ThursdayJul 31, 2025
Quotes: 53419 Authors: 9969
What a dead thing is a clock, with its ponderous embowelments of lead and brass, its pert or solemn dullness of communication, compared with the simple altar-like structure and silent heart-language of the old sundials! It stood as the garden god of Christian gardens. Why is it almost everywhere vanished? If its business-use be superseded by more elaborate inventions, its moral uses, its beauty, might have pleaded for its continuance. It spoke of moderate labours, of pleasures not protracted after sunset, of temperance, and good hours. It was the primitive clock, the horologue of the first world. Adam could scare have missed it in Paradise.
A garden was the primitive prison, till man, with Promethean felicity and boldness, luckily sinned himself out of it.
I like you and your book, ingenious Hone! In whose capacious all-embracing leaves The very marrow of tradition 's shown; And all that history, much that fiction weaves.
Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish; Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal.
Who first invented work, and bound the free And holiday-rejoicing spirit down . . . . To that dry drudgery at the desk's dead wood? . . . . Sabbathless Satan!
My only books Were woman's looks, And folly 's all they 've taught me.
Whose wit in the combat, as gentle as bright, Ne'er carried a heart-stain away on its blade.
There is not in the wide world a valley so sweet As that vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet.
He might have proved a useful adjunct, if not an ornament to society.
Gone before To that unknown and silent shore.
It is good to love the unknown.
She unbent her mind afterwards---over a book.
When twilight dews are falling soft Upon the rosy sea, love, I watch the star whose beam so oft Has lighted me to thee, love.
There was a little man, and he had a little soul; And he said, Little Soul, let us try, try, try!
No, the heart that has truly lov'd never forgets, But as truly loves on to the close; As the sunflower turns on her god when he sets The same look which she turn'd when he rose.
When true hearts lie wither'd And fond ones are flown, Oh, who would inhabit This bleak world alone?
Oh for a tongue to curse the slave Whose treason, like a deadly blight, Comes o'er the councils of the brave, And blasts them in their hour of might!
I feel like one Who treads alone Some banquet-hall deserted, Whose lights are fled, Whose garlands dead, And all but he departed.
For thy sake, Tobacco, I Would do any thing but die.
By myself walking, To myself talking.
To sigh, yet feel no pain; To weep, yet scarce know why; To sport an hour with Beauty's chain, Then throw it idly by.
To live with them is far less sweet Than to remember thee.
The harp that once through Tara's halls The soul of music shed, Now hangs as mute on Tara's walls As if that soul were fled. So sleeps the pride of former days, So glory's thrill is o'er; And hearts that once beat high for praise Now feel that pulse no more.
When thus the heart is in a vein Of tender thought, the simplest strain Can touch it with peculiar power.
'T is sweet to think that where'er we rove We are sure to find something blissful and dear; And that when we 're far from the lips we love, We 've but to make love to the lips we are near.
As sunshine broken in the rill, Though turned astray, is sunshine still.
And half had staggered that stout Stagirite.
For with G. D., to be absent from the body is sometimes (not to speak profanely) to be present with the Lord.
Oh, breathe not his name! let it sleep in the shade, Where cold and unhonour'd his relics are laid,
If thou would'st have me sing and play As once I play'd and sung, First take this time-worn lute away, And bring one freshly strung.
But the trail of the serpent is over them all.
Sentimentally I am disposed to harmony; but organically I am incapable of a tune.
And the tear that we shed, though in secret it rolls, Shall long keep his memory green in our souls.
You may break, you may shatter the vase if you will, But the scent of the roses will hang round it still.
Rich and rare were the gems she wore, And a bright gold ring on her wand she bore.
The red-letter days now become, to all intents and purposes, dead-letter days.
Presents, I often say, endear absents.
Take all the pleasures of all the spheres, And multiply each through endless years, One minute of heaven is worth them all.
Fly not yet; 't is just the hour When pleasure, like the midnight flower That scorns the eye of vulgar light, Begins to bloom for sons of night And maids who love the moon.
Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea! Jehovah has triumph'd, his people are free.
But there 's nothing half so sweet in life As love's young dream.
I have had playmates, I have had companions, In my days of childhood, in my joyful school-days. All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
Oft in the stilly night, Ere slumber's chain has bound me, Fond memory brings the light Of other days around me; The smiles, the tears, Of boyhood's years, The words of love then spoken; The eyes that shone Now dimmed and gone, The cheerful hearts now broken.
This world is all a fleeting show, For man's illusion given; The smiles of joy, the tears of woe, Deceitful shine, deceitful flow, There 's nothing true but Heaven.
Neat, not gaudy.
When did morning ever break, And find such beaming eyes awake?
The moon looks On many brooks, 'The brook can see no moon but this.'
And when once the young heart of a maiden is stolen, The maiden herself will steal after it soon.
... who ran Through each mode of the lyre, and was master of all.
Love on through all ills, and love on till they die.
I know not, I ask not, if guilt 's in that heart, I but know that I love thee whatever thou art.
To live and die in scenes like this, With some we 've left behind us.
The light that lies In woman's eyes.
Lawyers, I suppose, were children once.
'T is the last rose of summer, Left blooming alone.
Not if I know myself at all.
Oh stay! oh stay! Joy so seldom weaves a chain Like this to-night, that oh 't is pain To break its links so soon.
It argues an insensibility.
Shall I ask the brave soldier who fights by my side In the cause of mankind, if our creeds agree?
Humility, that low, sweet root From which all heavenly virtues shoot.
I am accounted by some people as a good man. How cheap that character is acquired! Pay your debts, dont borrow money, nor twist your kittens neck off, nor disturb a congregation, etc., your business is done. I know things of myself, which would make every friend I have fly me as a plague patient.
Beholding heaven, and feeling hell.
We see the world not as it is, but as we are.
The English writer, Charles Lamb, said one day: 'I hate that man.' 'But you dont know him.' 'Of course, I dont,' said Lamb. 'Do you think I could possibly hate a man I know?'
'T is believ'd that this harp which I wake now for thee Was a siren of old who sung under the sea.
To Greece we give our shining blades.
Wert thou all that I wish thee, great, glorious, and free, First flower of the earth and first gem of the sea.
The greatest pleasure I know, is to do a good action by stealth, and to have it found out by accident.
Go where glory waits thee! But while fame elates thee, Oh, still remember me!
I give thee all,I can no more, Though poor the off'ring be; My heart and lute are all the store That I can bring to thee.
One morn a Peri at the gate Of Eden stood disconsolate.
A clear fire, a clean hearth, and the rigour of the game.
Returning to town in the stage-coach, which was filled with Mr. Gilman's guests, we stopped for a minute or two at Kentish Town. A woman asked the coachman, 'Are you full inside?' Upon which Lamb put his head through the window and said, 'I am quite full inside; that last piece of pudding at Mr. Gilman's did the business for me.'
Oh call it by some better name, For friendship sounds too cold.
If I speak to thee in friendship's name, Thou think'st I speak too coldly; If I mention love's devoted flame, Thou say'st I speak too boldly.
A friendship that like love is warm; A love like friendship, steady.
The bird let loose in Eastern skies, Returning fondly home, Ne'er stoops to earth her wing, nor flies Where idle warblers roam; But high she shoots through air and light, Above all low delay, Where nothing earthly bounds her flight, Nor shadow dims her way.
And the heart that is soonest awake to the flowers Is always the first to be touch'd by the thorns.
Ay, down to the dust with them, slaves as they are! From this hour let the blood in their dastardly veins, That shrunk at the first touch of Liberty's war, Be wasted for tyrants, or stagnate in chains.
Good at a fight, but better at a play; Godlike in giving, but the devil to pay.
Farewell, farewell to thee, Araby's daughter! Thus warbled a Peri beneath the dark sea.
Oh, weep for the hour When to Eveleen's bower The lord of the valley with false vows came.
Eyes of unholy blue.
Those evening bells! those evening bells! How many a tale their music tells Of youth and home, and that sweet time When last I heard their soothing chime!
And oh if there be an Elysium on earth, It is this, it is this!
Who has not felt how sadly sweet The dream of home, the dream of home, Steals o'er the heart, too soon to fleet, When far o'er sea or land we roam?
Alas! how light a cause may move Dissension between hearts that love! Hearts that the world in vain had tried, And sorrow but more closely tied; That stood the storm when waves were rough, Yet in a sunny hour fall off, Like ships that have gone down at sea When heaven was all tranquillity.
Martin, if dirt was trumps, what hands you would hold!
And the best of all ways To lengthen our days Is to steal a few hours from the night, my dear.
Oh, ever thus, from childhood's hour, I 've seen my fondest hopes decay; I never loved a tree or flower But 't was the first to fade away. I never nurs'd a dear gazelle, To glad me with its soft black eye, But when it came to know me well And love me, it was sure to die.
A Persian's heaven is eas'ly made: 'T is but black eyes and lemonade.
The pilasters reaching down were adorned with a glistering substance (I know not what) under glass (as it seemed), resembling a homely fancy, but I judged it to be sugar-candy; yet to my raised imagination, divested of its homelier qualities, it appeared a glorified candy.
All that 's bright must fade, The brightest still the fleetest; All that 's sweet was made But to be lost when sweetest.
Books which are no books.
Asparagus inspires gentle thoughts.
As half in shade and half in sun This world along its path advances, May that side the sun 's upon Be all that e'er shall meet thy glances!
Though an angel should write, still 't is devils must print.
No eye to watch, and no tongue to wound us, All earth forgot, and all heaven around us.
Your absence of mind we have borne, till your presence of body came to be called in question by it.
Thus, when the lamp that lighted The traveller at first goes out, He feels awhile benighted, And looks around in fear and doubt. But soon, the prospect clearing, By cloudless starlight on he treads, And thinks no lamp so cheering As that light which Heaven sheds.
Nothing puzzles me more than time and space; and yet nothing troubles me less, as I never think about them.
A laugh is worth a hundred groans in any market.
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
Credulity is the man's weakness, but the child's strength.
I ask and wish not to appear More beauteous, rich or gay: Lord, make me wiser every year, And better every day.
The only true time which a man can properly call his own, is that which he has all to himself; the rest, though in some sense he may be said to live it, is other people's time, not his.
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