Top 15 Quotes & Sayings by William Dunbar

Explore popular quotes and sayings by a Scottish poet William Dunbar.
Last updated on September 19, 2024.
William Dunbar

William Dunbar was a Scottish makar poet active in the late fifteenth century and the early sixteenth century. He was closely associated with the court of King James IV and produced a large body of work in Scots distinguished by its great variation in themes and literary styles. He was likely a native of East Lothian, as assumed from a satirical reference in The Flyting of Dumbar and Kennedie. His surname is also spelt Dumbar.

Scottish - Poet | 1460 - 1520
Your law may be perfect, your knowledge of human affairs may be such as to enable you to apply it with wisdom and skill, and yet without individual acquaintance with men, their haunts and habits, the pursuit of the profession becomes difficult, slow, and expensive.
London, thou art the flower of cities all!
To God be humble, to thy friend be kind, and with thy neighbors gladly lend and borrow; His chance tonight, it maybe thine tomorrow.
All love is lost but upon God alone.
A lawyer who does not know men is handicapped.
Our pleasance here is all vain glory, This false world is but transitory.
Scotsmen are metaphisical and emotional, they are sceptical and mystical, they are romantic and ironic, they are cruel and tender, and full of mirth and despair.
Among my friends love is a payment. It is an old debt for a borrowing foolishly spent. — © William Dunbar
Among my friends love is a payment. It is an old debt for a borrowing foolishly spent.
Gem of all joy, jasper of jocundity.
Neither our vices nor our virtues further the poem.
London, thou art the flower of cities all! Gemme of all joy, jasper of jocunditie. — © William Dunbar
London, thou art the flower of cities all! Gemme of all joy, jasper of jocunditie.
I that in heill wes and gladnes Am trublit now with gret seiknes And feblit with infermite: Timor Mortis conturbat me.* * Fear of Death troubles me.
Noble men in the quiet of morning hear Indians singing the continent's violent requiem.
Our pleasance here is all vain glory, This false warld is but transitory.
Timor mortis conturbat me. The fear of death disturbs me.
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