Nihil Quotes & Sayings

I am not poor, I am not rich; nihil est, nihil deest, I have little, I want nothing: all my treasure is in Minerva's tower ... I live still a collegiate student ... and lead a monastic life, ipse mihi theatrum [sufficient entertainment to myself], sequestered from those tumults and troubles of the world ... aulae vanitatem, fori ambitionem, ridere mecum soleo [I laugh to myself at the vanities of the court, the intrigues of public life], I laugh at all. — Robert Burton

I am of the opinion which you have always held, that "viva voce" voting at elections is the best method.
[Lat., Nam ego in ista sum sententia, qua te fuisse semper scio, nihil ut feurit in suffragiis voce melius.] — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Nothing is so high and above all danger that is not below and in the power of God.
[Lat., Nihil ita sublime est, supraque pericula tendit
Non sit ut inferius suppositumque deo.] — Ovid

Nature has placed nothing so high that virtue can not reach it.
[Lat., Nihil tam alte natura constituit quo virtus non possit eniti.] — Quintus Curtius Rufus

Tota vita nihil aliud quam ad mortem iter est.
The whole of life is nothing but a journey to death. — Seneca The Younger

Ab honesto virum bonum nihil deterret. (Nothing deters a good man from doing what is honorable.)-A Wrinkle in Time — Seneca.

Your favourite virtue ... Simplicity
Your favourite virtue in man ... Strength
Your favourite virtue in woman ... Weakness
Your chief characteristic ... Singleness of purpose
Your idea of happiness ... To fight
Your idea of misery ... Submission
The vice you excuse most ... Gullibility
The vice you detest most ... Servility
Your aversion ... Martin Tupper
Favourite occupation ... Book-worming
Favourite poet ... Shakespeare, Aeschylus, Goethe
Favourite prose-writer ... Diderot
Favourite hero ... Spartacus, Kepler
Favourite heroine ... Gretchen [Heroine of Goethe's Faust]
Favourite flower ... Daphne
Favourite colour ... Red
Favourite name ... Laura, Jenny
Favourite dish ... Fish
Favourite maxim ... Nihil humani a me alienum puto [Nothing human is alien to me]
Favourite motto ... De omnibus dubitandum [Everything must be doubted]. — Karl Marx

A cowardly populace which will dare nothing beyond talk.
[Lat., Vulgus ignavum et nihil ultra verba ausurum.] — Tacitus

I do not wish to die: but I care not if I were dead.
[Lat., Emori nolo: sed me esse mortuum nihil aestimo.] — Marcus Tullius Cicero

I still believe, though. In existing. In ex nihilo nihil fit. If nothing comes from nothing, we cannot return to it. Ergo life has a reason and needs to be. — Lavie Tidhar

To have nothing is not poverty.
[Lat., Non est paupertas, Nestor, habere nihil.] — Martial

Let war be so carried on that no other object may seem to be sought but the acquisition of peace.
[Lat., Bellum autem ita suscipiatur, ut nihil aliud, nisi pax, quaesita videatur.] — Marcus Tullius Cicero

For many ages it has been allowed by sensible men, Nihil est in intellectu quod non fuit prius in sensu: That is, There is nothing in the understanding which was not first perceived by some of the senses. All the knowledge which we naturally have is originally derived from our senses. And therefore those who want any sense cannot have the least knowledge or idea of the objects of that sense; as they that never had sight have not the least knowledge or conception of light or colours. — John Wesley

Nihil est sine ratione. There is nothing without a reason. — Gottfried Leibniz

Ut haec ipsa qui non sentiat deorum vim habere is nihil omnino sensurus esse videatur.
If any man cannot feel the power of God when he looks upon the stars, then I doubt whether he is capable of any feeling at all. — Horace

Nothing is more annoying than a tardy friend.
[Lat., Tardo amico nihil est quidquam iniquius.] — Plautus

It is undefinable; and moreover, if it were defined it would lose all its value. God is not all that exists; God is all that does not exist. Therein resides the power & the charm of that mysterious word. God is tradition, God is legend, God is folklore, God is a fairy-tale, God is romance, God is a lie, God is a bell, God is a church window, God is religion, God is all that is absurd, useless, invisible, intangible, all that is nothingness & that symbolizes nothingness. God is the nihil in tenebris-(nothing in the darkness) -men have made of him light, life & love. — Remy De Gourmont

In my stunted career as a scholar, I'd read promissory notes, papal bulls and guidelines for Inquisitorial interrogation. Dante, too. Boccaccio ... But after 1400? Nihil. — Cathleen Schine

There is nothing which power cannot believe of itself, when it is praised as equal to the gods.
[Lat., Nihil est quod credere de se
Non possit, quum laudatur dis aequa potestas.] — Juvenal

Nihil humanum a me alienum puto, said the Roman poet Terence: 'Nothing human is alien to me.' The slogan of the old Immigration and Naturalization Service could have been the reverse: To us, no aliens are human. — Christopher Hitchens

The standard cosmological theory
an expanding universe
does not really solve the problem of God. It simply makes it more problematical. Once the creator-creation model is discarded as primitive mythology, we still have not touched the ancient conundrum, ex nihilo nihil fit: nothing comes from nothing, and the "axiom" that "Nothing is unstable' rivals in scholastic absurdity anything Aquinas may have said eight hundred years ago and can only be postulated given the reality of something, whereby it becomes a self-evident and unarguable tautology. — R. Joseph Hoffmann

Scio me nihil scire" - I know that I know nothing — Socrates

Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto.
I am human, and think nothing human alien to me. — Terence

[My] rheumatism has come in again"

Ivan, cynically, "The devil have rheumatism!"

"Why not, if I sometimes put on fleshly form? I put on fleshly form and I take the consequences. Satan sum et nihil humanum a me alienum puto."* — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The sick mind can not bear anything harsh.
[Lat., Mensque pati durum sustinet aegra nihil.] — Ovid

In a sane world I should be a great man; as things are, in this curious establishment, I am nothing at all; to all intents and purposes I don't exist. I am just a Vox et preaterea nihil. — Aldous Huxley

Terence: nihil humanum alienum a me-"nothing human is alien to me," the greatest expression of ancient megalopsychia or great-souled and cosmopolitan "magnanimity." — Kenny Smith

I no longer drink nearly as much as I used to but, still, my motto is Sine coffea nihil sum. Without coffee, I'm nothing. — Sarah Vowell

I was sorry he had not a cat, or a young dog, or better still, an old dog. But all he had to offer in the way of dumb companions was a pink and grey parrot. He used to try and teach it to say, Nihil in intellectu, etc. These first three words the bird managed well enough, but the celebrated restriction was too much for it, all you heard was a series of squawks. — Samuel Beckett

Nihil tam acerbum est in quo non aequus animus solatium inveniat.
There is nothing so disagreeable, that a patient mind can not find some solace for it. — Seneca The Younger

If I were in the unenviable position of having to study my work my points of departure would be the "Naught is more real ... " and the "Ubi nihil vales ... " both already in Murphy and neither very rational. — Samuel Beckett

Omnia Mutantur, Nihil Interit. 'Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost. — Neil Gaiman