Familiar Quotations, - [best romance ebooks .txt] 📗
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The thing we like; and then we build it up,
As chance will have it, on the rock or sand,—
For thought is tired of wandering o'er the world,
And homebound Fancy runs her bark ashore.
Philip Van Artevelde. Part i. Act i. Sc. 5.
Such souls,
Whose sudden visitations daze the world,
Vanish like lightning, but they leave behind
A voice that in the distance far away
Wakens the slumbering ages.
Philip Van Artevelde. Part i. Act i. Sc. 7.
[595]
WILLIAM H. SEWARD. 1801-1872.There is a higher law than the Constitution.
Speech, March 11, 1850.
It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces.
Speech, Oct. 25, 1858.
W. M. PRAED. 1802-1839.Twelve years ago I was a boy,
A happy boy at Drury's.
School and Schoolfellows.
Some lie beneath the churchyard stone,
And some before the speaker.
School and Schoolfellows.
I remember, I remember
How my childhood fleeted by,—
The mirth of its December
And the warmth of its July.
I remember, I remember.
GEORGE P. MORRIS. 1802-1864.Woodman, spare that tree!
Touch not a single bough![595:1]
In youth it sheltered me,
And I 'll protect it now.
Woodman, spare that Tree! 1830.
A song for our banner! The watchword recall
Which gave the Republic her station:
"United we stand, divided we fall!"
It made and preserves us a nation![595:2]
[596]The union of lakes, the union of lands,
The union of States none can sever,
The union of hearts, the union of hands,
And the flag of our Union forever!
The Flag of our Union.
Near the lake where drooped the willow,
Long time ago!
Near the Lake.
[595:1] See Campbell, page 516.
[595:2] See Key, page 517.
ALBERT G. GREENE. 1802-1868.Old Grimes is dead, that good old man
We never shall see more;
He used to wear a long black coat
All buttoned down before.[596:1]
Old Grimes.
[596:1]
John Lee is dead, that good old man,—
We ne'er shall see him more;
He used to wear an old drab coat
All buttoned down before.
To the memory of John Lee, who died May 21, 1823.
An Inscription in Matherne Churchyard.
Old Abram Brown is dead and gone,—
You 'll never see him more;
He used to wear a long brown coat
That buttoned down before.
Halliwell: Nursery Rhymes of England, p. 60.
LYDIA MARIA CHILD. 1802-1880.England may as well dam up the waters of the Nile with bulrushes as to fetter the step of Freedom, more proud and firm in this youthful land than where she treads the sequestered glens of Scotland, or couches herself among the magnificent mountains of Switzerland.
Supposititious Speech of James Otis. The Rebels, Chap. iv.
[597]
DOUGLAS JERROLD. 1803-1857.He is one of those wise philanthropists who in a time of famine would vote for nothing but a supply of toothpicks.
Douglas Jerrold's Wit.
The surest way to hit a woman's heart is to take aim kneeling.
Douglas Jerrold's Wit.
The nobleman of the garden.
The Pineapple.
That fellow would vulgarize the day of judgment.
A Comic Author.
The best thing I know between France and England is the sea.
The Anglo-French Alliance.
The life of the husbandman,—a life fed by the bounty of earth and sweetened by the airs of heaven.
The Husbandman's Life.
Some people are so fond of ill-luck that they run half-way to meet it.
Meeting Troubles Half-way.
Earth is here so kind, that just tickle her with a hoe and she laughs with a harvest.
A Land of Plenty [Australia].
The ugliest of trades have their moments of pleasure. Now, if I were a grave-digger, or even a hangman, there are some people I could work for with a great deal of enjoyment.
Ugly Trades.
A blessed companion is a book,—a book that fitly chosen is a life-long friend.
Books.
There is something about a wedding-gown prettier than in any other gown in the world.
A Wedding-gown.
He was so good he would pour rose-water on a toad.
A Charitable Man.
As for the brandy, "nothing extenuate;" and the water, put nought in in malice.
Shakespeare Grog.
Talk to him of Jacob's ladder, and he would ask the number of the steps.
A Matter-of-fact Man.
[598]
RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 1803-1882.Nor knowest thou what argument
Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent.
All are needed by each one;
Nothing is fair or good alone.
Each and All.
I wiped away the weeds and foam,
I fetched my sea-born treasures home;
But the poor, unsightly, noisome things
Had left their beauty on the shore,
With the sun and the sand and the wild uproar.
Each and All.
Not from a vain or shallow thought
His awful Jove young Phidias brought.
The Problem.
Out from the heart of Nature rolled
The burdens of the Bible old.
The Problem.
The hand that rounded Peter's dome,
And groined the aisles of Christian Rome,
Wrought in a sad sincerity;
Himself from God he could not free;
He builded better than he knew:
The conscious stone to beauty grew.
The Problem.
Earth proudly wears the Parthenon
As the best gem upon her zone.
The Problem.
Earth laughs in flowers to see her boastful boys
Earth-proud, proud of the earth which is not theirs;
Who steer the plough, but cannot steer their feet
Clear of the grave.
Hamatreya.
Good bye, proud world! I 'm going home;
Thou art not my friend, and I 'm not thine.[598:1]
Good Bye.
For what are they all in their high conceit,
When man in the bush with God may meet?
Good Bye.
[599]
If eyes were made for seeing,
Then Beauty is its own excuse for being.
The Rhodora.
Things are in the saddle,
And ride mankind.[599:1]
Ode, inscribed to W. H. Channing.
Olympian bards who sung
Divine ideas below,
Which always find us young
And always keep us so.
Ode to Beauty.
Heartily know,
When half-gods go,
The gods arrive.
Give all to Love.
Love not the flower they pluck and know it not,
And all their botany is Latin names.
Blight.
The silent organ loudest chants
The master's requiem.
Dirge.
By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattl'd farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.[599:2]
Hymn sung at the Completion of the Battle Monument.
What potent blood hath modest May!
May-Day.
And striving to be man, the worm
Mounts through all the spires of form.
May-Day.
And every man, in love or pride,
Of his fate is never wide.
Nemesis.
None shall rule but the humble,
And none but Toil shall have.
Boston Hymn. 1863.
[600]
Oh, tenderly the haughty day
Fills his blue urn with fire.
Ode, Concord, July 4, 1857.
Go put your creed into your deed,
Nor speak with double tongue.
Ode, Concord, July 4, 1857.
So nigh is grandeur to our dust,
So near is God to man,
When Duty whispers low, Thou must,
The youth replies, I can!
Voluntaries.
Whoever fights, whoever falls,
Justice conquers evermore.
Voluntaries.
Nor sequent centuries could hit
Orbit and sum of Shakespeare's wit.
Solution.
Born for success he seemed,
With grace to win, with heart to hold,
With shining gifts that took all eyes.
In Memoriam.
Nor mourn the unalterable Days
That Genius goes and Folly stays.
In Memoriam.
Fear not, then, thou child infirm;
There 's no god dare wrong a worm.
Compensation.
He thought it happier to be dead,
To die for Beauty, than live for bread.
Beauty.
Wilt thou seal up the avenues of ill?
Pay every debt, as if God wrote the bill?
Suum Cuique.
Too busy with the crowded hour to fear to live or die.
Quatrains. Nature.
Though love repine, and reason chafe,
There came a voice without reply,—
"'T is man's perdition to be safe
When for the truth he ought to die."
Sacrifice.
[601]
For what avail the plough or sail,
Or land or life, if freedom fail?
Boston.
If the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him.[601:1]
Nature. Addresses and Lectures. The American Scholar.
There is no great and no small[601:2]
To the Soul that maketh all;
And where it cometh, all things are;
And it cometh everywhere.
Essays. First Series. Epigraph to History.
Time dissipates to shining ether the solid angularity of facts.
Essays. First Series. History.
Nature is a mutable cloud which is always and never the same.
Essays. First Series. History.
A man is a bundle of relations, a knot of roots, whose flower and fruitage is the world.
Essays. First Series. History.
The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.
Essays. First Series. Self-Reliance.
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
Essays. First Series. Self-Reliance.
To be great is to be misunderstood.
Essays. First Series. Self-Reliance.
Discontent is the want of self-reliance: it is infirmity of will.
Essays. First Series. Self-Reliance.
Everything in Nature contains all the powers of Nature. Everything is made of one hidden stuff.
Essays. First Series. Compensation.
It is as impossible for a man to be cheated by any one but himself, as for a thing to be and not to be at the same time.
Essays. First Series. Compensation.
[602]
Proverbs, like the sacred books of each nation, are the sanctuary of the intuitions.
Essays. First Series. Compensation.
Every action is measured by the depth of the sentiment from which it proceeds.
Essays. First Series. Spiritual Laws.
All mankind love a lover.
Essays. First Series. Love.
A ruddy drop of manly blood
The surging sea outweighs;
The world uncertain comes and goes,
The lover rooted stays.
Essays. First Series. Epigraph to Friendship.
A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of Nature.
Essays. First Series. Friendship.
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
Essays. First Series. Circles.
There is nothing settled in manners, but the laws of behaviour yield to the energy of the individual.
Essays. Second Series. Manners.
And with Cæsar to take in his hand the army, the empire, and Cleopatra, and say, "All these will I relinquish if you will show me the fountain of the Nile."
New England Reformers.
He is great who is what he is from Nature, and who never reminds us of others.
Representative Men. Uses of Great Men.
Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the beginning of the world, that such as are in the institution wish to get out, and such as are out wish to get in?[602:1]
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