Men met each other with erected look, The steps were higher that they took; Friends to congratulate their friends made haste, And long inveterate foes saluted as they pass’d.
One of the greatest, most noble, and most sublime poems which either this age or nation has produced.
Him of the western dome, whose weighty sense Flows in fit words and heavenly eloquence.
Three poets, in three distant ages born, Greece, Italy, and England did adorn. The first in loftiness of thought surpass’d; The next, in majesty; in both the last. The force of Nature could no further go; To make a third, she join’d the former two.
He is a perpetual fountain of good sense.
They say everything in the world is good for something.
Truth is the foundation of all knowledge and the cement of all societies.
None are so busy as the fool and the knave.
He is the very Janus of poets; he wears almost everywhere two faces; and you have scarce begun to admire the one, ere you despise the other.
Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child.
Not Heav’n itself upon the past has pow’r; But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.
And nobler is a limited command, Given by the love of all your native land, Than a successive title, long and dark, Drawn from the mouldy rolls of Noah’s Ark.
It is sufficient to say, according to the proverb, that here is God’s plenty.
We can never be grieved for their miseries who are thoroughly wicked, and have thereby justly called their calamities on themselves.
Trust on and think To-morrow will repay; To-morrow’s falser than the former day; Lies worse; and while it says, we shall be blest With some new Joys, cuts off what we possest.
What precious drops are those, Which silently each other’s track pursue, Bright as young diamonds in their faint dew?
Silence in times of suffering is the best.
Sculptors are obliged to follow the manners of the painters, and to make many ample folds, which are unsufferable hardness, and more like a rock than a natural garment.
And that the Scriptures, though not everywhere Free from corruption, or entire, or clear, Are uncorrupt, sufficient, clear, entire In all things which our needful faith require.
The end of satire is the amendment of vices by correction; and he who writes honestly is no more an enemy to the offender than the physician to the patient when he prescribes harsh remedies.