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Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.

Shame

Shame is an ornament to the young; a disgrace to the old.
Aristotle.

A nightingale dies for shame if another bird sings better.
Burton—Anatomy of Melancholy. Pt. I. Sec. II. Memb. 3. Subsec. 6.

Maggior difetto men vergogna lava.
Less shame a greater fault would palliate.
Dante—Inferno. XXX. 142.

Love taught him shame, and shame, with love at strife,
Soon taught the sweet civilities of life.
Dryden—Cymon and Iphigenia. L. 133.

The only art her guilt to cover,
To hide her shame from every eye,
To give repentance to her lover,
And wring his bosom, is—to die.
Goldsmith—Vicar of Wakefield. Ch. XXIV.

If yet not lost to all the sense of shame.
Homer—Iliad. Bk. VI. L. 350. Pope’s trans.

Næ simul pudere quod non oportet cœperit; quod oportet non pudebit.
As soon as she (woman) begins to be ashamed of what she ought not, she will not be ashamed of what she ought.
Livy—Annales. XXXIV. 4.

Pessimus quidem pudor vel est parsimoniæ vel frugalitatis.
The worst kind of shame is being ashamed of frugality or poverty.
Livy—Annales. XXXIV. 4.

Pudet hæc opprobria nobis
Et dici potuisse et non potuisse repelli.
I am not ashamed that these reproaches can be cast upon us, and that they can not be repelled.
Ovid—Metamorphoses. Bk. I. 758.

Here shame dissuades him, there his fear prevails,
And each by turns his aching heat assails.
Ovid—Metamorphoses. Bk. III. Transformation of Actæon. L. 73. Addison’s trans.

Nam ego illum periisse duco, cui quidem periit pudor.
I count him lost, who is lost to shame.
Plautus—Bacchides. III. 3. 80.

O shame! Where is thy blush?
Hamlet. Act III. Sc. 4. L. 82.

All is confounded, all!
Reproach and everlasting shame
Sits mocking in our plumes.
Henry V. Act IV. Sc. 5. L. 3.

He was not born to shame:
Upon his brow shame was asham’d to sit;
For ’tis a throne where honour may be crown’d
Sole monarch of the universal earth.
Romeo and Juliet. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 91.

We live in an atmosphere of shame. We are ashamed of everything that is real about us; ashamed of ourselves, of our relatives, of our incomes, of our accents, of our opinion, of our experience, just as we are ashamed of our naked skins.
Bernard Shaw—Man and Superman. Act I.

The most curious offspring of shame is shyness.
Sydney Smith—Lecture on the Evil Affections.