Quotes by English Authors - Page 36

None are so busy as the fool and knave.
John Dryden
Then the Miller fell off his horse.
Geoffrey Chaucer
A mere wilderness, as you see, even now in December; but in summer a complete nursery of briers, a forest of thistles, a plantation of nettles, without any live stock but goats, that have eaten up all the bark of the trees. Here you see is the pedestal of a statue, with only half a leg and four toes remaining: there were many here once. When I was a boy, I used to sit every day on the shoulders of Hercules: what became of him I have never been able to ascertain. Neptune has been lying these seven years in the dust-hole; Atlas had his head knocked off to fit him for propping a shed; and only the day before yesterday we fished Bacchus out of the horse-pond.
Thomas Love Peacock
Raven: The Honourable Mr Listless is gone. He declared that, what with family quarrels in the morning, and ghosts at night, he could get neither sleep nor peace; and that the agitation was too much for his nerves: though Mr Glowry assured him that the ghost was only poor Crow walking in his sleep, and that the shroud and bloody turban were a sheet and a red nightcap.
Thomas Love Peacock
Raven: The Reverend Mr Larynx has been called off on duty, to marry or bury (I don't know which) some unfortunate person or persons, at Claydyke:...
Thomas Love Peacock
I should think this a gull, but that the white-bearded fellow speaks it; knavery cannot, sure, hide himself in such reverence.
William Shakespeare
[how can anyone] be silly enough to think himself better than other people, because his clothes are made of finer woolen thread than theirs. After all, those fine clothes were once worn by a sheep, and they never turned it into anything better than a sheep.
Thomas More
Moses, without any mercy, breaks all bruised reeds, and quenches all smoking flax. For the law requires personal, perpetual and perfect obedience from the heart, and that under a most terrible curse, but gives no strength. It is a severe task master, like Pharaoh's, requiring the whole tale ofbricks and yet giving no straw. Christ comes with blessing after blessing, even upon those whom Moses had cursed, and with healing balm for those wounds which Moses had made.
Richard Sibbes
Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin as self-neglecting.
William Shakespeare
For every evil under the sun,There is a remedy, or there is none.If there be one, try and find it;If there be none, never mind it.
Mother Goose Rhymes
He’s mad that trusts in the tameness of a wolf, a horse’s health, a boy’s love, or a whore’s oath.
William Shakespeare
There is nothing which we receive with so much reluctance as advice.
Joseph Addison
But hear thee, Gratiano:Thou art too wild, too rude, and bold of voice - Parts that become thee happily enough,And in such eyes as ours appear no faults,But where thou art not known, why, there they show Something too liberal.
William Shakespeare
The perceiving our own weaknesses enables us to give others excellent advice, but it does not teach us to to reform ourselves.
William Hazlitt
He that will write well in any tongue, must follow this counsel of Aristotle, to speak as the common people do, to think as wise men do: and so should every man understand him, and the judgment of wise men allow him.
Roger Ascham
Mark it, nuncle.Have more than thou showest,Speak less than thou knowest,Lend less than thou owest,Ride more than thou goest,Learn more than thou trowest,Set less than thou throwest,Leave thy drink and thy whoreAnd keep in-a-door,And thou shalt have moreThan two tens to a score.
William Shakespeare
Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice; Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
William Shakespeare
Tis best to weigh the enemy more mighty than he seems.
William Shakespeare
The ways of heaven are dark and intricate;Puzzled in mazes, and perplext with errors.
Joseph Addison
Thou art a votary to fond desire
William Shakespeare
Mum, mum,He that keeps nor crust nor crumb,Weary of all, shall want some.
William Shakespeare
There's a great spirit gone! Thus did I desire it.What our contempts doth often hurl from us,We wish it ours again. The present pleasure,By revolution lowering, does becomeThe opposite of itself. She's good, being gone.The hand could pluck her back that shoved her on.
William Shakespeare
This is desire, daughter, the endless piercing that informs the universe throughout eternity,
John Speed
A man’s desire is for the woman, but the woman’s desire is rarely other than for the desire of the man.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Oh, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew, Or that the Everlasting had not fixed. His canon 'gainst self-slaughter!
William Shakespeare
On suicide:Those are vanities, child. They cause immeasurable suffering in this life and all future lives. Who knows, perhaps you have been given this harsh portion because of misdeeds in some past life.
John Speed
He look'd a little disorder'd, when he said this, but I did not apprehend any thing from it at that time, believing as it us'd to be said, that they who do those things never talk of them; or that they who talk of such things never do them.
Daniel Defoe
Alas, my lord, your wisdom is consumed in confidence.
William Shakespeare
He who closes his ears to the views of others shows little confidence in the integrity of his own views.
William Congreve
... one fire burns out another’s burning.One pain is lessened by another’s anguish. -Romeo & Juliet
William Shakespeare
When I consider life, 't is all a cheat.Yet fool'd with hope, men favour the deceit;Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay.To-morrow 's falser than the former day;Lies worse, and while it says we shall be blestWith some new joys, cuts off what we possest.Strange cozenage! none would live past years again,Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain;And from the dregs of life think to receiveWhat the first sprightly running could not give.
John Dryden
If we are taught by God in affliction we are blessed. When God teaches, he applies his instruction to the heart. He commands light to shine out of darkness (2 Corinthians 4:6). The Holy Spirit brings divine truths in such a clear and convincing light that the soul sits down fully satisfied. The soul both sweetly and freely acquiesces in the revealed truths. When God teaches, the soul experiences truth as David (Psalm 119:71). Some only know notionally, but David knew by experience; he became more acquainted with the Word. He knew it more, loved it better, and was more transformed in the nature of it. Thus, Paul, “I know who I have believed” (2 Timothy 1:12) – “I have experienced his faithfulness and his all-sufficiency; I can trust my all with him. I am sure he will keep it safe to that day.” Those taught of God in affliction can speak experimentally, in one degree or another. They can speak of their communion with God (Psalm 23:4). The sweet singer of Israel had comfortable presence. Those taught of God can say: “As we have heard, so we have seen. I have experienced this word upon mine heart, and can set my seal that God is true.” God’s teaching is a powerful teaching. It conveys strength as well as light. Truth only understood needs to be put into action and practice. God’s teachings are sweet to the taste. David rolled them as sugar under his tongue, and received more sweetness than Samson from his honeycomb. Luther said he would not live in paradise without the Word, but with the Word he could live in hell itself. Teaching is sweet because it is suitable to the renewed man (Jeremiah 15:16).
Thomas Case
...that the doctor being himself a mortal man, should be diligent and tender in relieving his suffering patients, inasmuch as he himself must one day be a like sufferer.
Thomas Sydenham
A dungeon horrible, on all sides round, As one great furnace flamed; yet from those flames No light; but rather darkness visible Served only to discover sights of woe
John Milton
The aim of scientific thought, then, is to apply past experience to new circumstances; the instrument is an observed uniformity in the course of events. By the use of this instrument it gives us information transcending our experience, it enables us to infer things that we have not seen from things that we have seen; and the evidence for the truth of that information depends on our supposing that the uniformity holds good beyond our experience.
William Kingdon Clifford
I wish I was what I have beenAnd what I was could beAs when I roved in shadows greenAnd loved my willow treeTo gaze upon the starry skyAnd higher fancies buildAnd make in solitary joyLoves temple in the field
John Clare
What's done, is done
William Shakespeare
Things without all remedy should be without regard: what's done is done.
William Shakespeare
What's past is prologue.
William Shakespeare
Just as the soul animates the body, so, in a way, meaning breathes life into a word.
John of Salisbury
Loving, of enemies is another dogma of feigned morality, and has besides no meaning. It is incumbent on man, as a moralist, that he does not revenge an injury; and it is equally as good in a political sense, for there is no end to retaliation; each retaliates on the other, and calls it justice: but to love in proportion to the injury, if it could be done, would be to offer a premium for a crime. Besides, the word enemies is too vague and general to be used in a moral maxim, which ought always to be clear and defined, like a proverb. If a man be the enemy of another from mistake and prejudice, as in the case of religious opinions, and sometimes in politics, that man is different to an enemy at heart with a criminal intention; and it is incumbent upon us, and it contributes also to our own tranquillity, that we put the best construction upon a thing that it will bear. But even this erroneous motive in him makes no motive for love on the other part; and to say that we can love voluntarily, and without a motive, is morally and physically impossible.Morality is injured by prescribing to it duties that, in the first place, are impossible to be performed, and if they could be would be productive of evil; or, as before said, be premiums for crime. The maxim of doing as we would be done unto does not include this strange doctrine of loving enemies; for no man expects to be loved himself for his crime or for his enmity.Those who preach this doctrine of loving their enemies, are in general the greatest persecutors, and they act consistently by so doing; for the doctrine is hypocritical, and it is natural that hypocrisy should act the reverse of what it preaches. For my own part, I disown the doctrine, and consider it as a feigned or fabulous morality; yet the man does not exist that can say I have persecuted him, or any man, or any set of men, either in the American Revolution, or in the French Revolution; or that I have, in any case, returned evil for evil.
Thomas Paine
It has been the practice of all Christian commentators on the Bible, and of all Christian priests and preachers, to impose the Bible on the world as a mass of truth, and as the word of God; they have disputed and wrangled, and have anathematized each other about the supposable meaning of particular parts and passages therein; one has said and insisted that such a passage meant such a thing, another that it meant directly the contrary, and a third, that it meant neither one nor the other, but something different from both; and this they have called understanding the Bible.It has happened, that all the answers that I have seen to the former part of 'The Age of Reason' have been written by priests: and these pious men, like their predecessors, contend and wrangle, and understand the Bible; each understands it differently, but each understands it best; and they have agreed in nothing but in telling their readers that Thomas Paine understands it not.
Thomas Paine
What's in a name?
William Shakespeare
Sir, what can be said of these things? Is it the arm of the flesh that hath done these things? Is it the wisdom and counsel, or strength of man? It is the Lord only. God will curse that man and his house that dares to think otherwise. Sir, you see the work is done by a Divine leading. God gets into the hearts of men, and persuades them to come under you.
Oliver Cromwell
[T]hou canst not think worse of me than I do of myself.
Robert Burton
Our torments also may in length of timeBecome our Elements.
John Milton
I am not gamesome: I do lack some partof that quick spirit that is in Antony.
William Shakespeare
Well, I must do’t. Away, my disposition, and possess me Some harlot’s spirit! My throat of war be turn’d, Which quier’d with my drum, into a pipe Small as an eunuch, or the virgin voice That babies lull asleep! The smiles of knaves Tent in my cheeks, and schoolboys’ tears take up The glasses of my sight! A beggar’s tongue Make motion through my lips, and my arm’d knees, Who bow’d but in my stirrup, bend like his That hath receiv’d an alms! I will not do’t, Lest I surcease to honor mine own truth, And by my body’s action teach my mind A most inherent baseness.
William Shakespeare
How now, spirit, whither wander you?
William Shakespeare
I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano!
William Shakespeare
She discovered, when it was too late, that she had mistaken the means for the end—that riches, rightly used, are instruments of happiness, but are not in themselves happiness.
Thomas Love Peacock
But what they find most amazing and despicable is the insanity of those who all but worship the rich, to whom they owe nothing and who can do them no harm; they do so for no other reason except that they are rich, knowing full well that they are so mean and tightfisted that they will certainly never give them one red cent during their whole lives.
Thomas More
Or can it be thought that they who heap up an useless mass of wealth, not for any use that it is to bring them, but merely to please themselves with the contemplation of it, enjoy any true pleasure in it? The delight they find is only a false shadow of joy. Those are no better whose error is somewhat different from the former, and who hide it, out of their fear of losing it; for what other name can fit the hiding it in the earth, or rather the restoring to it again, it being thus cut off from being useful, either to its owner or to the rest of mankind? And yet the owner having hid it carefully, is glad, because he thinks he is now sure of it. It if should be stole, the owner, though he might live perhaps ten years after the theft, of which he knew nothing, would find no difference between his having or losing it; for both ways it was equally useless to him.
Thomas More
They wonder much to hear that gold which in itself is so useless a thing, should be everywhere so much esteemed, that even men for whom it was made, and by whom it has value, should yet be thought of less value than this metal. That a man of lead, who has no more sense than a log of wood, and is as bad as he is foolish, should have many wise and good men to serve him, only because he has a great heap of that metal...
Thomas More
Fortune, that arrant whore,Ne'er turns the key to th'poor.
William Shakespeare
Poor and content is rich, and rich enough;But riches fineless is as poor as winterTo him that ever fears he shall be poor;–Good heaven, the souls of all my tribe defendFrom jealousy!
William Shakespeare
And yet for aught I see, they are as sick that surfeit with too much as they that starve with nothing. It is no mean happiness, therefore, to be seated in the mean. Superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer.
William Shakespeare
They are but beggars that can count their worth.
William Shakespeare
One man to live in pleasure and wealth, whiles all other weap and smart for it, that is the part not of a king, but of a jailor.
Thomas More
All that glisters is not gold;Often have you heard that told.Many a man his life hath soldBut my outside to behold - Gilded tombs do worms infold;Had you been as wise as bold,Young in limbs, in judgement old,Your answer had not been inscrolled - Fare you well; your suit is cold.
William Skakespeare