Quotes

A daughter of the gods, divinely tall, And most divinely fair.

Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath Preluded those melodious bursts that fill The spacious times of great Elizabeth With sounds that echo still.

Give us long rest or death, dark death or dreamful ease.

Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore Than labor in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar; Oh rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more.

Ah, why Should life all labor be?

Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast, And in a little while our lips are dumb. Let us alone. What is it that will last? All things are taken from us, and become Portions and parcels of the dreadful Past.

In the afternoon they came unto a land In which it seemed always afternoon.

Music that gentlier on the spirit lies, Than tir’d eyelids upon tir’d eyes.

Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control, These three alone lead life to sovereign power.

You must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear; Tomorrow ’ill be the happiest time of all the glad New Year; Of all the glad New Year, mother, the maddest, merriest day; For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.

No life that breathes with human breath Has ever truly longed for death.

Across the walnuts and the wine.

I know that age to age succeeds, Blowing a noise of tongues and deeds, A dust of systems and of creeds.

Like glimpses of forgotten dreams.

A still small voice spake unto me, “Thou art so full of misery, Were it not better not to be?”

She said, “I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead!”

There hath he lain for ages and will lie Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep, Until the latter fire shall heat the deep; Then once by man and angels to be seen, In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.

Weeded and worn the ancient thatch Upon the lonely moated grange. 1

End of the wonderful one-hoss shay. Logic is logic. That’s all I say.

And if I should live to be The last leaf upon the tree In the spring, Let them smile, as I do now, At the old forsaken bough Where I cling.

Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay, That was built in such a logical way It ran a hundred years to a day?

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll! Leave thy low-vaulted past!

Ay, tear her tattered ensign down! Long has it waved on high, And many an eye has danced to see That banner in the sky; Beneath it rung the battle shout, And burst the cannon’s roar— The meteor of the ocean air Shall sweep the clouds no more.

There is no time like the old time, when you and I were young.

As if in his tower of ivory, retired before noon. 1

By many a temple half as old as Time.

This feat of Tell, the archer, will be told While yonder mountains stand upon their base. By heaven! The apple’s cleft right through the core.

Never less alone than when alone.

You saw his weakness, and he will never forgive you.

Who reflects too much will accomplish little.

The mountain cannot frighten one who was born on it.

Pain is short, and joy is eternal.

Against stupidity the very gods Themselves contend in vain. 6

I am better than my reputation.

There’s no such thing as chance; And what to us seems merest accident Springs from the deepest source of destiny.

Many a crown shines spotless now That yet was deeply sullied in the winning.

The richest monarch in the Christian world; The sun in my own dominions never sets. 3

If you want to know yourself, Just look how others do it; If you want to understand others, Look into your own heart.

Great souls suffer in silence.

O who knows what slumbers in the background of the times?

World history is the world’s court. 2

What one refuses in a minute No eternity will return.

There are three lessons I would write, Three words as with a burning pen, In tracings of eternal light Upon the hearts of men.

Joy, thou spark from Heav’n immortal, Daughter of Elysium! Drunk with fire, toward Heaven advancing Goddess, to thy shrine we come. Thy sweet magic brings together What stern Custom spreads afar; All men become brothers Where thy happy wing-beats are. 1

The joke loses everything when the joker laughs himself.

Did you think the lion was sleeping because he didn’t roar?

a fruitless enterprise, a great mistake, a decrepit frenzy, and rightly viewed, a corpse, some dust, a shadow, mere nothingness.