Tag: Sir William Jones

Seven hours to law, to soothing slumber seven,

Ten to the world allot, and all to heaven.

Sir William Jones

What constitutes a state?

Men who their duties know,

But know their rights, and knowing, dare maintain.

And sovereign law, that state’s collected will,

O’er thrones and globes elate,

Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill.

Sir William Jones

On parent knees, a naked new-born child,

Weeping thou sat’st while all around thee smiled;

So live, that sinking in thy last long sleep,

Calm thou mayst smile, while all around thee weep.

Sir William Jones

This quote illustrates Jones’ discovery of the Indo-European family of languages.

The Sanscrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists; there is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothic and the Celtic, though blended with a very different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanscrit; and the old Persian might be added to the same family.

Sir William Jones