Quotes to inspire and reflect

Sighing that Nature form’d but one such man, And broke the die, in molding Sheridan.

There’s not a joy the world can give like that it takes away, When the glow of early thought declines in feeling’s dull decay.

And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword, Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!

She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that’s best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes: Thus mellow’d to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

The Cincinnatus of the West, Whom envy dared not hate, Bequeathed the name of Washington To make man blush there was but one!

Lord of himself—that heritage of woe.

Mark! where his carnage and his conquests cease! He makes a solitude, and calls it—peace!

Such hath it been—shall be—beneath the sun The many still must labor for the one.

I die—but first I have possess’d, And come what may, I have been bless’d.

I awoke one morning and found myself famous.

And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy I wanton’d with thy breakers.

Dark-heaving—boundless, endless, and sublime— The image of Eternity.

Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow— Such as creation’s dawn beheld, thou rollest now.

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty’s form Glasses itself in tempests.

He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknell’d, uncoffin’d, and unknown.

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean—roll! Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain; Man marks the earth with ruin—his control Stops with the shore.

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep sea, and music in its roar: I love not man the less, but Nature more.

Oh! that the desert were my dwelling place.

Butcher’d to make a Roman holiday!

“While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand; When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall; And when Rome falls—the world.” 5

Alas! our young affections run to waste, Or water but the desert.

Of its own beauty is the mind diseased.

Yet, Freedom! yet thy banner, torn, but flying, Streams like the thunderstorm against the wind.

O Rome! my country! city of the soul!

The poetry of speech.

The starry Galileo, with his woes.

Let these describe the undescribable.

Italia! O Italia! thou who hast The fatal gift of beauty.

The beings of the mind are not of clay; Essentially immortal, they create And multiply in us a brighter ray And more beloved existence.

’Tis solitude should teach us how to die; It hath no flatterers; vanity can give No hollow aid; alone—man with his God must strive.

Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles.

She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean, Rising with her tiara of proud towers At airy distance, with majestic motion, A ruler of the waters and their powers.

Among them, but not of them; in a shroud Of thoughts which were not their thoughts.

I stood in Venice on the Bridge of Sighs, A palace and a prison on each hand.

I have not loved the world, nor the world me; I have not flatter’d its rank breath, nor bow’d To its idolatries a patient knee.

Fame is the thirst of youth.

To fly from, need not be to hate, mankind.

I live not in myself, but I become Portion of that around me: and to me High mountains are a feeling, but the hum Of human cities torture.

All tenantless, save to the crannying wind.

History’s purchased page to call them great.

Millions of tongues record thee, and anew Their children’s lips shall echo them, and say— “Here, where the sword united nations drew, Our countrymen were warring on that day!” And this is much, and all which will not pass away. 4

He who ascends to mountaintops, shall find The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow; He who surpasses or subdues mankind Must look down on the hate of those below.

Like to the apples on the Dead Sea’s shore, All ashes to the taste.

Did ye not hear it?—No! ’twas but the wind, Or the car rattling o’er the stony street. On with the dance! let joy be unconfined; No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet To chase the glowing hours with flying feet.

And Harold stands upon this place of skulls.

There was a sound of revelry by night, And Belgium’s capital had gather’d then Her beauty and her chivalry, and bright The lamps shone o’er fair women and brave men. A thousand hearts beat happily; and when Music arose with its voluptuous swell, Soft eyes look’d love to eyes which spake again, And all went merry as a marriage bell. But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!

Fire from the mind as vigor from the limb; And life’s enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim.