Quotes to inspire and reflect

Here thou, great Anna! 1 whom three realms obey, Dost sometimes counsel take—and sometimes tea.

Fair tresses man’s imperial race ensnare, And beauty draws us with a single hair.

If to her share some female errors fall, Look on her face, and you’ll forget ’em all.

What dire offense from amorous causes springs, What mighty contests rise from trivial things!

On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore, Which Jews might kiss, and infidels adore.

Vital spark of heav’nly flame! Quit, oh quit, this mortal frame: Trembling, hoping, ling’ring, flying, Oh the pain, the bliss of dying!

But where’s the man who counsel can bestow, Still pleas’d to teach, and yet not proud to know?

For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

All seems infected that th’ infected spy, As all looks yellow to the jaundic’d eye.

Some judge of authors’ names, not works, and then Nor praise nor blame the writings, but the men.

Some praise at morning what they blame at night, But always think the last opinion right.

At ev’ry trifle scorn to take offense.

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, As those move easiest who have learn’d to dance. ’Tis not enough no harshness gives offense; The sound must seem an echo to the sense.

As some to church repair, Not for the doctrine, but the music there. These equal syllables alone require, Though oft the ear the open vowels tire; While expletives their feeble aid do join, And ten low words oft creep in one dull line.

Then, at the last and only couplet fraught With some unmeaning thing they call a thought, A needless Alexandrine ends the song, That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.

Such labored nothings, in so strange a style, Amaze th’ unlearn’d, and make the learned smile.

Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.

Words are like leaves; and where they most abound, Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.

True wit is nature to advantage dress’d, What oft was thought, but ne’er so well express’d.

Those oft are stratagems which errors seem, Nor is it Homer nods, but we that dream.

A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, And drinking largely sobers us again.

Some are bewilder’d in the maze of schools, And some made coxcombs nature meant but fools.

Let such teach others who themselves excel, And censure freely who have written well.

’Tis with our judgments as our watches, none Go just alike, yet each believes his own.

Nor Fame I slight, nor for her favors call; She comes unlook’d for, if she comes at all.

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown, Thus unlamented let me die, Steal from the world, and not a stone Tell where I lie.

Where’er you walk, cool gales shall fan the glade, Trees, where you sit, shall crowd into a shade: Where’er you tread, the blushing flow’rs shall rise, And all things flourish where you turn your eyes.

Happy the man whose wish and care A few paternal acres bound, Content to breathe his native air In his own ground.

Life is a jest; and all things show it. I thought so once; but now I know it.

Youth’s the season made for joys, Love is then our duty.

If with me you’d fondly stray. Over the hills and far away. 2

I hate the man who builds his name On ruins of another’s fame.

From wine what sudden friendship springs!

In every age and clime we see Two of a trade can never agree.

Those who in quarrels interpose Must often wipe a bloody nose.

Whence is thy learning? Hath thy toil O’er books consumed the midnight oil?

When we risk no contradiction, It prompts the tongue to deal in fiction.

Death loves a shining mark, a signal blow.

Too low they build, who build beneath the stars.

Like our shadows, Our wishes lengthen as our sun declines.

By night an atheist half believes a God.

A God all mercy is a God unjust.

Man wants but little, nor that little long.

At thirty, a man suspects himself a fool; Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan; At fifty chides his infamous delay, Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve; In all the magnanimity of thought Resolves, and re-resolves; then dies the same.

All men think all men mortal but themselves.

Procrastination is the thief of time.

Be wise today; ’tis madness to defer.

Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne, In rayless majesty, now stretches forth Her leaden scepter o’er a slumbering world.