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You cannot eat your cake and have it too


manowar
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The quote that appears from the play Trinummus by Plautus in the file
https://github.com/0ad/0ad/blob/master/binaries/data/mods/public/gui/text/quotes.txt

Quote

“You cannot eat your cake and have it too, unless you think your money is immortal.”\n— Plautus (“Trinummus”, Act II, scene 4, 13–14)

I am unable to find that quote in an online version of the play here

Are we sure this quote is accurate ?

 

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It sounds like 'Bonnell Thornton' translated Plautus from 'if you spend a thing you cannot have it' to 'You cannot eat your cake and have it too'

https://www.bartleby.com/lit-hub/respectfully-quoted/john-heywood-14971580/
 

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AUTHOR:     John Heywood (1497?–1580?)
QUOTATION:     Would yee both eat your cake, and have your cake?
ATTRIBUTION:     JOHN HEYWOOD, The Proverbs of John Heywood, part 2, chapter 9, p. 162 (1598, reprinted 1874, 1978).

The idea that if you spend a thing you cannot have it goes back much further than Heywood’s original 1546 work. Plautus wrote c. 194 B.C. in Trinummus (act II, scene iv, line 414), “Non tibi illud apparere si sumas potest” (if you spend a thing you cannot have it), translated as “You cannot eat your cake and have it too” by one Englishman.—Comedies of Plautus, trans. Bonnell Thornton, 2d ed., rev., vol. 2, p. 29 (1769).

 

 

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