Cryptogram

The basics

The board shows a quotation written in a one-to-one letter substitution, split into words with the punctuation left in place. Letters handed out at the start are locked and shown in grey; every other letter shows its cipher letter above an empty slot. Tap a cipher letter to select it, then tap the plain letter you think it stands for: every position with that cipher letter fills in at once. A plain letter can only belong to one cipher letter, so re-using a letter moves it here instead of duplicating it. There are three tiers of twelve puzzles: easy has four to six words with three letters given, medium seven to ten words with two given, and hard ten to eighteen words with one given. Hint reveals the selected cipher letter (or the first one still unknown) and is counted; Clear letter removes your pick; New puzzle moves on. The words are the feedback: a wrong mapping makes them stop making sense. The puzzle ends the moment every cipher letter holds its true plain letter, and the win dialog credits the quotation's source. Quotations are public-domain proverbs and pre-1900 authors only.

Objective:

Decode the hidden quotation. Every cipher letter stands for one plain letter — the same one everywhere — and no letter stands for itself. Give every cipher letter its true plain letter and the quotation appears.

Controls:

Tap or click a cipher letter, then a plain letter on the keyboard below — on a phone it is the same two taps. Buttons: Hint, Clear letter, New puzzle, and the Easy / Medium / Hard chips. Keyboard: A-Z fills the selected cipher letter, Backspace clears it, the arrow keys move the selection and Escape deselects. Every tap target is 34px or larger. Add ?n= to the URL to pin a puzzle, for example ?n=7.