Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Some sigh for this and that; My wishes don't go far; The world may wag at will, So I have my cigar.
I resolved that, like the sun, as long as my day lasted, I would look on the bright side of everything.
I love thee - I love thee, 'Tis all that I can say, It is my vision in the night, My dreaming in the day.
It was not in the winter Our loving lot was cast! It was the time of roses, We plucked them as we passed!
I remember, I remember, The house where I was born, The little window where the sun Came peeping in at morn.
It was a childish ignorance, But now 'tis little joy To know I'm further off from heaven Than when I was a boy.
There are three things which the public will always clamor for, sooner or later: namely, novelty, novelty, novelty.
There are three things which the public will always clamour for, sooner or later; namely: novelty, novelty, novelty.
With fingers weary and worn, With eyelids heavy and red, A woman sat in unwomanly rags, Plying her needle and thread.
Some minds improve by travel, others, rather, resemble copper wire, or brass, which get the narrower by going farther.
The Autumn is old; The sere leaves are flying; He hath gather'd up gold, And now he is dying;- Old age, begin sighing!
The Quaker loves an ample brim, A hat that bows to no salaam; And dear the beaver is to him As if it never made a dam.
Ben Battle was a soldier bold, and used to war's alarms, But a cannon-ball took off his legs, so he laid down his arms.
O men with sisters dear, O men with mothers and wives, It is not linen you 're wearing out, But human creatures' lives!
Peace and rest at length have come, All the day's long toil is past; And each heart is whispering, "Home, Home at last!"
Experience enables me to depose to the comfort and blessing that literature can prove in seasons of sickness and sorrow.
The year's in wane; There is nothing adorning; The night has no eve, And the day has no morning; Cold winter gives warning!
Our very hopes belied our fears, Our fears our hopes belied; We thought her dying when she slept, And sleeping when she died.
Lives of great men oft remind us as we o'er their pages turn, That we too may leave behind us - Letters that we ought to burn.
When Eve upon the first of Men The apple press'd with specious cant, Oh! what a thousand pities then That Adam was not Adamant!
We watch'd her breathing through the night, Her breathing soft and low, As in her breast the wave of life Kept heaving to and fro.
My brain is dull, my sight is foul, I cannot write a verse, or read-- Then, Pallas, take away thine Owl, And let us have a lark instead.
She stood breast-high amid the corn Clasp'd by the golden light of morn, Like the sweetheart of the sun, Who many a glowing kiss had won.
What is a modern poet's fate? / To write his thoughts upon a slate; / The critic spits on what is done, / Gives it a wipe - and all is gone.
Father of rosy day, No more thy clouds of incense rise; But waking flow'rs, At morning hours, Give out their sweets to meet thee in the skies.
Some dreams we have are nothing else but dreams, Unnatural and full of contradictions; Yet others of our most romantic schemes, Are something more than fictions.
While the steeples are loud in their joy, To the tune of the bells' ring-a-ding, Let us chime in a peal, one and all, For we all should be able to sing Hullah baloo.
Well for the drones of the social hive that there are bees of an industrious turn, willing, for an infinitesimal share of the honey, to undertake the labor of its fabrication.
How widely its agencies vary,- To save, to ruin, to curse, to bless,- As even its minted coins express, Now stamp'd with the image of Good Queen Bess, And now of a Bloody Mary.
There is a silence where hath been no sound, There is a silence where no sound may be,- In the cold grave, under the deep, deep sea, Or in the wide desert where no life is found.
What joy have I in June's return? My feet are parched-my eyeballs burn, I scent no flowery gust; But faint the flagging zephyr springs, With dry Macadam on its wings, And turns me 'dust to dust.'
I remember, I remember The roses, red and white, The violets, and the lily-cups, Those flowers made of light! The lilacs, where the robin built, And where my brother set The laburmum on his birthday,- The tree is living yet.
I remember, I remember The fir-trees dark and high; I used to think their slender tops Were close against the sky; It was a childish ignorance, But now 't is little joy To know I'm farther off from heaven Than when I was a boy.
No sun, no moon, no morn, no noon, No dawn, no dusk, no proper time of day, . . . . . . No road, no street, no t' other side the way, . . . . . . No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees, No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no buds.
Well, something must be done for May, The time is drawing nigh-- To figure in the Catalogue, And woo the public eye. Something I must invent and paint; But oh my wit is not Like one of those kind substantives That answer Who and What?
Whoe'er has gone thro' London street, Has seen a butcher gazing at his meat, And how he keeps Gloating upon a sheep's Or bullock's personals, as if his own; How he admires his halves And quarters--and his calves, As if in truth upon his own legs grown.
Spontaneously to God should turn the soul, Like the magnetic needle to the pole; But what were that intrinsic virtue worth, Suppose some fellow, with more zeal than knowledge, Fresh from St. Andrew's College, Should nail the conscious needle to the north?
Tis like the birthday of the world, When earth was born in bloom; The light is made of many dyes, The air is all perfume: There's crimson buds, and white and blue, The very rainbow showers Have turned to blossoms where they fell, And sown the earth with flowers.
That a man be willing, when others are so too, as far forth as for peace and defence of himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down this right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty against other men, as he would allow other men against himself.
The moon, the moon, so silver and cold, Her fickle temper has oft been told, Now shade--now bright and sunny-- But of all the lunar things that change, The one that shows most fickle and strange, And takes the most eccentric range, Is the moon--so called--of honey!
Mother of light! how fairly dost thou go Over those hoary crests, divinely led! Art thou that huntress of the silver bow Fabled of old? Or rather dost thou tread Those cloudy summits thence to gaze below, Like the wild chamois from her Alpine snow, Where hunters never climbed--secure from dread?
I saw old Autumn in the misty morn Stand shadowless like silence, listening To silence, for no lonely bird would sing Into his hollow ear from woods forlorn, Nor lowly hedge nor solitary thorn;- Shaking his languid locks all dewy bright With tangled gossamer that fell by night, Pearling his coronet of golden corn.
And ye, who have met with Adversity's blast, And been bow'd to the earth by its fury; To whom the Twelve Months, that have recently pass'd Were as harsh as a prejudiced jury - Still, fill to the Future! and join in our chime, The regrets of remembrance to cozen, And having obtained a New Trial of Time, Shout in hopes of a kindlier dozen.