"Wit contracts rust amongst those that have none."
— Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751)
Work Title
Date
1748, 1749
Metaphor
"Wit contracts rust amongst those that have none."
Metaphor in Context
What I have now mentioned, shews that the best company for an ingenious man is his own, if he cannot find his equals. Wit contracts rust amongst those that have none: for want of exercise at tennis, the ball is undextrously returned to him who knows not how to strike it [...]
(p. 16)
(p. 16)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
4 entries in the ESTC. Published anonymously, translated into English in 1749 with printings in 1750 and 1752.
Text from Man a Machine. Translated from the French of the Marquiss D'Argens. (London: Printed for W. Owen, 1749). <Link to ECCO>
Reading Man a Machine and Man a Plant, trans. Richard A. Watson and Maya Rybalka (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994). Translation based on version from La Mettrie's Oeuvres philosophiques (Berlin: 1751).
Text from Man a Machine. Translated from the French of the Marquiss D'Argens. (London: Printed for W. Owen, 1749). <Link to ECCO>
Reading Man a Machine and Man a Plant, trans. Richard A. Watson and Maya Rybalka (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994). Translation based on version from La Mettrie's Oeuvres philosophiques (Berlin: 1751).
Date of Entry
07/16/2013
