Quotes
Quotes about Wit
Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen,
Fallen from his high estate,
And welt'ring in his blood;
Deserted, at his utmost need,
By those his former bounty fed,
On the bare earth expos'd he lies,
With not a friend to close his eyes.
The fool of nature stood with stupid eyes
And gaping mouth, that testified surprise.
Love taught him shame; and shame, with love at strife,
Soon taught the sweet civilities of life.
And raw in fields the rude militia swarms,
Mouths without hands; maintain'd at vast expense,
In peace a charge, in war a weak defence;
Stout once a month they march, a blustering band,
And ever but in times of need at hand.
Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He who can call to-day his own;
He who, secure within, can say,
To-morrow, do thy worst, for I have liv'd to-day.
She knows her man, and when you rant and swear,
Can draw you to her with a single hair.
Our souls sit close and silently within,
And their own web from their own entrails spin;
And when eyes meet far off, our sense is such,
That, spider-like, we feel the tenderest touch.
But Shakespeare's magic could not copied be;
Within that circle none durst walk but he.
When I consider life, 't is all a cheat.
Yet fool'd with hope, men favour the deceit;
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.
Strange cozenage! none would live past years again,
Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain;
And from the dregs of life think to receive
What the first sprightly running could not give.
'T is not for nothing that we life pursue;
It pays our hopes with something still that's new.
Of no distemper, of no blast he died,
But fell like autumn fruit that mellow'd long,--
Even wonder'd at, because he dropp'd no sooner.
Fate seem'd to wind him up for fourscore years,
Yet freshly ran he on ten winters more;
Till like a clock worn out with eating time,
The wheels of weary life at last stood still.
For pointed satire I would Buckhurst choose,
The best good man with the worst-natured muse.
O woman! lovely woman! Nature made thee
To temper man: we had been brutes without you.
Angels are painted fair, to look like you:
There's in you all that we believe of heaven,--
Amazing brightness, purity, and truth,
Eternal joy, and everlasting love.
And die with decency.
Vows with so much passion, swears with so much grace,
That 't is a kind of heaven to be deluded by him.
It is not fit the public trusts should be lodged in the hands of any, till they are first proved and found fit for the business they are to be entrusted with.
It is a maxim with me that no man was ever written out of reputation but by himself.
Let the singing singers
With vocal voices, most vociferous,
In sweet vociferation out-vociferize
Even sound itself.
To treat a poor wretch with a bottle of Burgundy, and fill his snuff-box, is like giving a pair of laced ruffles to a man that has never a shirt on his back.
So geographers, in Afric maps,
With savage pictures fill their gaps,
And o'er unhabitable downs
Place elephants for want of towns.
'T is an old maxim in the schools,
That flattery's the food of fools;
Yet now and then your men of wit
Will condescend to take a bit.
As boys do sparrows, with flinging salt upon their tails.
I hate nobody: I am in charity with the world.
I won't quarrel with my bread and butter.
She wears her clothes as if they were thrown on with a pitchfork.
