Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Fondly we think we honor merit then, when we but praise ourselves in other men.
Extremes in nature equal ends produce; In man they join to some mysterious use.
Heaven gave to woman the peculiar grace To spin, to weep, and cully human race.
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man.
Our business in the field of fight, Is not to question, but to prove our might.
Say first, of god above or man below; what can we reason but from what we know.
Now warm in love, now with'ring in my bloom Lost in a convent's solitary gloom!
Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Man never is, but always To be Blest.
On life's vast ocean diversely we sail. Reasons the card, but passion the gale.
The mouse that always trusts to one poor hole Can never be a mouse of any soul.
The soul, uneasy and confin'd from home, Rests and expatiates in a life to come.
The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read With loads of learned lumber in his head.
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky, His faithful dog shall bear him company.
But blind to former as to future fate, what mortal knows his pre-existent state?
In faith and hope the world will disagree, but all mankind's concern is charity.
But Satan now is wiser than of yore, and tempts by making rich, not making poor.
An excuse is worse and more terrible than a lie; for an excuse is a lie guarded.
Envy, to which th' ignoble mind's a slave, Is emulation in the learn'd or brave.
The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read, With loads of learned lumber in his head.
Know then, unnumber'd Spirits round thee fly, The light Militia of the lower sky.
Men, some to business, some to pleasure take; But every woman is at heart a rake.
Why did I write? What sin to me unknown dipped me in ink, my parents , or my own?
Intestine war no more our passions wage, And giddy factions bear away their rage.
For Forms of Government let fools contest; whatever is best administered is best.
The ruling passion, be it what it will. The ruling passion conquers reason still.
Jarring interests of themselves create the according music of a well-mixed state.
Never elated when someone's oppressed, never dejected when another one's blessed.
Not grace, or zeal, love only was my call, And if I lose thy love, I lose my all.
Fair tresses man's imperial race ensnare; And beauty draws us with a single hair.
On cold December fragrant chaplets blow, And heavy harvests nod beneath the snow.
Of darkness visible so much be lent, as half to show, half veil, the deep intent.
Grave authors say, and witty poets sing, That honest wedlock is a glorious thing.
While I live, no rich or noble knave shall walk the world in credit to his grave.
Oh! blest with temper, whose unclouded ray Can make to-morrow cheerful as to-day.
To dazzle let the vain design, To raise the thought and touch the heart, be thine!
Envy will merit as its shade pursue, But like a shadow, proves the substance true.
Light quirks of music, broken and uneven,Make the soul dance upon a jig to Heav'n.
Nature made every fop to plague his brother, Just as one beauty mortifies another.
The hungry judges soon the sentence sign, and wretches hang that jurymen may dine.
Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.
To rest, the cushion and soft dean invite, who never mentions hell to ears polite.
The season when to come, and when to go, to sing, or cease to sing, we never know.
The learned is happy, nature to explore; The fool is happy, that he knows no more.
The good must merit God's peculiar care; But who but God can tell us who they are?
Virtuous and vicious every man must be, few in the extreme, but all in the degree.
Virtue she finds too painful an endeavour, content to dwell in decencies for ever.
Pleasure, or wrong or rightly understood, Our greatest evil, or our greatest good.
All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is, and God the soul.
Tis use alone that sanctifies expense And splendor borrow all her rays from sense.
All other goods by fortune's hand are given, A wife is the peculiar gift of Heaven.