All Quotes

"Music...is inarticulate poesy."

"He who servilely creeps after sense Is safe, but ne'er will reach an excellence."

"All delays are dangerous in war."

"Pains of love be sweeter far Than all other pleasures are."

"Midas me no midas."

"Madam me no madam."

"I am as free as Nature first made man, Ere the base laws of servitude began, When wild in woods the noble savage ran."

"Forgiveness to the injured does belong; But they ne'er pardon who have done the wrong."

"What precious drops are those Which silently each other's track pursue, Bright as young diamonds in their infant dew?"

"Fame then was cheap, and the first comer sped; And they have kept it since by being dead."

"We lov'd, and we lov'd, as long as we could, Till our love was lov'd out in us both: But our marriage is dead, when the pleasure is fled: 'Twas pleasure first made it an oath."

"Our souls sit close and silently within, And their own web from their own entrails spin; And when eyes meet far off, our sense is such, That, spider-like, we feel the tenderest touch."

"Death in itself is nothing; but we fear To be we know not what, we know not where."

"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 blest With 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 receive What the first sprightly running could not give."

"War seldom enters but where wealth allures."

"'T is not for nothing that we life pursue; It pays our hopes with something still that's new."

"Your ignorance is the mother of your devotion to me."

"Let those find fault whose wit's so very small, They've need to show that they can think at all; Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow; He who would search for pearls, must dive below. Fops may have leave to level all they can; As pigmies would be glad to lop a man. Half-wits are fleas; so little and so light, We scarce could know they live, but that they bite."

"Give, you gods, Give to your boy, your Caesar, The rattle of a globe to play withal, This gewgaw world, and put him cheaply off; I'll not be pleased with less than Cleopatra."

"The wretched have no friends."

"Men are but children of a larger growth; Our appetites as apt to change as theirs, And full as craving, too, and full as vain."

"With how much ease believe we what we wish!"

"Whatever is, is in its causes just."

"His hair just grizzled, As in a green old age."

"Of no distemper, of no blast he died, But fell like autumn fruit that mellowed long — Even wondered at, because he dropped no sooner. Fate seemed to wind him up for fourscore years, Yet freshly ran he on ten winters more; Till like a clock worn out with eating time, The wheels of weary life at last stood still."

"She, though in full-blown flower of glorious beauty, Grows cold even in the summer of her age."

"It is almost impossible to translate verbally and well at the same time; for the Latin (a most severe and compendious language) often expresses that in one word which either the barbarity or the narrowness of modern tongues cannot supply in more. ... But since every language is so full of its own proprieties that what is beautiful in one is often barbarous, nay, sometimes nonsense, in another, it would be unreasonable to limit a translator to the narrow compass of his author's words; it is enough if he choose out some expression which does not vitiate the sense."

"There is a pleasure sure In being mad which none but madmen know."

"Lord of humankind."

"Like a led victim, to my death I'll go, And, dying, bless the hand that gave the blow."

"Second thoughts, they say, are best."

"He's a sure card."

"They say everything in the world is good for something."

"As sure as a gun."

"Nor can his blessed soul look down from heaven, Or break the eternal sabbath of his rest."

"Whate’er he did, was done with so much ease, In him alone 'twas natural to please."

"Plots, true or false, are necessary things, To raise up commonwealths and ruin kings."

"Great wits are sure to madness near allied, And thin partitions do their bounds divide."

"And all to leave, what with his toil he won To that unfeathered two-legged thing, a son."

"In friendship false, implacable in hate, Resolved to ruin, or to rule the state."

"And heaven had wanted one immortal song. But wild ambition loves to slide, not stand, And fortune's ice prefers to virtue's land."

"The people's prayer, the glad diviner's theme, The young men's vision, and the old men's dream!"

"All empire is no more than power in trust."

"Better one suffer, than a nation grieve."

"Self-defence is nature's eldest law"

"Not only hating David, but the king."

"But far more numerous was the herd of such, Who think too little, and who talk too much."

"A man so various, that he seem’d to be Not one, but all mankind’s epitome; Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong, Was everything by starts, and nothing long; But in the course of one revolving moon Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon."

"Every man with him was God or devil."

"His tribe were God Almighty's gentlemen."