Quotes to inspire and reflect

Mark how my fame rings out from zone to zone: A thousand critics shouting: “He’s unknown!”

To men a man is but a mind. Who cares What face he carries or what form he wears? But woman’s body is the woman. O Stay thou, my sweetheart, and do never go.

And meadow rivulets overflow, And drops on gate bars hang in a row, And rooks in families homeward go,

This is the weather the shepherd shuns,

Ah, no; the years, the years; Down their chiseled names the raindrop plows.

Only a man harrowing clods In a slow silent walk With an old horse that stumbles and nods Half asleep as they stalk. Only thin smoke without flame From the heaps of couch grass: Yet this will go onward the same Though dynasties pass. Yonder a maid and her wight Come whispering by; War’s annals will cloud into night Ere their story die.

That night your great guns, unawares, Shook all our coffins as we lay, And broke the chancel window-squares, We thought it was the Judgment Day.

We two kept house, the Past and I, The Past and I; Through all my tasks it hovered nigh, Leaving me never alone.

Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me, Saying that now you are not as you were When you had changed from the one who was all to me, But as at first, when our day was fair.

What of the faith and fire within us Men who march away Ere the barn cocks say Night is growing gray, Leaving all that here can win us.

A local cult called Christianity.

And as the smart ship grew In stature, grace, and hue, In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.

Yes; quaint and curious war is! You shoot a fellow down You’d treat if met where any bar is, Or help to half-a-crown.

What of the Immanent Will and its designs? It works unconsciously as heretofore, External artistries in circumstance.

An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small, In blast-beruffled plume.

So little cause for carolings Of such ecstatic sound Was written on terrestrial things Afar or nigh around, That I could think there trembled through His happy good-night air Some blessed hope, whereof he knew And I was unaware.

I leant upon a coppice gate When Frost was specter-gray, And Winter’s dregs made desolate The weakening eye of day.

When I set out for Lyonnesse, A hundred miles away, The rime was on the spray, And starlight lit my lonesomeness.

These purblind Doomsters had as readily strown Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain.

And Christ ain’t a-going to be too hard On a man that died for men.

I’ll hold her nozzle agin the bank Till the last galoot’s ashore.

Which I wish to remark, And my language is plain, That for ways that are dark And for tricks that are vain, The heathen Chinee is peculiar, Which the same I would rise to explain.

When everyone is somebodee, Then no one’s anybody!

The world has joked incessantly for over fifty centuries. And every joke that’s possible has long ago been made.

Of that there is no manner of doubt— No probable, possible shadow of doubt— No possible doubt whatever.

The gratifying feeling that our duty has been done.

No soldier in that gallant band Hid half as well as he did. He lay concealed throughout the war, And so preserved his gore, O!

The Duke of Plaza Toro!

He led his regiment from behind— He found it less exciting.

It’s a song of a merryman, moping mum, Whose soul was sad, and whose glance was glum, Who sipped no sup, and who craved no crumb, As he sighed for the love of a lady.

When the footpads quail at the night-bird’s wail, and black dogs bay at the moon, Then is the specters’ holiday—then is the ghosts’ high noon!

I have a song to sing, O! Sing me your song, O!

The flowers that bloom in the spring, tra la, Have nothing to do with the case.

On a tree by a river a little tomtit Sang “Willow, titwillow, titwillow!” And I said to him, “Dicky-bird, why do you sit Singing ‘Willow, titwillow, titwillow!’ “Is it weakness of intellect, birdie?” I cried, “Or a rather tough worm in your little inside?” With a shake of his poor little head he replied, “Oh, willow, titwillow, titwillow!”

I seized him by his little pig-tail, And on his knees fell he, As he squirmed and struggled, And gurgled and guggled, I drew my snickersnee!

And elliptical billiard balls.

My object all sublime I shall achieve in time— To let the punishment fit the crime. 3

A source of innocent merriment!

Here’s a pretty state of things! Here’s a pretty how-de-do!

Ah, pray make no mistake, We are not shy; We’re very wide awake, The moon and I!

Then the idiot who praises, with enthusiastic tone, All centuries but this, and every country but his own.

Three little maids from school are we, Pert as a schoolgirl well can be, Filled to the brim with girlish glee.

As some day it may happen that a victim must be found, I’ve got a little list—I’ve got a little list. Of society offenders who might well be underground, And who never would be missed—who never would be missed.

I can’t help it. I was born sneering.

A wandering minstrel I— And dreamy lullaby!

To sit in solemn silence in a dull dark dock, In a pestilential prison, with a life-long lock, Awaiting the sensation of a short, sharp shock, From a cheap and chippy chopper on a big black block.

Faint heart never won fair lady! Nothing venture, nothing win— Blood is thick, but water’s thin— In for a penny, in for a pound 2 — It’s Love that makes the world go round!

I love my fellow creatures—I do all the good I can— Yet everybody says I’m such a disagreeable man! And I can’t think why!