Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Retribution
God’s mills grind slow,
But they grind woe.
Wm. R. Alger—Oriental Poetry. Delayed Retribution.
The divine power moves with difficulty, but at the same time surely.
Euripides—Bacchæ. 382.
The ways of the gods are long, but in the end they are not without strength.
Euripides—Ion. I. 1615.
Ut sit magna tamen certe lenta ira deorum est.
But grant the wrath of Heaven be great, ’tis slow.
Juvenal—Satires. XIII. 100. Gifford’s trans.
Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small;
Though with patience He stands waiting, with exactness grinds He all.
Friedrich von Logau—Retribution. From the Sinngedichte. See Longfellow’s trans. Poetic Aphorisms. First line from the Greek Oracula Sibyllina. VIII. 14. Same idea in Plutarch—Sera Humanis Vindicta. Ch. VIII, quoting Sextus Empiricus—Adversus Grammaticos. I. 13. Sect. 287. Found also in Proverbia e cad. Coisl. in Gaisford—Parœm. Græc. Oxon. 1836. P. 164. Horace—Carmina. III. 2. 31. Tibullus—Elegies. I. 9.
To be left alone
And face to face with my own crime, had been
Just retribution.
Longfellow—Masque of Pandora. Pt. VIII. In the Garden.
Lento quidem gradu ad vindictam divina procedit ira, sed tarditatem supplicii gravitate compensat.
The divine wrath is slow indeed in vengeance, but it makes up for its tardiness by the severity of the punishment.
Valerius Maximus. I. 1. 3.
Be ready, gods, with all your thunderbolts;
Dash him to pieces!
Julius Cæsar. Act IV. Sc. 3. L. 81.
But as some muskets so contrive it
As oft to miss the mark they drive at,
And though well aimed at duck or plover
Bear wide, and kick their owners over.
John Trumbull—McFingal. Canto I. L. 95.