Quotes to inspire and reflect

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.

 

Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs, And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns.

 

And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapp’d in universal law.

 

Till the war drum throbbed no longer and the battle flags were furled In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.

 

For I dipp’d into the future, far as human eye could see, Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be; Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails, Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales; Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain’d a ghastly dew From the nations’ airy navies grappling in the central blue.

 

But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that Honor feels.

 

With a little hoard of maxims preaching down a daughter’s heart.

 

Like a dog, he hunts in dreams.

 

This is the truth the poet sings, That a sorrow’s crown of sorrow is remembering happier things.

 

In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.

 

He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force, Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse.

 

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

 

Comrades, leave me here a little, while as yet ’tis early morn: Leave me here, and when you want me, sound upon the bugle horn.

 

Death closes all: but something ere the end, Some work of noble note, may yet be done, Not unbecoming men that strove with gods.

 

The deep Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends, ’Tis not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows, for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars, until I die. It may be that the gulfs will wash us down; It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

 

How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnished, not to shine in use, As though to breathe were life!

 

This is my son, mine own Telemachus.

 

Much have I seen and known; cities of men And manners, climates, councils, governments, Myself not least, but honor’d of them all; And drunk delight of battle with my peers, Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. I am a part of all that I have met; Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough Gleams that untravel’d world.

 

It little profits that an idle king, By this still hearth, among these barren crags, Match’d with an aged wife, I mete and dole Unequal laws unto a savage race.

 

Ah! when shall all men’s good Be each man’s rule, and universal peace Lie like a shaft of light across the land, And like a lane of beams athwart the sea, Through all the circle of the golden year?

 

The long mechanic pacings to and fro, The set gray life, and apathetic end.

 

Half light, half shade, She stood, a sight to make an old man young.

 

The great brand Made lightnings in the splendor of the moon, And flashing round and round, and whirled in an arch, Shot like a streamer of the northern morn, Seen where the moving isles of winter shock By night, with noises of the northern sea, So flashed and fell the brand Excalibur.

 

She left the web, she left the loom, She made three paces thro’ the room, She saw the water-lily bloom, She saw the helmet and the plume, Out flew the web and floated wide; The mirror crack’d from side to side. “The curse is come upon me,” cried

 

“Tirra lirra,” by the river Sang Sir Lancelot.

 

’Tis only noble to be good. Kind hearts are more than coronets, And simple faith than Norman blood.

 

Many-tower’d Camelot.

 

The gardener Adam and his wife Smile at the claims of long descent.

 

The lion on your old stone gates Is not more cold to you than I.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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

 

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.

 

Ah, why Should life all labor be?

 

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

 

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

 

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.

 

Like glimpses of forgotten dreams.

 

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

 

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

 

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.