"Ah, yet, ere I descend to th' grave May I a small house, and large garden have! And a few friends, and many books, both true, Both wise, and both delightful too! And since Love ne'er will from mee flee, A mistress moderately fair, And good as guardian angels are, Only belov'd, and loving me!"

"Well then; I now do plainly see This busy world and I shall ne'er agree; The very honey of all earthly joy Does of all meats the soonest cloy, And they (methinks) deserve my pity, Who for it can endure the stings, The crowd, and buzz, and murmurings Of this great hive, the city."

"Lukewarmness I account a sin As great in love as in religion."

"The world's a scene of changes, and to be Constant, in Nature were inconstancy."

"Love in her sunny eyes does basking play; Love walks the pleasant mazes of her hair; Love does on both her lips for ever stray; And sows and reaps a thousand kisses there. In all her outward parts Love's always seen; But, oh, he never went within."

"Who lets slip Fortune, her shall never find, Occasion once passed by, is bald behind."

"Nothing so soon the drooping spirits can raise As praises from the men, whom all men praise."

"Knowledge is the consequence of time, and multitude of days are fittest to teach wisdom."

"To believe a business impossible is the way to make it so. How many feasible projects have miscarried by despondency, and been strangled in the birth by a cowardly imagination?"

"Everyone has a fair turn to be as great as he pleases."

"Envy […], like a cold poison, […] benumbs and stupefies. And thus conscious as it were of its own impotence, it folds its arms in despair, and sits cursing in a corner."

"People's opinions of themselves are commonly legible in their countenances."

"A man may as well expect to grow stronger by always eating, as wiser by always reading. Too much over-charges nature, and turns more into disease than nourishment. 'Tis thought and digestion which makes books serviceable, and gives health and vigour to the mind."

"By reading a man does as it were antedate his life, and makes himself contemporary with the ages past. And this way of running up beyond one's nativity is much better than Plato's pre-existence, because here a man knows something of the state, and is the wiser for it, which he is not in the other."

"This is brave Bear-Garden language!"

"A brave mind is always impregnable. True courage is the result of reasoning."

"[The editor of Facetiae Cantabrigienses, Richard Gooch writes:] Those who remember Mr. Gray when at the University of Cambridge, where he resided the greater part of his life, will recollect that he was a little prim fastidous man, distinguished by a short shuffling step. He commonly held up his gown behind with one of his hands, at the same time cocking up his chin, and perking up his nose. Christopher Smart, who was contemporary with him at Pembroke Hall, used to say that Gray walked "as if he had fouled his small-clothes, and looked as if he smelt it.""

"I have been reading Gray's Works, and think him the only poet since Shakespeare entitled to the character of sublime... I once thought Swift's letters the best that could be written; but I like Gray's better. His humour, or his wit, or whatever it is to be called, is never ill-natured or offensive, and yet, I think equally poignant with the Dean's."

"Of all the English poets of this age, Mr Gray is most admired, and, I think, with justice; yet there are, comparatively speaking, but a few who know any thing of his, but his "Churchyard Elegy," which is by no means the best of his works."

"Gray is our poetical classic of that literature and age; the position of Gray is singular, and demands a word of notice here. He has not the volume or the power of poets who, coming in times more favourable, have attained to an independent criticism of life. But he lived with the great poets, he lived, above all, with the Greeks, through perpetually studying and enjoying them; and he caught their poetic point of view for regarding life, caught their poetic manner. The point of view and the manner are not self-sprung in him, he caught them of others; and he had not the free and abundant use of them. But whereas Addison and Pope never had the use of them, Gray had the use of them at times. He is the scantiest and frailest of classics in our poetry, but he is a classic."

"Gray's production was scanty, and scanty, as we have seen, it could not but be. Even what he produced is not always pure in diction, true in evolution. Still, with whatever drawbacks, he is alone, or almost alone (for Collins has something of the like merit) in his age. Gray said himself that "the style he aimed at was extreme conciseness of expression, yet pure, perspicuous, and musical." Compared, not with the work of the great masters of the golden ages of poetry, but with the poetry of his own contemporaries in general, Gray's may be said to have reached, in style, the excellence at which he aimed; while the evolution also of such a piece as his Progress of Poesy must be accounted not less noble and sound than its style."

"Gray, a born poet, fell upon an age of prose. He fell upon an age whose task was such as to call forth in general men's powers of understanding, wit and cleverness, rather than their deepest powers of mind and soul."

"The verse adorn again Fierce War, and faithful Love, And Truth severe, by fairy Fiction drest."

"Hear from the grave, great Taliessin, hear; They breathe a soul to animate thy clay. Bright Rapture calls, and soaring, as she sings, Waves in the eye of Heav'n her many-colour'd wings."

"Visions of glory, spare my aching sight, Ye unborn ages, crowd not on my soul!"

"Ye towers of Julius, London's lasting shame, With many a foul and midnight murder fed."

"Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows, While proudly riding o'er the azure realm In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes; Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm; Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind's sway, That, hushed in grim repose, expects his evening prey."

"Weave the warp, and weave the woof, The winding sheet of Edward's race. Give ample room and verge enough, The Characters of hell to trace."

"Dear, as the light that visits these sad eyes; Dear, as the ruddy drops that warm my heart."

"To high-born Hoel's harp, or soft Llewellyn's lay."

"Helm nor hauberk's twisted mail, Nor even thy virtues, tyrant, shall avail To save thy secret soul from nightly fears, From Cambria's curse, from Cambria's tears!"

"Ruin seize thee, ruthless King! Confusion on thy banners wait, Though fanned by Conquest's crimson wing They mock the air with idle state."

"No farther seek his merits to disclose, Or draw his frailties from their dread abode, (There they alike in trembling hope repose,) The bosom of his Father and his God."

"Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere, Heav'n did a recompense as largely send: He gave to Mis'ry all he had, a tear, He gained from Heav'n ('twas all he wished) a friend."

"Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth A youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown. Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth. And Melancholy marked him for her own."

"One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill, Along the heath, and near his fav'rite tree: Another came; nor yet beside the rill, Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he."

"Brushing with hasty steps the dews away, To meet the sun upon the upland lawn."

"E'en from the tomb the voice of Nature cries, E'en in our Ashes live their wonted Fires."

"For who to dumb Forgetfulness a prey, This pleasing anxious being e'er resigned, Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, Nor cast one longing ling'ring look behind?"

"And many a holy text around she strews, That teach the rustic moralist to die."

"Implores the passing tribute of a sigh."

"Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, Their sober wishes never learned to stray; Along the cool sequestered vale of life They kept the noiseless tenor of their way."

"Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne, And shut the gates of mercy on mankind."

"The applause of list'ning senates to command, The threats of pain and ruin to despise, To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, And read their hist'ry in a nation's eyes."

"Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breast The little Tyrant of his fields withstood; Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest, Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood."

"Full many a gem of purest ray serene, The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear: Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air."

"But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page Rich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll; Chill Penury repressed their noble rage, And froze the genial current of the soul."

"Hands, that the rod of empire might have swayed, Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre."

"Can storied urn, or animated bust Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust, Or Flatt'ry soothe the dull cold ear of Death?"

"Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault The pealing anthem swells the note of praise."