[PW] Re: ? "Use what talent you possess"

Askapart askapart at yahoo.co.uk
Tue Jan 9 09:29:36 PST 2007


I don't have access to those titles, but the phrase itself sounds to me like one of the many translations of the Latin motto "Age quod agis" (literally, "Do what you do"). Google reveals that the motto's used by quite a few educational institutions founded in the nineteenth century, so must have been in reasonably common currency, though I haven't yet been able to find an origin for the phrase.
   
  Bridget
   
  
"Cramer, Jeff" <Jeff.Cramer at walden.org> wrote:
  I am trying to find the source for the quotation ¡ÈUse what talent you
possess¡É which is erroneously attributed to Henry Van Dyke. It appeared in
the Ladies Repository (Sept. 1874) with no attribution. It also appeared in
the following two books, neither of which I can easily locate. If anyone has
either or both of these volumes, could you please check the page number
indicated and see if there is any attribution? It would be greatly
appreciated. 



Page 237 of Treasured Thoughts of Great Minds, compiled by J.B. (1876) 



Page 5 of Francis Redfern¡Çs The Edeographic Inductive Reader, or, The Art
of Reporting . . . (1875)



Many thanks in advance, Jeff





Jeffrey S. Cramer, Curator of Collections 
The Thoreau Institute at Walden Woods 
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