"The ports of death are sins; of life, good deeds: Through which our merit leads us to our meeds. How willful blind is he then, that would stray, And hath it in his powers, to make his way! This world death's region is, the other life's: And here, it should be one of our first strifes, So to front death, as men might judge us past it. For good men but see death, the wicked taste it."

"Thy praise or dispraise is to me alike; One doth not stroke me, nor the other strike."

"Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy! My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy. Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay, Exacted by thy fate, on the just day. O, could I lose all father now. For why Will man lament the state he should envy? To have soon 'scaped world's and flesh's rage, And, if no other misery, yet age! Rest in soft peace, and, asked, say here doth lie Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry: For whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such, As what he loves may never like too much."

"He that fears death, or mourns it, in the just, Shows of the resurrection little trust."

"There's reason good, that you good laws should make: Men's manners ne'er were viler, for your sake."

"If all you boast of your great art be true; Sure, willing poverty lives most in you."

"Pray thee, take care, that tak'st my book in hand, To read it well: that is, to understand."

"The Devil is an Ass, I do acknowledge it."

"If he were To be made honest by an act of parliament I should not alter in my faith of him."

"The Devil is an Ass! fool'd off! and beaten!"

"The burnt child dreads the fire."

"In the meantime, to all suits, to all entreaties, to all letters, to all tricks, I will be deaf as an adder, blind as a beetle, lay mine ear to the ground, and lock mine eyes i' my hand against all temptations."

"It must be done like lightning."

"Have paid scot and lot there any time this eighteen years."

"Get money; still get money, boy, No matter by what means."

"As he brews, so shall he drink."

"Hang sorrow! care'll kill a cat."

"It was a mighty while ago."

"What gentle ghost, besprent with April dew, Hails me so solemnly to yonder yew?"

"Underneath this sable hearse Lies the subject of all verse,— Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother. Death, ere thou hast slain another, Learn'd and fair and good as she, Time shall throw a dart at thee."

"Past are three summers since she first beheld The ocean; all around the child await Some exclamation of amazement here. She coldly said, her long-lasht eyes abased, Is this the mighty ocean? is this all? That wondrous soul Charoba once possest,— Capacious, then, as earth or heaven could hold, Soul discontented with capacity,— Is gone (I fear) forever. Need I say She was enchanted by the wicked spells Of Gebir, whom with lust of power inflamed The western winds have landed on our coast? I since have watcht her in lone retreat, Have heard her sigh and soften out the name."

"The damps of autumn sink into the leaves and prepare them for the necessity of their fall; and thus insensibly are we, as years close around us, detached from our tenacity of life by the gentle pressure of recorded sorrow."

"Around the child bend all the three Sweet Graces: Faith, Hope, Charity. Around the man bend other faces; Pride, Envy, Malice, are his Graces."

"I strove with none, for none was worth my strife; Nature I loved; and next to Nature, Art. I warmed both hands before the fire of life; It sinks, and I am ready to depart."

"The Siren waits thee, singing song for song."

"Shakespeare is not our poet, but the world's, Therefore on him no speech! and brief for thee, Browning! Since Chaucer was alive and hale, No man hath walked along our roads with step So active, so inquiring eye, or tongue So varied in discourse."

"There is delight in singing, though none hear Beside the singer."

"When we play the fool, how wide The theatre expands! beside, How long the audience sits before us! How many prompters! what a chorus!"

"'Tis verse that gives Immortal youth to mortal maids."

"Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes May weep, but never see, A night of memories and of sighs I consecrate to thee."

"Ah what avails the sceptered race, Ah what the form divine!"

"We, hedge-hogged as Johnson or Borrow, strange to the yoke As Landor, surly as Cobbett (that badger), birdlike as Blake."

"But I have sinuous shells of pearly hue... Shake one, and it awakens; then apply Its polished lips to your attentive ear, And it remembers its august abodes, And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there."

"Upon the work of Walter Landor I am unfit to speak with candor. If you can read it, well and good; But as for me, I never could."

"Little men in lofty places, who throw long shadows, because our sun is setting."

"Ambition is but Avarice on stilts and masked."

"Men, like nails, lose their usefulness when they lose their direction and begin to bend: such nails are then thrown into the dust or into the furnace."

"We must not indulge in unfavourable views of mankind, since by doing it we make bad men believe that they are no worse than others, and we teach the good that they are good in vain."

"Of all failures, to fail in a witticism is the worst, and the mishap is the more calamitous in a drawn-out and detailed one."

"There are no fields of amaranth on this side of the grave: there are no voices, O Rhodopè! that are not soon mute, however tuneful: there is no name, with whatever emphasis of passionate love repeated, of which the echo is not faint at last."

"Stand close around, ye Stygian set, with Dirce in the boat conveyed, Lest Charon, seeing her, forget, That he is old and she a shade."

"Wearers of rings and chains! Pray do not take the pains To set me right. In vain my faults ye quote; I write as others wrote On Sunium’s hight."

"I am heartily glad to witness your veneration for a Book which to say nothing of its holiness or authority, contains more specimens of genius and taste than any other volume in existence."

"To speak a bold truth, I am, after much mature deliberation, inclined to suspect that the public voice hath, in all ages, done much injustice to Fortune, and hath convicted her of many facts in which she had not the least concern."

"The History of a Foundling is truth, and human nature itself; and there lies the inestimable advantage which it possesses over all previous fictions of this particular kind."

"There is no dull chapter. But he makes the hero too good. He seems to think that so long as Tom goes for a little miscellaneous fornication he will be saved from priggishness. I doubt if this is so, especially at the end, where Tom's angelicalness upon the misfortunes of Blifil is really a bit thick."

"Custom may lead a man into many errors; but it justifies none."

"There is not in the universe a more ridiculous, nor more contemptible animal, than a proud clergyman."