Quotes by English Authors - Page 46

Education is what remains when we have forgotten all that we have been taught.
George Savile Halifax
Educated men are so impressive!
William Shakespeare
O teach me how I should forget to think (1.1.224)
William Shakespeare
For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them.
Thomas More
the old maxim... "there are three things necessary to success in life--Impudence! Impudence! Impudence!
William Hazlitt
The inquiry of truth, which is the love-making, or the wooing of it, the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it, and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of human nature.
Francis Bacon
For the things of this world cannot be made known without a knowledge of mathematics.
Francis Bacon
If in other sciences we should arrive at certainty without doubt and truth without error, it behooves us to place the foundations of knowledge in mathematics.
Francis Bacon
The difficulty of learning the dead languages does not arise from any superior abstruseness in the languages themselves, but in their being dead, and the pronunciation entirely lost. It would be the same thing with any other language when it becomes dead. The best Greek linguist that now exists does not understand Greek so well as a Grecian plowman did, or a Grecian milkmaid; and the same for the Latin, compared with a plowman or a milkmaid of the Romans; and with respect to pronunciation and idiom, not so well as the cows that she milked. It would therefore be advantageous to the state of learning to abolish the study of the dead languages, and to make learning consist, as it originally did, in scientific knowledge.
Thomas Paine
That which is now called learning, was not learning originally. Learning does not consist, as the schools now make it consist, in the knowledge of languages, but in the knowledge of things to which language gives names.
Thomas Paine
Come on then, I will swear to study soTo know the thing I am forbid to know- Berowne
William Shakespeare
Be very, very careful what you put in that head, because you will never, ever get it out.
Thomas Cardinal Wolsey
Shall that be shut to man, which to the beast Is open? or will God incense his ire For such a petty trespass? and not praise Rather your dauntless virtue, whom the pain Of death denounced, whatever thing death be, Deterred not from achieving what might lead To happier life, knowledge of good and evil; Of good, how just? of evil, if what is evil Be real, why not known, since easier shunned? God therefore cannot hurt ye, and be just; Not just, not God: not feared then, nor obeyed: Your fear itself of death removes the fear. Why then was this forbid? Why, but to awe; Why, but to keep ye low and ignorant, His worshippers? He knows that in the day Ye eat thereof, your eyes, that seem so clear, Yet are but dim, shall perfectly be then Opened and cleared, and ye shall be as gods, Knowing both good and evil, as they know.
John Milton
Now there are four chief obstacles in grasping truth, which hinder every man, however learned, and scarcely allow anyone to win a clear title to learning, namely, submission to faulty and unworthy authority, influence of custom, popular prejudice, and concealment of our own ignorance accompanied by an ostentatious display of our knowledge.
Roger Bacon
I would address one general admonition to all, that they consider what are the true ends of knowledge, and that they seek it not either for pleasure of the mind, or for contention, or for superiority to others, or for profit, or for fame, or power, or any of these inferior things, but for the benefit and use of life; and that they perfect and govern it in charity. For it was from lust of power that the Angels fell, from lust of knowledge that man fell, but of charity there can be no excess, neither did angel or man come in danger by it.
Francis Bacon
Later times have laid all the blame upon the Goths and Vandals, but, however unwilling the partizans of the Christian system may be to believe or to acknowledge it, it is nevertheless true, that the age of ignorance commenced with the Christian system.There was more knowledge in the world before that period, than for many centuries afterwards; and as to religious knowledge, the Christian system, as already said, was only another species of mythology; and the mythology to which it succeeded, was a corruption of an ancient system of theism.; and if we take our stand about the beginning of the sixteenth century, we look back through that long chasm, to the times of the Ancients, as over a vast sandy desert, in which not a shrub appears to intercept the vision to the fertile hills beyond.
Thomas Paine
Neglect of mathematics work injury to all knowledge, since he who is ignorant of it cannot know the other sciences or things of this world. And what is worst, those who are thus ignorant are unable to perceive their own ignorance, and so do not seek a remedy.
Roger Bacon
If it is not strong upon your heart to practice what you read, to what end do you read? To increase your own condemnation? If your light and knowledge be not turned into practice, the more knowing a man you are, the more miserable a man you will be in the day of recompense; your light and knowledge will more torment you than all the devils in hell. Your knowledge will be that rod that will eternally lash you, and that scorpion that will forever bite you, and that worm that will everlastingly gnaw you; therefore read, and labor to know that you may do--or else you are undone forever.
Thomas Brooks
That which others hear or read of, I felt and practised myself; they get their knowledge by books, I mine by melancholizing.
Robert Burton
Modest doubt is call'd the beacon of the wise.
William Shakespeare
Knowledge is the eye that must direct the foot of obedience.
Thomas Watson
I will complain, yet praise;I will bewail, approve:And all my sowre-sweet dayesI will lament, and love.
George Herbert
Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon than the word of a God. It...has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.
Thomas Paine
Danger past, God is forgotten.
Thomas Fuller
My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.
Thomas Paine
For love is a celestial harmonyOf likely hearts compos'd of stars' concent,Which join together in sweet sympathy,To work each other's joy and true content,Which they have harbour'd since their first descentOut of their heavenly bowers, where they did seeAnd know each other here belov'd to be.
Edmund Spenser
Oh, wearisome condition of humanity,Born under one law, to another bound;Vainly begot, and yet forbidden vanity,Created sick, commanded to be sound.
Fulke Greville
Persecution is not an original feature in any religion but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law.
Thomas Paine
We, ignorant of ourselves,Beg often our own harms, which the wise powersDeny us for our good; so find we profitBy losing of our prayers.
William Shakespeare
All the tales of miracles, with which the Old and New Testament are filled, are fit only for impostors to preach and fools to believe.
Thomas Paine
Is it more probable that nature should go out of her course or that a man should tell a lie? We have never seen, in our time, nature go out of her course. But we have good reason to believe that millions of lies have been told in the same time. It is therefore at least millions to one that the reporter of a miracle tells a lie.t
Thomas Paine
So may the outward shows be least themselves:The world is still deceived with ornament.In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt,But, being seasoned with a gracious voice,Obscures the show of evil? In religion,What damned error, but some sober browWill bless it and approve it with a text,Hiding the grossness with fair ornament?There is no vice so simple but assumesSome mark of virtue on his outward parts.
William Shakespeare
The tempter or the tempted, who sins most?
William Shakespeare
I have always strenuously supported the right of every man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies to another this right, makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it.
Thomas Paine
One good schoolmaster is of more use than a hundred priests.
Thomas Paine
Give thanks for what you are today and go on fighting for what you gone be tomorrow
William Shakespeare
Is it true, O Christ in heaven, that the highest suffer the most?That the strongest wander furthest and most hopelessly are lost?That the mark of rank in nature is capacity for pain?That the anguish of the singer makes the sweetness of the strain?
John Milton
He who is best prepared can best serve his moment of inspiration.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
O for a Muse of fire, that would ascendThe brightest heaven of invention!
William Shakespeare
To be a well-favoured man is the gift of fortune but to write and read comes by nature.
William Shakespeare
The only impeccable writers are those who never wrote.
William Hazlitt
Write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable.
Francis Bacon
All Poets are mad.
Robert Burton
One day I wrote her name upon the strand,But came the waves and washèd it away:Again I wrote it with a second hand,But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.
Edmund Spenser
Why then should witless man so much misweeneThat nothing is but that which he hath seene?
Edmund Spenser
As prayer without faith is but a beating of the air, so trust without prayer [is] but a presumptuous bravado. He that promises to give, and bids us trust His promises, commands us to pray, and expects obedience to his commands. He will give, but not without our asking.
Thomas Lye
Only add Deeds to thy knowledge answerable; add faith; Add virtue, patience, temperance; add love, By name to come called charity, the soul Of all the rest: then wilt thou not be loath To leave this Paradise; but shalt possess A paradise within thee, happier far.
John Milton
From morn to noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve, a summer's day; and with the setting sun dropped from the zenith like a falling star.
John Milton
I hate the day, because it lendeth lightTo see all things, but not my love to see.
Edmund Spenser
Men call you fayre, and you doe credit it,For that your self ye daily such doe see:But the trew fayre, that is the gentle wit,And vertuous mind, is much more praysd of me.For all the rest, how ever fayre it be,Shall turne to nought and loose that glorious hew:But onely that is permanent and freeFrom frayle corruption, that doth flesh ensew.That is true beautie: that doth argue youTo be divine and borne of heavenly seed:Deriv'd from that fayre Spirit, from whom al trueAnd perfect beauty did at first proceed.He onely fayre, and what he fayre hath made,All other fayre lyke flowres untymely fade.
Edmund Spenser
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
O I never thought that joys would run away from boys,Or that boys would change their minds and forsake such summer joys;But alack I never dreamed that the world had other toys
John Clare
Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down, 'Twas sad as sad could be; And we did speak only to break The silence of the sea! All in a hot and copper sky, The bloody Sun, at noon, Right up above the mast did stand, No bigger than the Moon. Day after day, day after day, We stuck, nor breath nor motion; As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
But yester-night I prayed aloud In anguish and in agony, Up-starting from the fiendish crowd Of shapes and thoughts that tortured me: A lurid light, a trampling throng, Sense of intolerable wrong, And whom I scorned, those only strong! Thirst of revenge, the powerless will Still baffled, and yet burning still! Desire with loathing strangely mixed On wild or hateful objects fixed. Fantastic passions! maddening brawl! And shame and terror over all! Deeds to be hid which were not hid, Which all confused I could not know Whether I suffered, or I did: For all seemed guilt, remorse or woe, My own or others still the same Life-stifling fear, soul-stifling shame.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
This fellow is wise enough to play the fool;And to do that well craves a kind of wit:He must observe their mood on whom he jests,The quality of persons, and the time,And, like the haggard, check at every featherThat comes before his eye. This is a practiseAs full of labour as a wise man's artFor folly that he wisely shows is fit;But wise men, folly-fall'n, quite taint their wit.
William Shakespeare
Yet gold all is not, that doth gold seem,Nor all good knights, that shake well spear and shield:The worth of all men by their end esteem,And then praise, or due reproach them yield.
Edmund Spenser
Poetry is only the highest eloquence of passion, the most vivid form of expression that can be given to our conception of anything, whether pleasurable or painful, mean or dignified, delightful or distressing. It is the perfect coincidence of the image and the words with the feeling we have, and of which we cannot get rid in any other way, that gives an instant "satisfaction to the thought." This is equally the origin of wit and fancy, of comedy and tragedy, of the sublime and pathetic.
William Hazlitt
I take thee at thy word:Call me but love, and I'll be new baptized;Henceforth I never will be Romeo.
William Shakespeare
A savage place! as holy and enchanted As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Man is no star, but a quick coalOf mortal fire:Who blows it not, nor doth controlA faint desire,
George Herbert