Absence of occupation is not rest; A mind quite vacant is a mind distressed.
There is in souls a sympathy with sounds.
We are never more in danger than when we think ourselves most secure, nor in reality more secure than when we seem to be most in danger.
Fate steals along with silent tread, Found oftenest in what least we dread; Frowns in the storm with angry brow, But in the sunshine strikes the blow.
Call’d to the temple of impure delight He that abstains, and he alone, does right. If a wish wander that way, call it home; He cannot long be safe whose wishes roam.
What peaceful hours I once enjoy’d! How sweet their memory still! But they have left an aching void The world can never fill.
No wild enthusiast could rest, till half the world like him was possessed.
And diff’ring judgments serve but to declare that truth lies somewhere, if we knew but where.
A self-made man? Yes, and one who worships his creator.
For ’tis a truth well known to most, That whatsoever thing is lost, We seek it, ere it comes to light, In every cranny but the right.
Where men of judgment creep and feel their way, The positive pronounce without dismay.
The man to solitude accustom’d long, Perceives in everything that lives a tongue; Not animals alone, but shrubs and trees Have speech for him, and understood with ease, After long drought when rains abundant fall, He hears the herbs and flowers rejoicing all.
No tree in all the grove but has its charms, Though each its hue peculiar.
I will venture to assert, that a just translation of any ancient poet in rhyme is impossible. No human ingenuity can be equal to the task of closing every couplet with sounds homotonous, expressing at the same time the full sense, and only the full sense of his original.
Solitude, seeming a sanctuary, proves a grave; a sepulchre in which the living lie, where all good qualities grow sick and die.
But oars alone can ne’er prevail To reach the distant coast; The breath of Heaven must swell the sail, Or all the toil is lost.
To follow foolish precedents, and wink With both our eyes, is easier than to think.
Elegant as simplicity, and warm As ecstasy.
If my resolution to be a great man was half so strong as it is to despise the shame of being a little one...
How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude! But grant me still a friend in my retreat, whom I may whisper, solitude is sweet.