The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs (26 page)

BOOK: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs

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, for he wishes not to appear but to be the best; SALLUST
Catilina
liv.
Esse, quam videri
,
bonus malebat
, he [
sc.
Cato] preferred to be good, rather than to seem good.

c
1377
Piers Plowman
B. x. 253
Suche as thow semest in syghte, be in assay [trial] y-founde.
1547
Treatise of Moral Philosophy
II.xi.
Be the selfe same that thou pretendest.
1640
Outlandish Proverbs
no. 724
Be what thou wouldst seeme to be.
1721
Scottish Proverbs
68
Be what you seem, and seem what you are. The best way! for Hypocrisy is soon discovered.
1865
‘’
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
ix.
It's a vegetable. It doesn't look like one, but it is …The moral of that is—‘Be what you would seem to be.’
1980
in
Winter Crimes
12 158
The Benningworth family motto
Esse quam videri
, ‘to be rather than to seem to be’.