Showing 1–50 of 126 entries
"Let observation with extensive view Survey mankind, from China to Peru."
Vanity of Human Wishes. Line 1.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
"There mark what ills the scholar's life assail,-- Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail."
Vanity of Human Wishes. Line 159.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
"He left the name at which the world grew pale, To point a moral, or adorn a tale."
Vanity of Human Wishes. Line 221.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
"Hides from himself his state, and shuns to know That life protracted is protracted woe."
Vanity of Human Wishes. Line 257.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
"An age that melts in unperceiv'd decay, And glides in modest innocence away."
Vanity of Human Wishes. Line 293.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
"Superfluous lags the veteran on the stage."
Vanity of Human Wishes. Line 308.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
"Fears of the brave, and follies of the wise! From Marlb'rough's eyes the streams of dotage flow, And Swift expires, a driv'ler and a show."
Vanity of Human Wishes. Line 316.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
"Must helpless man, in ignorance sedate, Roll darkling down the torrent of his fate?"
Vanity of Human Wishes. Line 345.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
"For patience, sov'reign o'er transmuted ill."
Vanity of Human Wishes. Line 362.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
"Of all the griefs that harass the distrest, Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest."
London. Line 166.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
"This mournful truth is ev'rywhere confess'd,-- Slow rises worth by poverty depress'd."
London. Line 176.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
"Studious to please, yet not ashamed to fail."
Prologue to the Tragedy of Irene.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
"Each change of many-colour'd life he drew, Exhausted worlds, and then imagin'd new."
Prologue on the Opening of Drury Lane Theatre.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
"And panting Time toil'd after him in vain."
Prologue on the Opening of Drury Lane Theatre.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
"For we that live to please must please to live."
Prologue on the Opening of Drury Lane Theatre.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
"Catch, then, oh catch the transient hour; Improve each moment as it flies! Life 's a short summer, man a flower; He dies--alas! how soon he dies!"
Winter. An Ode.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
"Officious, innocent, sincere, Of every friendless name the friend."
Verses on the Death of Mr. Robert Levet. Stanza 2.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
"In misery's darkest cavern known, His useful care was ever nigh Where hopeless anguish pour'd his groan, And lonely want retir'd to die."
Verses on the Death of Mr. Robert Levet. Stanza 5.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
"And sure th' Eternal Master found His single talent well employ'd."
Verses on the Death of Mr. Robert Levet. Stanza 7.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
"Then with no throbs of fiery pain, No cold gradations of decay, Death broke at once the vital chain, And freed his soul the nearest way."
Verses on the Death of Mr. Robert Levet. Stanza 9.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
"That saw the manners in the face."
Lines on the Death of Hogarth.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
"Philips, whose touch harmonious could remove The pangs of guilty power and hapless love! Rest here, distressed by poverty no more; Here find that calm thou gav'st so oft before; Sleep undisturb'd within this peaceful shrine, Till angels wake thee with a note like thine!"
Epitaph on Claudius Philips, the Musician.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
"A Poet, Naturalist, and Historian, Who left scarcely any style of writing untouched, And touched nothing that he did not adorn."
Epitaph on Goldsmith.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
"How small of all that human hearts endure, That part which laws or kings can cause or cure! Still to ourselves in every place consigned, Our own felicity we make or find. With secret course, which no loud storms annoy, Glides the smooth current of domestic joy."
Lines added to Goldsmith's Traveller.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
"Trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay."
Line added to Goldsmith's Deserted Village.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
"From thee, great God, we spring, to thee we tend,-- Path, motive, guide, original, and end."
Motto to the Rambler. No. 7.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
"Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope; who expect that age will perform the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies of the present day will be supplied by the morrow,--attend to the history of Rasselas, Prince Of Abyssinia."
Rasselas. Chap. i.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
""I fly from pleasure," said the prince, "because pleasure has ceased to please; I am lonely because I am miserable, and am unwilling to cloud with my presence the happiness of others.""
Rasselas. Chap. iii.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
"A man used to vicissitudes is not easily dejected."
Rasselas. Chap. xii.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
"Few things are impossible to diligence and skill."
Rasselas. Chap. xii.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
"Knowledge is more than equivalent to force."
Rasselas. Chap. xiii.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
"I live in the crowd of jollity, not so much to enjoy company as to shun myself."
Rasselas. Chap. xvi.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
"Many things difficult to design prove easy to performance."
Rasselas. Chap. xvi.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
"The first years of man must make provision for the last."
Rasselas. Chap. xvii.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
"Example is always more efficacious than precept."
Rasselas. Chap. xxx.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
"The endearing elegance of female friendship."
Rasselas. Chap. xlvi.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
"I am not so lost in lexicography as to forget that words are the daughters of earth, and that things are the sons of heaven."
Preface to his Dictionary.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
"Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison."
Life of Addison.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
"To be of no church is dangerous. Religion, of which the rewards are distant, and which is animated only by faith and hope, will glide by degrees out of the mind unless it be invigorated and reimpressed by external ordinances, by stated calls to worship, and the salutary influence of example."
Life of Milton.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
"The trappings of a monarchy would set up an ordinary commonwealth."
Life of Milton.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
"His death eclipsed the gayety of nations, and impoverished the public stock of harmless pleasure."
Life of Edmund Smith (alluding to the death of Garrick).
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
"That man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona."
Journey to the Western Islands: Inch Kenneth.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
"He is no wise man that will quit a certainty for an uncertainty."
The Idler. No. 57.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
"What is read twice is commonly better remembered than what is transcribed."
The Idler. No. 74.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
"Tom Birch is as brisk as a bee in conversation; but no sooner does he take a pen in his hand than it becomes a torpedo to him, and benumbs all his faculties."
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. i. Chap. vii. 1743.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
"Wretched un-idea'd girls."
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. i. Chap. x. 1752.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
"This man [Chesterfield], I thought, had been a lord among wits; but I find he is only a wit among lords."
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. ii. Chap. i. 1754.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
"Sir, he [Bolingbroke] was a scoundrel and a coward: a scoundrel for charging a blunderbuss against religion and morality; a coward, because he had not resolution to fire it off himself, but left half a crown to a beggarly Scotchman to draw the trigger at his death."
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. ii. Chap. i. 1754.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
"Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and when he has reached ground encumbers him with help?"
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. ii. Chap. ii. 1755.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain
"I am glad that he thanks God for anything."
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. ii. Chap. ii. 1755.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain