All Quotes

"What terrible moments does one feel after one has engaged for a large work! In the beginning of my translating the Iliad, I wished any body would hang me a hundred times. It sat so heavily on my mind at first, that I often used to dream of it; and do so sometimes still. When I fell into the method of translating 30 or 40 verses before I got up, and piddled with it the rest of the morning, it went on easily enough; and when I was thoroughly got into the way of it, I did the rest with pleasure."

"There, take (says Justice), take ye each a shell: We thrive at Westminster on fools like you; 'T was a fat oyster,—live in peace,—adieu."

"Let such, such only tread this sacred floor, Who dare to love their country and be poor."

"The Iliad took me up six years, and during that time, and particularly the first part of it, I was often under great pain and apprehensions. Though I conquered the thoughts of it in the day, they would frighten me in the night. I dreamed often of being engaged in a long journey, and that I should never get to the end of it. This made so strong an impression upon me, that I sometimes dream of it still; of being engaged in that translation, of having got about half way through it, and being embarrassed, and under dread of never completing it."

"Vain was the chief's, the sage's pride! They had no poet, and they died. In vain they schem'd, in vain they bled! They had no poet, and are dead."

"Ye Gods! annihilate but space and time, And make two lovers happy."

"Here am I, dying of a hundred good symptoms."

"Where'er you walk, cool gales shall fan the glade, Trees, where you sit, shall crowd into a shade: Where'er you tread, the blushing flow'rs shall rise, And all things flourish where you turn your eyes."

"Say, is not absence death to those who love?"

"Let opening roses knotted oaks adorn, And liquid amber drop from every thorn."

"The garlands fade, the vows are worn away; So dies her love, and so my hopes decay."

"True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance."

"To err is human, to forgive divine."

"There various news I heard of love and strife, Of peace and war, health, sickness, death, and life, Of loss and gain, of famine and of store, Of storms at sea, and travels on the shore, Of prodigies, and portents seen in air, Of fires and plagues, and stars with blazing hair, Of turns of fortune, changes in the state, The fall of favourites, projects of the great, Of aid mismanagements, taxations new: All neither wholly false, nor wholly true."

"The flying Rumours gather'd as they roll'd, Scarce any Tale was sooner heard than told; And all who told it, added something new, And all who heard it, made Enlargements too, In ev'ry Ear it spread, on ev'ry Tongue it grew."

"Nor Fame I slight, nor for her favors call; She comes unlooked for, if she comes at all."

"Unblemish'd let me live, or die unknown; O grant an honest fame, or grant me none!"

"Vital spark of heav'nly flame! Quit, oh quit, this mortal frame: Trembling, hoping, ling'ring, flying, Oh the pain, the bliss of dying!"

"Hark! they whisper; angels say, Sister spirit, come away!"

"Tell me, my soul, can this be death?"

"The world recedes; it disappears! Heav'n opens on my eyes! my ears With sounds seraphic ring! Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly! O grave! where is thy victory? O death! where is thy sting?"

"Here hills and vales, the woodland and the plain, Here earth and water seem to strive again, Not chaos-like together crushed and bruised, But, as the world, harmoniously confused: Where order in variety we see, And where, though all things differ, all agree."

"Not chaos-like together crush'd and bruis'd, But as the world, harmoniously confus'd, Where order in variety we see, And where, though all things differ, all agree."

"Proud Nimrod first the bloody chase began A mighty hunter, and his prey was man."

"Oft, as in airy rings they skim the heath, The clam'rous lapwings feel the leaden death; Oft, as the mounting larks their notes prepare, They fall, and leave their little lives in air."

"From old Belerium to the northern main."

"To wake the soul by tender strokes of art, To raise the genius, and to mend the heart; To make mankind, in conscious virtue bold, Live o'er each scene, and be what they behold: For this the Tragic Muse first trod the stage."

"A brave man struggling in the storms of fate, And greatly falling with a falling state. While Cato gives his little senate laws, What bosom beats not in his country's cause?"

"Ignobly vain, and impotently great."

"I think a good deal may be said to extenuate the fault of bad Poets. What we call a Genius, is hard to be distinguish'd by a man himself, from a strong inclination: and if his genius be ever so great, he can not at first discover it any other way, than by giving way to that prevalent propensity which renders him the more liable to be mistaken."

"Therefore they who say our thoughts are not our own because they resemble the Ancients, may as well say our faces are not our own, because they are like our Fathers: And indeed it is very unreasonable, that people should expect us to be Scholars, and yet be angry to find us so."

"I would not be like those Authors, who forgive themselves some particular lines for the sake of a whole Poem, and vice versa a whole Poem for the sake of some particular lines. I believe no one qualification is so likely to make a good writer, as the power of rejecting his own thoughts."

"What beck'ning ghost, along the moonlight shade Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade?"

"Is it, in Heav'n, a crime to love too well? To bear too tender, or too firm a heart, To act a lover's or a Roman's part? Is there no bright reversion in the sky, For those who greatly think, or bravely die?"

"Ambition first sprung from your blest abodes; The glorious fault of Angels and of Gods."

"On all the line a sudden vengeance waits, And frequent hearses shall besiege your gates."

"Lo these were they, whose souls the Furies steel'd, And curs'd with hearts unknowing how to yield. Thus unlamented pass the proud away, The gaze of fools, and pageant of a day! So perish all, whose breast ne'er learn'd to glow For others' good, or melt at others' woe."

"By foreign hands thy dying eyes were closed, By foreign hands thy decent limbs composed, By foreign hands thy humble grave adorned, By strangers honored, and by strangers mourned."

"And bear about the mockery of woe To midnight dances and the public show."

"How loved, how honored once, avails thee not, To whom related, or by whom begot; A heap of dust alone remains of thee; 'Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be!"

"To endeavour to work upon the vulgar with fine sense, is like attempting to hew blocks with a razor."

"I never knew any man in my life who could not bear another's misfortunes perfectly like a Christian."

"A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday."

"It is with narrow-souled people as with narrow necked bottles: the less they have in them, the more noise they make in pouring it out."

"When men grow virtuous in their old age, they only make a sacrifice to God of the devil's leavings."

"For, as blushing will sometimes make a whore pass for a virtuous woman, so modesty may make a fool seem a man of sense."

"A person who is too nice an observer of the business of the crowd, like one who is too curious in observing the labour of the bees, will often be stung for his curiosity."

"He who tells a lie, is not sensible how great a task he undertakes; for he must be forced to invent twenty more to maintain that one."

"Our passions are like convulsion-fits, which, though they make us stronger for the time, leave us the weaker ever after."

"Some old men, by continually praising the time of their youth, would almost persuade us that there were no fools in those days; but unluckily they are left themselves for examples."