Try an author, a thought, or a phrase in “quotes”.↑ ↓ Navigate · Esc Close

Type a word, saying or author to search.

Browse the library ↗

Be not proud because thou art learned; but discourse with the ignorant man, as with the sage. For no limit can be set to skill, neither is there any craftsman that possesseth full advantages. Fair speech is more rare than the emerald that is found by slave-maidens on the pebbles.

Be not proud because thou art learned; but discourse with the ignorant man, as with the sage. For no limit can be set to skill, neither is there any craftsman that possesseth full advantages. Fair speech is more rare than the emerald that is found by slave-maidens on the pebbles.

Approximate author period: c. 1800 BC · ancient

Meaning not yet available

An individual explanation has not yet been added. We do not substitute a generic description for an interpretation of these particular words.

Begin with source-checked readings and explanations ↗
Attribution & collection notes
Author or tradition
Ptahhotep (traditional literary attribution)
Attribution: attributed
Country attributed
Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin.
Historical period
Approximate author period: c. 1800 BC · ancient
Papyrus Prisse manuscript circa 1800 BCE (BnF); not quotation composition date or author lifetime
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken.
Recorded source
The Instruction of Ptah-Hotep and the Instruction of Ke’Gemni (1906) (1906 AD)

Instruction of Ptah-Hotep, Gunn edition section 1; complete printed unit; literary attribution, not independently authenticated

A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.

Culture
Ancient Egyptian