French priest and poet (1738-1813) From Wikiquote, the free quote compendium
Jacques Delille (June 22, 1738 – May 1, 1813) was a French poet and translator.
Le sort fait les parents, le choix fait les amis.
Fate chooses our relatives, we choose our friends.
Malheur at Pitié (1803), canto I.
J'aime à réver, mais ne veux pas Qu'à coups d'épingle on me réveille.
I love to dream, but do not wish To have a pin prick rouse me.
La Conversation; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 815-16.
Tremblez, tyrans, vous êtes immortels.
Tremble, ye tyrants, for ye can not die.
L'Immortalité de l'Âme; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 825.
Il ne voit que la nuit, n'entend que le silence.
He sees only night, and hears only silence.
Imagination, IV; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. ___? (Silence).
Ici nous ignorons dans quel climat nous sommes; ici nous ignorons et les lieux et les hommes: des honneurs solennels vous paîront vos bienfaits.
tr. of Ignari hominumque locorumque erramus, vento huc vastis et fluctibus acti: multa tibi ante aras nostra cadet hostia dextra. — L'Énéide, livre premier (Virgil A. 1.325)"
Instruct us of what skies, or what world's end, our storm-swept lives have found! Strange are these lands and people where we rove, compelled by wind and wave. Lo, this right hand shall many a victim on thine altar slay! — Vergil, Aeneid. Theodore C. Williams. trans. Boston. Houghton Mifflin Co., 1910.
But tell a stranger, long in tempests toss'd, what earth we tread, and who commands the coast? Then on your name shall wretched mortals call, and offer'd victims at your altars fall. — Vergil, Aeneid. John Dryden. trans.