Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Thus unlamented pass the proud away, The gaze of fools and pageant of a day; So perish all, whose breast ne'er learn'd to glow For others' good, or melt at others' woe.
The cabinets of the sick and the closets of the dead have been ransacked to publish private letters and divulge to all mankind the most secret sentiments of friendship.
By music minds an equal temper know, Nor swell too high, nor sink too low. . . . . Warriors she fires with animated sounds. Pours balm into the bleeding lover's wounds.
No silver saints, by dying misers giv'n, Here brib'd the rage of ill-requited heav'n; But such plain roofs as Piety could raise, And only vocal with the Maker's praise.
Let sinful bachelors their woes deplore; full well they merit all they feel, and more: unaw by precepts, human or divine, like birds and beasts, promiscuously they join.
With the mistake your life goes in reverse. Now you can see exactly what you did Wrong yesterday and wrong the day before And each mistake leads back to something worse.
Some positive persisting fops we know, Who, if once wrong, will needs be always so; But you with pleasure own your errors past, And make each day a critique on the last.
Eye Nature's walks, shoot folly as it flies, And catch the manners living as they rise; Laugh where we must, be candid where we can, But vindicate the ways of God to man.
There is but one way I know of conversing safely with all men; that is, not by concealing what we say or do, but by saying or doing nothing that deserves to be concealed.
The nicest constitutions of government are often like the finest pieces of clock-work, which, depending on so many motions, are therefore more subject to be out of order.
What woeful stuff this madrigal would be, In some starved hackney sonneteer, or me! But let a lord once own the happy lines, How the wit brightens! how the style refines!
Whether the darken'd room to muse invite, Or whiten'd wall provoke the skew'r to write; In durance, exile, Bedlam, or the Mint, Like Lee or Budgel I will rhyme and print.
Silence! coeval with eternity! thou wert ere Nature's self began to be; thine was the sway ere heaven was formed on earth, ere fruitful thought conceived creation's birth.
She who ne'er answers till a husband cools, Or, if she rules him, never shows she rules; Charms by accepting, by submitting, sways, Yet has her humor most, when she obeys.
To pardon those absurdities in ourselves which we cannot suffer in others is neither better nor worse than to be more willing to be fools ourselves than to have others so.
Oh, when shall Britain, conscious of her claim, Stand emulous of Greek and Roman fame? In living medals see her wars enroll'd, And vanquished realms supply recording gold?
So modern 'pothecaries, taught the art By doctor's bills to play the doctor's part, Bold in the practice of mistaken rules, Prescribe, apply, and call their masters fools.
I lose my patience, and I own it too, When works are censur'd, not as bad but new; While if our Elders break all reason's laws, These fools demand not pardon but Applause.
See the wild Waste of all-devouring years! How Rome her own sad Sepulchre appears, With nodding arches, broken temples spread! The very Tombs now vanish'd like their dead!
It is observable that the ladies frequent tragedies more than comedies; the reason may be, that in tragedy their sex is deified and adored, in comedy exposed and ridiculed.
Say, will the falcon, stooping from above, Smit with her varying plumage, spare the dove? Admires the jay the insect's gilded wings? Or hears the hawk when Philomela sings?
Let Joy or Ease, let Affluence or Content, And the gay Conscience of a life well spent, Calm ev'ry thought, inspirit ev'ry grace, Glow in thy heart, and smile upon thy face.
Leave not a foot of verse, a foot of stone, A Page, a Grave, that they can call their own; But spread, my sons, your glory thin or thick, On passive paper, or on solid brick.
Careless of censure, nor too fond of fame, Still pleased to praise, yet not afraid to blame, Averse alike to flatter or offend, Not free from faults, nor yet too vain to mend.
Who combats bravely is not therefore brave, He dreads a death-bed like the meanest slave: Who reasons wisely is not therefore wise,- His pride in reasoning, not in acting lies.
Praise is like ambergrease: a little whiff of it, and by snatches, is very agreeable; but when a man holds a whole lump of it to your nose, it is a stink, and strikes you down.
Tis strange the miser should his cares employTo gain those riches he can ne'er enjoy;Is it less strange the prodigal should wasteHis wealth to purchase what he ne'er can taste?
At length corruption, like a general flood (So long by watchful ministers withstood), Shall deluge all; and avarice, creeping on, Spread like a low-born mist, and blot the sun.
Pretty! in amber to observe the forms Of hairs, of straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms! The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare, But wonder how the devil they got there.
But see, the shepherds shun the noonday heat, The lowing herds to murmuring brooks retreat, To closer shades the panting flocks remove; Ye gods! And is there no relief for love?
Chiefs who no more in bloody fights engage, But wise through time, and narrative with age, In summer-days like grasshoppers rejoice - A bloodless race, that send a feeble voice.
With sharpen'd sight pale Antiquaries pore, Th' inscription value, but the rust adore. This the blue varnish, that the green endears; The sacred rust of twice ten hundred years.
Of all the causes which conspire to blind Man's erring judgement, and misguide the mind, What the weak head with strongest bias rules, Is PRIDE, the never-failing vice of fools.
Statesman, yet friend to truth! of soul sincere, In action faithful, and in honour clear; Who broke no promise, serv'd no private end, Who gain'd no title, and who lost no friend.
Persons of genius, and those who are most capable of art, are always most fond of nature: as such are chiefly sensible, that all art consists in the imitation and study of nature.
Fortune in men has some small diff'rence made, One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade, The cobbler apron'd, and the parson gown'd, The friar hooded, and the monarch crown'd.
Our rural ancestors, with little blest, Patient of labor when the end was rest, Indulged the day that housed their annual grain, With feasts, and off'rings, and a thankful strain.
The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed today, Had he thy reason, would he skip and play? Pleas'd to the last he crops the flow'ry food, And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood.
An atheist is but a mad, ridiculous derider of piety, but a hypocrite makes a sober jest of God and religion; he finds it easier to be upon his knees than to rise to a good action.
In pride, in reas'ning pride, our error lies; All quit their sphere and rush into the skies. Pride still is aiming at the bless'd abodes, Men would be angels, angels would be gods.
Search then the ruling passion; there alone, The wild are constant, and the cunning known; The fool consistent, and the false sincere; Priests, princes, women, no dissemblers here.
Some to conceit alone their taste confine, And glittering thoughts struck out at ev'ry line; Pleas'd with a work where nothing's just or fit; One glaring chaos and wild heap of wit.
Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar; Wait the great teacher, Death, and God adore; What future bliss He gives not thee to know, But gives that hope to be thy blessing now.
A perfect Judge will read each work of Wit With the same spirit that its author writ: Survey the Whole, nor seek slight faults to find Where nature moves, and rapture warms the mind.
Ye flowers that drop, forsaken by the spring, Ye birds that, left by summer, cease to sing, Ye trees that fade, when Autumn heats remove, Say, is not absence death to those who love?
The character of covetousness, is what a man generally acquires more through some niggardliness or ill grace in little and inconsiderable things, than in expenses of any consequence.
A man who admires a fine woman, has yet not more reason to wish himself her husband, than one who admired the Hesperian fruit, would have had to wish himself the dragon that kept it.
The meeting points the sacred hair dissever From the fair head, forever, and forever! Then flashed the living lightning from her eyes, And screams of horror rend th' affrighted skies.
Oft, as in airy rings they skim the heath, The clamtrous lapwings feel the leaden death; Oft, as the mounting larks their notes prepare They fall, and leave their little lives in air.
Some old men, continually praise the time of their youth. In fact, you would almost think that there were no fools in their days, but unluckily they themselves are left as an example.