Existence is a strange bargain. Life owes us little; we owe it everything. The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose.
It is a general rule of Judgment, that a mischief should rather be admitted than an inconvenience.
As creeping ivy clings to wood or stone, And hides the ruin that it feeds upon, So sophistry, cleaves close to, and protects Sin’s rotten trunk, concealing its defects.
Some people are more nice than wise.
I am out of humanity’s reach.
There is a mixture of evil in everything we do; indulgence encourages us to encroach, while we Crabbe exercise the rights of children, we become childish.
When all within is peace How nature seems to smile Delights that never cease The live-long day beguile.
The path of sorrow, and that path alone, leads to the land where sorrow is unknown.
I would not have a slave to till my ground, To carry me, to fan me while I sleep, And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth That sinews bought and sold have ever earn’d.
Forced from home, and all its pleasures, afric coast I left forlorn; to increase a stranger’s treasures, o the raging billows borne. Men from England bought and sold me, paid my price in paltry gold; but, though theirs they have enroll’d me, minds are never to be sold.
Hast thou not learnd what thou art often told, A truth still sacred, and believed of old, That no success attends on spears and swords Unblest, and that the battle is the Lords?
Words learn’d by rote a parrot may rehearse, But talking is not always to converse, Not more distinct from harmony divine The constant creaking of a country sign.
The cares of today are seldom those of tomorrow.
But war’s a game, which, were their subjects wise, Kings should not play at. Nations would do well To extort their truncheons from the puny hands Of heroes, whose infirm and baby minds Are gratified with mischief, and who spoil, Because men suffer it, their toy the world.
We bear our shades about us; self-deprived Of other screen, the thin umbrella spread, And range an Indian waste without a tree.
Blind unbelief is sure to err, And scan his work in vain; God is his own interpreter, And he will make it plain.
Ten thousand casks, Forever dribbling out their base contents, Touch’d by the Midas finger of the state, Bleed gold for ministers to sport away. Drink, and be mad then; ’tis your country bids!
Blest be the art that can immortalize.
It is only the inexperienced and thoughtless who find pleasure in killing fish for the mere sake of killing them. No sportsman does this.
There is no more graceful and healthful accomplishment for a lady than fly-fishing, and there is no reason why a lady should not in every respect, rival a gentleman in the gentle art.
Stalking along from log to log, or plunging their long legs in the oozy swamp, two large herons paid no attention to my presence, but occupied themselves with their own fishing arrangements, as if their wilderness were their own.