Tag: Motto

Image of the day – 57

Action without thought is usually a waste of effort, thought without action is ineffective. Thinking it through and then doing it is the way to go!

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What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye.

I’m posting an image every two days (or as often as I can). A photo, an image from the internet, a diagram or a map. Whatever takes my fancy.

Stone plaque, Cirencester

This intriguing carved, stone plaque is in Cirencester’s West Market Place, close to the Parish Church. The Latin inscription ‘VIRTUTE ET INGENIO’ is interesting; ‘VIRTUTE’ can mean ‘virtue’, ‘courage’, ‘strength’ or ‘power’; ‘ET’ is ‘and’; while the word ‘INGENIO’ means ‘wit’ in the sense of cleverness, not humour. So the best I can offer is ‘strength and cleverness’, the English expression ‘brawn and brains’ sums it up quite well.

The shield above contains a rampant lion with two tails, holding up what looks like a rose. And on either side is a shoot of ivy, each with one ivy flower cluster. Do those two tails refer to the idea of something twofold, perhaps the need to be strong in both action and thought, body and mind?

Maybe someone in Cirencester knows the meaning and history of this interesting artefact. But meanwhile I’ll just take it as very sound advice that we need to think things through properly, and then act on whatever conclusion we might come to. Action without thought is usually a waste of effort, thought without action is ineffective. Thinking it through and then doing it is the way to go!

Cirencester

For convenience, here’s a list of all the Cirencester area images:

A417 roadworks, Advent Market, Bishops Walk, Baunton, Canal 1, 2, Castle Street, Christmas lights 1, 2, Church 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, Churn flood, Countryside, Fallen tree, Fleece, Gasworks, Gloucester Street, Hare 1, 2, Hospital, Market Place 1, Phoenix Fest, Riverside Walk, Stone plaque, Stratton Meadow, Tank traps, View, Wonky 1, 2, Yellow Iris

Themed image collections

The links below will take you to the first post in each collection

Cirencester, Favourites, Irish holiday 2024, Roman villa

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