"Failed the bright promise of your early day."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Thus heavenly hope is all serene, But earthly hope, how bright soe'er, Still fluctuates o'er this changing scene, As false and fleeting as 't is fair."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"By cool Siloam's shady rill How sweet the lily grows!"

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Brightest and best of the sons of the morning, Dawn on our darkness, and lend us thine aid."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"As it fell upon a day In the merry month of May, Sitting in a pleasant shade Which a grove of myrtles made."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"I preached as never sure to preach again, And as a dying man to dying men."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

""Whatever is, is not," is the maxim of the anarchist, as often as anything comes across him in the shape of a law which he happens not to like."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"It is a maxim with me that no man was ever written out of reputation but by himself."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"The fortuitous or casual concourse of atoms."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"As there are three of us come on purpose for the game, you won't be so cantankerous as to spoil the party by sitting out."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"He is the very pine-apple of politeness!"

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Certainly nothing is unnatural that is not physically impossible."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"You write with ease to show your breeding, But easy writing 's curst hard reading."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"'T is safest in matrimony to begin with a little aversion."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"I own the soft impeachment."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"You 're our enemy; lead the way, and we 'll precede."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Illiterate him, I say, quite from your memory."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"As headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"An oyster may be crossed in love."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Here 's to the maiden of bashful fifteen; Here 's to the widow of fifty; Here 's to the flaunting, extravagant quean, And here 's to the housewife that 's thrifty! Let the toast pass; Drink to the lass; I 'll warrant she 'll prove an excuse for the glass."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Here is the whole set! a character dead at every word."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Where they do agree on the stage, their unanimity is wonderful."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"A progeny of learning."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Had I a heart for falsehood framed, I ne'er could injure you."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"The newspapers! Sir, they are the most villanous, licentious, abominable, infernal-- Not that I ever read them! No, I make it a rule never to look into a newspaper."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Our ancestors are very good kind of folks; but they are the last people I should choose to have a visiting acquaintance with."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"The Right Honorable gentleman is indebted to his memory for his jests, and to his imagination for his facts."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"An unforgiving eye, and a damned disinheriting countenance."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"You are not like Cerberus, three gentlemen at once, are you?"

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Sheer necessity,--the proper parent of an art so nearly allied to invention."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"It was an amiable weakness."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"I leave my character behind me."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"We will not anticipate the past; so mind, young people,--our retrospection will be all to the future."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"I ne'er could any lustre see In eyes that would not look on me; I ne'er saw nectar on a lip But where my own did hope to sip."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"The quarrel is a very pretty quarrel as it stands; we should only spoil it by trying to explain it."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"No scandal about Queen Elizabeth, I hope?"

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"The Spanish fleet thou canst not see, because--it is not yet in sight!"

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Conscience has no more to do with gallantry than it has with politics."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"You shall see them on a beautiful quarto page, where a neat rivulet of text shall meander through a meadow of margin."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"My valour is certainly going! it is sneaking off! I feel it oozing out, as it were, at the palm of my hands!"

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Egad, I think the interpreter is the hardest to be understood of the two!"

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Steal! to be sure they may; and, egad, serve your best thoughts as gypsies do stolen children,--disfigure them to make 'em pass for their own."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"A life spent worthily should be measured by a nobler line,--by deeds, not years."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"No caparisons, miss, if you please. Caparisons don't become a young woman."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Inconsolable to the minuet in Ariadne."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"If I reprehend anything in this world, it is the use of my oracular tongue, and a nice derangement of epitaphs!"

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"While his off-heel, insidiously aside. Provokes the caper which he seems to chide."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"A circulating library in a town is as an evergreen tree of diabolical knowledge."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Such protection as vultures give to lambs."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"There 's nothing like being used to a thing."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain