Familiar Quotations, - [best romance ebooks .txt] 📗
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Thought is the property of him who can entertain it, and of him who can adequately place it.
Representative Men. Shakespeare.
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The hearing ear is always found close to the speaking tongue.
English Traits. Race.
I find the Englishman to be him of all men who stands firmest in his shoes.
English Traits. Manners.
A creative economy is the fuel of magnificence.
English Traits. Aristocracy.
The manly part is to do with might and main what you can do.
The Conduct of Life. Wealth.
The alleged power to charm down insanity, or ferocity in beasts, is a power behind the eye.
The Conduct of Life. Behaviour.
Fine manners need the support of fine manners in others.
The Conduct of Life. Behaviour.
Good is a good doctor, but Bad is sometimes a better.
The Conduct of Life. Considerations by the Way.
God may forgive sins, he said, but awkwardness has no forgiveness in heaven or earth.
The Conduct of Life. Society and Solitude.
Hitch your wagon to a star.
The Conduct of Life. Civilization.
I rarely read any Latin, Greek, German, Italian, sometimes not a French book, in the original, which I can procure in a good version. I like to be beholden to the great metropolitan English speech, the sea which receives tributaries from every region under heaven. I should as soon think of swimming across Charles River when I wish to go to Boston, as of reading all my books in originals when I have them rendered for me in my mother tongue.
The Conduct of Life. Books.
We do not count a man's years until he has nothing else to count.
The Conduct of Life. Old Age.
Life is not so short but that there is always time enough for courtesy.
Letters and Social Aims. Social Aims.
By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote.
Letters and Social Aims. Quotation and Originality.
[604]
Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it.[604:1]
Letters and Social Aims. Quotation and Originality.
When Shakespeare is charged with debts to his authors, Landor replies, "Yet he was more original than his originals. He breathed upon dead bodies and brought them into life."
Letters and Social Aims. Quotation and Originality.
In fact, it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent.
Letters and Social Aims. Quotation and Originality.
The passages of Shakespeare that we most prize were never quoted until within this century.
Letters and Social Aims. Quotation and Originality.
Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force; that thoughts rule the world.
Progress of Culture. Phi Beta Kappa Address, July 18, 1867.
I do not find that the age or country makes the least difference; no, nor the language the actors spoke, nor the religion which they professed, whether Arab in the desert or Frenchman in the Academy. I see that sensible men and conscientious men all over the world were of one religion.[604:2]
Lectures and Biographical Sketches. The Preacher.
[598:1] See Byron, page 544.
[599:1] I never could believe that Providence had sent a few men into the world ready booted and spurred to ride, and millions ready saddled and bridled to be ridden.—Rumbold (when on the scaffold).
[599:2]
No war or battle sound
Was heard the world around.
Milton: Hymn of Christ's Nativity, line 31.
[601:1] Everything comes if a man will only wait.—Disraeli: Tancred, book iv. chap. viii.
[601:2] See Pope, page 316.
[602:1] See Davies, page 176.
[604:1] There is not less wit nor less invention in applying rightly a thought one finds in a book, than in being the first author of that thought. Cardinal du Perron has been heard to say that the happy application of a verse of Virgil has deserved a talent.—Bayle: vol. ii. p. 779.
Though old the thought and oft exprest,
'T is his at last who says it best.
Lowell: For an Autograph.
[604:2] See Johnson, page 370.
RICHARD HENGEST HORNE. 1803- ——.'T is always morning somewhere in the world.[604:3]
Orion. Book iii. Canto ii. (1843.)
[604:3] 'T is always morning somewhere.—Longfellow: Wayside Inn. Birds of Killingworth, stanza 16.
[605]
WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 1804-1879.My country is the world; my countrymen are mankind.[605:1]
Prospectus of the Public Liberator, 1830.
I am in earnest. I will not equivocate; I will not excuse; I will not retreat a single inch; and I will be heard!
Salutatory of the Liberator, Jan. 1, 1831.
Our country is the world; our countrymen are mankind.
Motto of the Liberator, Vol. i. No. 1, 1831.
I will be as harsh as truth and as uncompromising as justice.
The Liberator, Vol. i. No. 1, 1831.
Our country is the world; our countrymen are all mankind.
Prospectus of the Liberator, Dec. 15, 1837.
The compact which exists between the North and the South is a covenant with death and an agreement with hell.[605:2]
Resolution adopted by the Antislavery Society, Jan. 27, 1843.
[605:1] Socrates said he was not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.—Plutarch: On Banishment.
Diogenes, when asked from what country he came, replied, "I am a citizen of the world."—Diogenes Laertius.
My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.—Thomas Paine: Rights of Man, chap. v.
[605:2] We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement.—Isaiah xxviii. 15.
MARY HOWITT. 1804-1888.Old England is our home, and Englishmen are we;
Our tongue is known in every clime, our flag in every sea.
Old England is our Home.
"Will you walk into my parlour?" said a spider to a fly;
"'T is the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy."
The Spider and the Fly.
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SARAH FLOWER ADAMS. 1805-1848.Nearer, my God, to Thee!
Nearer to Thee!
E'en though it be a cross
That raiseth me,
Still all my song shall be,
Nearer, my God, to Thee!
Nearer to Thee!
EDWARD BULWER LYTTON. 1805-1873.Curse away!
And let me tell thee, Beausant, a wise proverb
The Arabs have,—"Curses are like young chickens,
And still come home to roost."
The Lady of Lyons. Act v. Sc. 2.
Beneath the rule of men entirely great,
The pen is mightier than the sword.[606:1]
Richelieu. Act ii. Sc. 2.
Take away the sword;
States can be saved without it.
Richelieu. Act ii. Sc. 2.
In the lexicon of youth, which fate reserves
For a bright manhood, there is no such word
As "fail."
Richelieu. Act ii. Sc. 2.
The brilliant chief, irregularly great,
Frank, haughty, rash,—the Rupert of debate![606:2]
The New Timon. (1846.) Part i.
Alone!—that worn-out word,
So idly spoken, and so coldly heard;
Yet all that poets sing and grief hath known
Of hopes laid waste, knells in that word Alone!
The New Timon. (1846.) Part ii.
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When stars are in the quiet skies,
Then most I pine for thee;
Bend on me then thy tender eyes,
As stars look on the sea.
When Stars are in the quiet Skies.
Buy my flowers,—oh buy, I pray!
The blind girl comes from afar.
Buy my Flowers.
The man who smokes, thinks like a sage and acts like a Samaritan.
Night and Morning. Chap. vi.
[606:1] See Burton, page 189.
[606:2] In April, 1844, Mr. Disraeli thus alluded to Lord Stanley: "The noble lord is the Rupert of debate."
BENJAMIN DISRAELI (EARL BEACONSFIELD). 1805-1881.Free trade is not a principle, it is an expedient.[607:1]
On Import Duties, April 25, 1843.
The noble lord[607:2] is the Rupert of debate.[607:3]
Speech, April, 1844.
A conservative government is an organized hypocrisy.
Speech, March 17, 1845.
A precedent embalms a principle.
Speech, Feb. 22, 1848.
It is much easier to be critical than to be correct.
Speech, Jan. 24, 1860.
The characteristic of the present age is craving credulity.
Speech, Nov. 25, 1864.
Assassination has never changed the history of the world.
Speech, May, 1865.
I see before me the statue of a celebrated minister,[607:4] who said that confidence was a plant of slow growth. But I believe, however gradual may be the growth of confidence, that of credit requires still more time to arrive at maturity.
Speech, Nov. 9, 1867.
[608]
The secret of success is constancy to purpose.
Speech, June 24, 1870.
The author who speaks about his own books is almost as bad as a mother who talks about her own children.
Speech, Nov. 19, 1870.
Apologies only account for that which they do not alter.
Speech, July 28, 1871.
Increased means and increased leisure are the two civilizers of man.
Speech, April 3, 1872.
I repeat . . . that all power is a trust; that we are accountable for its exercise; that from the people and for the people all springs, and all must exist.[608:1]
Vivian Grey. Book vi. Chap. vii.
Man is not the creature of circumstances. Circumstances are the creatures of men.
Vivian Grey. Book vi. Chap. vii.
The disappointment of manhood succeeds to the delusion of youth: let us hope that the heritage of old age is not despair.
Vivian Grey. Book viii. Chap. iv.
The first favourite was never heard of, the second favourite was never seen after the distance post, all the ten-to-oners were in the rear, and a dark horse[608:2] which had never been thought of, and which the careless St. James had never even observed in the list, rushed past the grand stand in sweeping triumph.
The Young Duke. Book i. Chap. v.
Patience is a necessary ingredient of genius.
Contarini Fleming. Part iv. Chap. v.
Youth is a blunder; manhood a struggle; old age a regret.
Coningsby. Book iii. Chap. i.
But what minutes! Count them by sensation, and not by calendars, and each moment is a day, and the race a life.
Sybil. Book i. Chap. ii.
Only think of Cockie Graves having gone and done it!
Sybil. Book i. Chap. ii.
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The Duke of Wellington brought to the post of first minister immortal fame,—a quality of success which would almost seem to include all others.
Sybil. Book i. Chap. iii.
The Egremonts had never said anything that was remembered, or done anything that could be recalled.
Sybil. Book i. Chap. iii.
If the history of England be ever written by one who has the knowledge and the courage,—and both qualities are equally requisite for the undertaking,—the world will be more astonished than when reading the Roman annals by Niebuhr.
Sybil. Book i. Chap. iii.
That earliest
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