If a man has good corn, or wood, or boards, or pigs to sell, or can make better chairs or knives, crucibles, or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a broad, hard-beaten road to his house, tho it be in the woods. And if a man knows the law, people will find it out, tho he live in a pine shanty, and resort to him. And if a man can pipe or sing, so as to wrap the prisoned soul in an elysium; or can paint landscape, and convey into oils and ochers all the enchantments of spring or autumn; or can liberate or intoxicate all people who hear him with delicious songs and verses, 'tis certain that the secret can not be kept: the first witness tells it to a second, and men go by fives and tens and fifties to his door.
In lang, lang days o' simmer, When the clear and cloudless sky Refuses ae weep drap o' rain To Nature parched and dry, The genial night, wi' balmy breath, Gars verdue, spring anew, An' ilka blade o' grass Keps its ain drap o' dew.
These are the forgeries of jealousy; And never, since the middle summer's spring, Met we on hill, in dale, forest, or mead, By paved fountain or by rushy brook, Or in the beached margent of the sea, To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind, But with thy brawls thou hast disturbed our sport.
One swallow does not make spring.
In the desert a fountain is springing, In the wide waste there still is a tree, And a bird in the solitude singing, Which speaks to my spirit of thee.
A sympathetic heart is like a spring of pure water bursting forth from the mountain side.
Sing, sweet thrushes, forth and sing! Meet the moon upon the lea; Are the emeralds of the spring On the angler's trysting-tree? Tell, sweet thrushes, tell to me, Are there buds on our willow-tree? Buds and birds on our trysting tree?
Although affliction cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground; Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.
Truth springs from argument amongst friends. -David Hume.
From that high mount of God whence light and shade Spring both, the face of brightest heaven had changed To grateful twilight.
His demand Springs not from Edward's well-meant honest love, Bur from deceit, bred by necessity; For how can tyrants safely govern home Unless abroad they purchase great alliance?
There's a grim one-horse hearse in a jolly round trot; To the churchyear a pauper is going I wot; The road it is rough, and the hearse has no springs, And hark to the dirge that the sad driver sings-- Rattle his bones over the stones, He's only a pauper whom nobody owns.
Since trifles make the sum of human things, And half our misery from our foibles springs; Since life's best joys consist in peace and ease, And though but few can serve, yet all may please; On, let th' ungentle spirit learn from hence, A small unkindness is a great offence.
It is disturbing to discover in oneself these curious revelations of the validity of the Darwinian theory. If it is true that we have sprung from the ape, there are occasions when my own spring appears not to have been very far.
Nurse one vice in your bosom. Give it the attention it deserves and let your virtues spring p modestly around it. Then you'll have the miser who's no liar; and the drunkard who's the benefactor of the whole city.
The eyes of spring, so azure, Are peeping from the ground; They are the darling violets, That I in nosegays bound.
Welcome, maids of honor, You doe bring In the spring, And wait upon her.
Who are the violets now That strew the green lap of the new-come spring?
When every autumn people said it could not last through the winter, and when every spring there was still no end in sight, only the hope that out of it all some good would accrue to mankind kept men and nations fighting. When at last it was over, the war had many diverse results and one dominant one transcending all others: disillusion.
There will one day spring from the brain of science a machine or force so fearful in its potentialities, so absolutely terrifying, that even man, the fighter, who will dare torture and death in order to inflict torture and death, will be appalled, and so abandon war forever.
From wine what sudden friendship springs?
Every winter, When the great sun has turned his face away, The earth goes down into a vale of grief, And fasts, and weeps, and shrouds herself in sables, Leaving her wedding-garlands to decay-- Then leaps in spring to his returning kisses.
Woo the fair one when around Early birds are singing; When o'er all the fragrant ground Early herbs are springing: When the brookside, bank, and grove All with blossom laden, Shine with beauty, breathe of love, Woo the timid maiden.
All Nature seems at work, slugs leave their lair-- The bees are stirring--birds are on the wing-- And Winter, slumbering in the open air, Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring! And I the while, the sole unbusy thing, Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.
Spring comes with flowers, autumn with the moon, summer with the breeze, winter with snow. When idle concerns don't fill your thoughts, that's your best season.