three

Anyone who marries three girls from St Louis hasn't learned much.

—Stein, Gertrude

For a man to write well, there are required three necessaries: to read the best authors, observe the best speakers, and much exercise of his own style.

—Jonson, Ben

Vim et virtutem et consequentias rerum inventarum notare juvat; quae non in aliis manifestius occurrunt, quam in illis tribus quae antiquis incognitae, et quarum primordia, licet recentia, obscura et ingloria sunt: Artis nimirum Imprimendi, PulverisTormentarii, et Acus Nauticae. Haec enim tria rerum faciem et statum in orbe terrarum mutaverunt. It is well to observe the force and virtue and consequence of discoveries, and these are to be seen nowhere more conspicuously than in those three which were unknown to the ancients, and of which the origin, though recent, is obscure and inglorious; namely, printing, gunpowder and the magnet [ie the compass]. For thesethreehave changedthewholefaceand stateof things throughout the world.

—Bacon, Francis,Viscount St Albans

Three be the things I shall never attain: Envy, content, and sufficient champagne.

—Parker, Dorothy ne¤  e Rothschild

Down for a new radio, to Ross Lake, and back up. Three days walking. Strange how unmoved this place leaves one; neither articulate or worshipful; rather the pressing need to look within and adjust the mechanism of perception.

—Snyder, Gary Sherman

I bind into myself today The strong name of theTrinity, By invocation of the same TheThree in One and One inThree.

—Alexander, Cecil Frances

My thoughtless youth was winged with vain desires, My manhood, long misled by wandering fires, Followed false lights; and when their glimpse was gone My pride struck out new sparkles of her own† Good life be now my task: my doubts are done; (What more could fright my faith thanThree in One?)

—Dryden,John

In my dreams is a country where the State is the Church and the Church the people: three in one and one in three. It is a commonwealth in which work is play and play is life: three in one and one in three. It is a temple in which the priest is the worshipper and the worshipper the worshipped: three in one and one in three. It is a godhead in which all life is human and all humanity divine: three in one and one in three. It is, in short, the dream of a madman.

—Shaw, George Bernard

Three little maids from school are we, Pert as a school-girl well can be Filled to the brim with girlish glee.

—Gilbert, Sir W(illiam) S(chwenck)

There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.

—Diana, Princess of Wales

There's three things you can do in a baseball game^you can win, you can lose, or it can rain.

—Stengel, Casey (Charles Dillon)

When I was a young man, I wanted to be three things: I wanted to be the world's greatest horseman, the world's greatest economist, and the world's greatest lover. Unfortunately I never became the world's greatest horseman.

—Schumpeter,Joseph Alois