow not nature more than nature needs,
Man’s life’s as cheap as beast’s: thou art a lady;
If only to go warm were gorgeous,
Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear’st,
Which scarcely keeps thee warm.

– William Shakespeare, King Lear

Dictum Diei: Bacon on prejudice

"Men become attached to certain particular sciences and speculations, either because they fancy themselves the authors and inventors thereof, or because they have bestowed the greatest pains upon them and become most habituated to them. But men of this kind, if they betake themselves to philosophy and contemplations of a general character, distort and color them in obedience to their former fancies; a thing especially to be noticed in Aristotle, who made his natural philosophy a mere bond servant to his logic, thereby rendering it contentious and well nigh useless."

- Francis Bacon from The New Organon

Dictum Diei: A Virgin Mind

"It is preferable to have a virgin mind than a virgin body."

- St. Ambrose, Concerning Virgins, Book II.

Context: Ambrose recounts a case in which a virgin at Antioch, having refused to sacrifice to idols, was condemned to a brothel.

Dictum Diei: Cheese

"Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese."


- G. K. Chesterton 

from his essay, "Cheese."

• Someone took the trouble to type up the entire essay, which you can find here.
• Also, here's a column from The Columbia Daily Tribune: In an homage to fromage, poets break the silence on the subject of cheese.

Dictum Diei: Election Day - Put not your trust in princes

The head of Constantine

Put not your trust in princes,
    in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation.
When his breath departs, he returns to the earth;
    on that very day his plans perish.

Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,
    whose hope is in the Lord his God,
who made heaven and earth,
    the sea, and all that is in them,
who keeps faith forever;
    who executes justice for the oppressed,
    who gives food to the hungry.

-Psalm 146:3-7 








As a bonus, here's Ozymandias by Shelly.

Dictum Diei: Where you have envy

[W]here you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.
–James 3:16

This is as true at the corner market as it is at the Capital. And you and I are as vulnerable to these vices as are the best of men.

Dictum Diei: When the World does not Like You

"When the world does not like you it takes its revenge on you; if it happens to like you, it takes its revenge still by corrupting you."
––A. G. Sertillanges

Dictum Diei: Pride is the Enemy of Truth

Pride is the enemy of truth.

Therefore, suspect the judgements of the arrogant.
But do not wholly dismiss them in case they speak truth despite themselves.

Test everything; hold fast to that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)