"The thirsty earth soaks up the rain, And drinks, and gapes for drink again; The plants suck in the earth, and are With constant drinking fresh and fair."

"His faith, perhaps, in some nice tenets might Be wrong; his life, I'm sure, was in the right."

"Words that weep and tears that speak."

"I sing the Man who Judahs Scepter bore In that right hand which held the Crook before; Who from best Poet, best of Kings did grow; The two chief gifts Heav'n could on Man bestow."

"Hail, Bard triumphant! and some care bestow On us, the Poets Militant below!"

"Ye fields of Cambridge, our dear Cambridge, say, Have ye not seen us walking every day? Was there a tree about which did not know The love betwixt us two?"

"Poet and Saint! to thee alone are given The two most sacred names of Earth and Heaven."

"We spent them not in toys, in lusts, or wine, But search of deep philosophy, Wit, eloquence, and poetry; Arts which I lov'd, for they, my friend, were thine."

"Ev'en Thou my breast with such blest rage inspire, As mov'd the tuneful strings of Davids Lyre"

"God the first garden made, and the first city Cain."

"Beauty, thou wild fantastic ape Who dost in every country change thy shape!"

"Life is an incurable disease."

"Thou Wert living the same poet which thou'rt now, Whilst Angels sing to thee their airs divine, And joy in an applause so great as thine. Equal society with them to hold, Thou need'st not make new aongs, but say the old."

"Hope, of all ills that men endure, The only cheap and universal cure."

"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!"

"What shall I do to be forever known, And make the age to come my own?"

"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."

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

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

"Fond archer, Hope! who tak'st thy aim so far, That still or short, or wide thine arrows are!"

"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."

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

"Why to mute fish should'st thou thyself discover And not to me, thy no less silent lover?"

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

"Th' adorning thee with so much art Is but a barb'rous skill; 'Tis like the pois'ning of a dart, Too apt before to kill."

"To virgin minds, which yet their native whiteness hold, Not yet discoloured with the love of gold (That jaundice of the soul, Which makes it look so gilded and so foul)"

"A man in much business must either make himself a knave, or else the world will make him a fool."

"Hence, ye profane! I hate ye all, Both the great vulgar and the small."

"I would not fear nor wish my fate, But boldly say each night, To-morrow let my sun his beams display, Or in clouds hide them; I have liv'd to-day."

"Oh happy, (if his happiness he knows) The Countrey Swain! on whom kind Heav'n bestows At home all Riches that wise Nature needs; Whom the just Earth with easie plenty feeds."

"This only grant me, that my means may lie Too low for envy, for contempt too high."

"Acquaintance I would have, but when't depends Not on the number, but the choice of friends."

"Charm'd with the foolish whistling of a name."

"Thus would I double my life's fading space; For he that runs it well, runs twice his race."

"If of their pleasures and desires no end be found; God to their cares and fears will set no bound. What would content you? Who can tell? Ye fear so much to lose what you have got As if ye liked it well. Ye strive for more, as if ye liked it not."

"Let but thy wicked men from out thee go, And all the fools that crowd thee so, Even thou, who dost thy millions boast, A village less than Islington wilt grow, A solitude almost."

"The monster London laugh at me."

"We griev'd, we sigh'd, we wept; we never blush'd before."

"Read all Cowley; he is very valuable to a collector of English sound sense."

"The miscreant Hazlitt continues, I have heard, his abuses of Southey, Coleridge and myself, in the Examiner. — I hope that you do not associate with this Fellow, he is not a proper person to be admitted into respectable society, being the most perverse and malevolent Creature that ill luck has ever thrown in my way. Avoid him — hic niger est — And this, I understand, is the general opinion wherever he is known in London."

"All that is worth remembering in life, is the poetry of it."

"Grace is the absence of every thing that indicates pain or difficulty, or hesitation or incongruity."

"Grace in women has more effect than beauty."

"Grace has been defined the outward expression of the inward harmony of the soul."

"There is a natural tendency in sects to narrow the mind. The extreme stress laid upon differences of minor importance, to the neglect of more general truths and broader views of things, gives an inverted bias to the understanding; and this bias is continually increased by the eagerness of controversy, and captious hostility to the prevailing system. A party-feeling of this kind once formed will insensibly communicate itself to other topics; and will be too apt to lead its votaries to a contempt for the opinions of others, a jealousy of every difference of sentiment, and a disposition to arrogate all sound principle as well as understanding to themselves, and those who think with them. We can readily conceive how such persons, from fixing too high a value on the practical pledge which they have given of the independence and sincerity of their opinions, come at last to entertain a suspicion of every one else as acting under the shackles of prejudice or the mask of hypocrisy. All those who have not given in their unqualified protest against received doctrines and established authority, are supposed to labour under an acknowledged incapacity to form a rational determination on any subject whatever. Any argument, not having the presumption of singularity in its favour, is immediately set aside as nugatory. There is, however, no prejudice so strong as that which arises from a fancied exemption from all prejudice. For this last implies not only the practical conviction that it is right, but the theoretical assumption that it cannot be wrong. From considering all objections as in this manner "null and void,” the mind becomes so thoroughly satisfied with its own conclusions, as to render any farther examination of them superfluous, and confounds its exclusive pretensions to reason with the absolute possession of it."

"They are the only honest hypocrites. Their life is a voluntary dream; a studied madness."

"The perfect joys of heaven do not satisfy the cravings of nature."

"General principles are not the less true or important because, from their nature they elude immediate observation; they are like the air, which is not the less necessary because we neither see nor feel it, or like that secret influence which binds the world together and holds the planets in their orbits."

"Well, I've had a happy life."