12/31/2023 0 Comments Great minds think alike![]() Hostem, an me, an vos, ignoratis? Know ye not who the Enemy is, who I am, and who you are your selves? Great Minds often think alike on the same Occasions, and we are not always to suppose, that such Thoughts are borrow’d from one another when exprest by Persons of the same heroick Sentiments. We read in Livy, that Camillus the Dictator had a Saying to the same Purpose. I am your King, you are French Men, and there’s the Enemy. of France, said something as strong as this to his Soldiers, before the Battle of Iv’ry. Dialogues (Paris: Chez la Veuve de Sébastien Mabre-Cramoisy, 1687), by the French Jesuit priest, essayist and grammarian Dominique Bouhours (1628-1702): The current phrase is first recorded in The Arts of Logick and Rhetorick (London: Printed for John Clark and Richard Hett, John Pemberton, Richard Ford, and John Gray, 1728), a translation by the English historian and political pamphleteer John Oldmixon (1672/3-1742) of La manière de bien penser dans les ouvrages d’esprit. You hatch those egges that other birds haue layde: Good wits doe iumpe, good witty, witles sir: Those words were made before, he made them not Sir Philip Sidney, Scholers, souldiers pride ![]() In the following passage, Younker Harmants asks Sergeant Good fellow to compose a verse when the Sergeant has done so, Younker declares that this verse had in fact been composed by the English poet, scholar and soldier Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586): This earlier phrase is first recorded in Hans Beer-Pot his inuisible comedie, of see me, and see me not (London: Bernard Alsop, 1618), by the English playwright Daubridgecourt Belchier (1580?-1621). The very same notion used to be expressed by the obsolete phrase good wits jump, and variants, in which the verb jump meant to agree completely, to coincide. It is almost always used as ironic (self-)congratulation. The phrase great minds think alike is said when two people have the same opinion or make the same choice.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |