All Quotes

"CLUB — An assembly of good fellows, meeting under certain conditions."

"ESSAY — A loose sally of the mind; an irregular indigested piece; not a regular and orderly composition."

"EXCISE — A hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged not by the common judges of property, but wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid."

"GRUBSTREET — The name of a street near Moorsfield, London, much inhabited by writers of small histories, dictionaries, and temporary poems."

"LEXICOGRAPHER — A writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge."

"NETWORK — Any thing reticulated or decussated, at equal distances, with interstices between the intersections."

"OATS — A grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people."

"PATRON — One who countenances, supports or protects. Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, and is repaid in flattery."

"PENSION — An allowance made to any one without an equivalent. In England it is generally understood to mean pay given to a state hireling for treason to his country."

"It is commonly observed, that when two Englishmen meet, their first talk is of the weather; they are in haste to tell each other, what each must already know, that it is hot or cold, bright or cloudy, windy or calm."

"Slavery is now no where more patiently endured, than in countries once inhabited by the zealots of liberty."

"Among the calamities of war may be justly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages."

"I know not whether more is to be dreaded from streets filled with soldiers accustomed to plunder, or from garrets filled with scribblers accustomed to lies."

"The joy of life is variety; the tenderest love requires to be renewed by intervals of absence."

"Advertisements are now so numerous that they are very negligently perused, and it is, therefore, become necessary to gain attention by magnificence of promises, and by eloquence sometimes sublime and sometimes pathetick. Promise, large promise, is the soul of an advertisement."

"He is no wise man that will quit a certainty for an uncertainty."

"Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought. Our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks. The flowers which scatter their odours from time to time in the paths of life, grow up without culture from seeds scattered by chance. Nothing is more hopeless than a scheme of merriment."

"Merriment is always the effect of a sudden impression. The jest which is expected is already destroyed."

"It is seldom that we find either men or places such as we expect them. ... Yet it is necessary to hope, though hope should always be deluded, for hope itself is happiness, and its frustrations, however frequent, are yet less dreadful than its extinction."

"Such is the common process of marriage. A youth and maiden meeting by chance, or brought together by artifice, exchange glances, reciprocate civilities, go home, and dream of one another. Having little to divert attention, or diversify thought, they find themselves uneasy when they are apart, and therefore conclude that they shall be happy together. They marry, and discover what nothing but voluntary blindness had before concealed; they wear out life in altercations, and charge nature with cruelty."

"Do not trust people. They are capable of greatness."

"Madame, ye ben of al beautè shryne As fer as cercled is the mappemounde; For as the cristal glorious ye shyne, And lyke ruby ben your chekes rounde."

"Therwith ye ben so mery and so jocounde, That at a revel whan that I see you daunce, It is an oynement unto my wounde, Thogh ye to me ne do no daliaunce."

"Flee fro the prees, and dwelle with sothfastnesse, Suffyce unto thy good, though hit be smal; For hord hath hate, and climbing tikelnesse, Prees hath envye, and wele blent overal."

"The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne, Th' assay so hard, so sharp the conquering, The dredful joy, that alwey slit so yerne, Al this mene I by love."

"Forth, pilgrim, forth! Forth, beste, out of thy stal! Know thy contree, look up, thank God of al; Hold the hye wey, and lat thy gost thee lede: And trouthe shal delivere, hit is no drede."

"Your yën two wol slee me sodenly, I may the beautè of hem not sustene, So woundeth hit through-out my herte kene."

"Sin I fro Love escaped am so fat, I never thenk to ben in his prison lene; Sin I am free, I counte him not a bene."

"For I am shave as nye as any frere. But yit I pray un-to youre curtesye: Beth hevy ageyn, or elles mot I die."

"Hard is his herte that loveth nought In May."

"For out of olde feldes, as men seith, Cometh al this newe corn fro yeer to yere; And out of olde bokes, in good feith, Cometh al this newe science that men lere."

"Nature, the vicar of th' Almightie Lorde."

"Now welcom somer, with thy sonne softe, That hast this wintres weders over-shake, And driven awey the longe nightes blake!"

"A thousand tymes have I herd men telle, That ther is joye in heven, and peyne in helle; And I acorde wel that hit is so; But natheles, yit wot I wel also, That ther nis noon dwelling in this contree, That either hath in heven or helle y-be, Ne may of hit non other weyes witen, But as he hath herd seyd, or founde hit writen; For by assay ther may no man hit preve. But god forbede but men shulde leve Wel more thing then men han seen with yë! Men shal nat wenen every-thing a lyë But-if him-self hit seeth, or elles dooth; For, god wot, thing is never the lasse sooth, Thogh every wight ne may hit nat y-see. Bernard the monk ne saugh nat al, parde!"

"And if that olde bokes were a-weye, Y-loren were of remembraunce the keye."

"And as for me, thogh that I can but lyte, On bokes for to rede I me delyte, And to hem yeve I feyth and ful credence, And in myn herte have hem in reverence So hertely, that ther is game noon That fro my bokes maketh me to goon, But hit be seldom, on the holyday; Save, certeynly, whan that the month of May Is comen, and that I here the foules singe, And that the floures ginnen for to springe, Farwel my book and my devocioun!"

"Of all the floures in the mede, Than love I most these floures whyte and rede, Swiche that men callen daysies in our toun."

"That wel by reson men hit calle may The 'dayesye' or elles the 'ye of day,' The emperice and flour of floures alle."

"My lady cometh, that al this may disteyne."

"And she was fair as is the rose in May."

"Your duty is, as ferre as I can gesse."

"O little booke, thou art so unconning, How darst thou put thy-self in prees for drede?"

"For iii may keep a counsel if twain be away."

"Chaucer, notwithstanding the praises bestowed on him, I think obscene and contemptible;—he owes his celebrity, merely to his antiquity, which he does not deserve so well as Pierce Plowman, or Thomas of Ercildoune."

"The worshipful father and first founder and embellisher of ornate eloquence in our English."

"Chaucer was one of the most original men who ever lived. There had never been anything like the lively realism of the ride to Canterbury done or dreamed of in our literature before. He is not only the father of all our poets, but the grandfather of all our hundred million novelists."

"As he is the Father of English Poetry, so I hold him in the same Degree of Veneration as the Grecians held Homer, or the Romans Virgil: He is a perpetual Fountain of good Sense; learn'd in all Sciences; and, therefore speaks properly on all Subjects: As he knew what to say, so he knows also when to leave off; a Continence which is practis'd by few Writers, and scarcely by any of the Ancients, excepting Virgil and Horace. ... Chaucer follow'd Nature every where, but was never so bold to go beyond her."

"'Tis sufficient to say according to the Proverb, that here is God's Plenty."

"That noble Chaucer, in those former times, The first enriched our English with his rhymes, And was the first of ours that ever broke Into the Muses' treasures, and first spoke In weighty numbers, delving in the mine Of perfect knowledge."

"He is the poet of the dawn, who wrote The Canterbury Tales, and his old age Made beautiful with song; and as I read I hear the crowing cock, I hear the note Of lark and linnet, and from every page Rise odors of ploughed field or flowery mead."