Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Those oft are stratagems which errors seem Nor is it Homer nods, but we that dream.
Chaste to her husband, frank to all beside, A teeming mistress, but a barren bride.
'Tis education forms the common mind; just as the twig is bent the tree's inclined.
When to mischief mortals bend their will, how soon they find it instruments of ill.
How index-learning turns no student pale, Yet holds the eel of science by the tail!
You purchase pain with all that joy can give and die of nothing but a rage to live.
'Tis not a lip, or eye, we beauty call, But the joint force and full result of all.
Is that a birthday? 'tis, alas! too clear; 'Tis but the funeral of the former year.
Condition, circumstance, is not the thing; Bliss is the same in subject or in king.
Unblemish'd let me live or die unknown; Oh, grant an honest fame, or grant me none!
How happy is the blameless vestal's lot? The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
For forms of government, let fools contest; Whate'er is best administered, is best.
For critics, as they are birds of prey, have ever a natural inclination to carrion.
That virtue only makes our bliss below, And all our knowledge is ourselves to know.
All seems infected that th' infected spy, As all looks yellow to the jaundiced eye.
Not always actions show the man; we find who does a kindness is not therefore kind.
And each blasphemer quite escape the rod, Because the insult's not on man, but God?
In every work regard the writer's end, Since none can compass more than they intend.
For when success a lover's toil attends,Few ask, if fraud or force attain'd his ends
Whate'er the talents, or howe'er designed, We hang one jingling padlock on the mind.
The dull flat falsehood serves for policy, and in the cunning, truth's itself a lie.
Whether the charmer sinner it, or saint it, If folly grow romantic, I must paint it.
O Love! for Sylvia let me gain the prize, And make my tongue victorious as her eyes.
Is there no bright reversion in the sky, For those who greatly think or bravely die?
Ladies, like variegated tulips, show 'Tis to their changes half their charms we owe.
What nature wants, commodious gold bestows; 'Tis thus we cut the bread another sows.
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
Alas! the small discredit of a bribe Scarce hurts the lawyer, but undoes the scribe.
A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.
Tis thus the mercury of man is fix'd, Strong grows the virtue with his nature mix'd.
Who finds not Providence all good and wise, Alike in what it gives, and what denies.
For he lives twice who can at once employ, The present well, and e'en the past enjoy.
But if you'll prosper, mark what I advise, Whom age, and long experience render wise.
Sickness is a sort of early old age; it teaches us a diffidence in our earthly state.
A perfect judge will read each word of wit with the same spirit that its author writ.
Speed the soft intercourse from soul to soul, And waft a sigh from Indus to the Pole.
For thee I dim these eye and stuff this head With all such reading as was never read.
Let such teach others who themselves excel, And censure freely who have written well.
Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise; My footstool earth, my canopy the skies.
Who builds a church to God and not to fame, Will never mark the marble with his name.
Blest paper-credit! last and best supply! That lends corruption lighter wings to fly!
And all who told it added something new, and all who heard it, made enlargements too.
Behold the child, by Nature's kindly law pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw.
To wake the soul by tender strokes of art, To raise the genius, and to mend the heart
Who shall decide when doctors disagree, And soundest casuists doubt, like you and me?
A wise physician, skill'd our wounds to heal, is more than armies to the public weal.
Hear how the birds, on ev'ry blooming spray, With joyous musick wake the dawning day.
Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust, Yet cry, if man's unhappy, God's unjust.
Honor and shame from no condition rise. Act well your part: there all the honor lies.
Trust not yourself, but your defects to know, make use of every friend and every foe.