Quotes
Quotes about Thought
To their own second thoughts.
And thought the nation ne'er would thrive
Till all the whores were burnt alive.
A penny for your thoughts.
I thought you and he were hand-in-glove.
Perish that thought! No, never be it said
That Fate itself could awe the soul of Richard.
Hence, babbling dreams! you threaten here in vain!
Conscience, avaunt! Richard's himself again!
Hark! the shrill trumpet sounds to horse! away!
My soul's in arms, and eager for the fray.
It must be so,--Plato, thou reasonest well!
Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,
This longing after immortality?
Or whence this secret dread and inward horror
Of falling into naught? Why shrinks the soul
Back on herself, and startles at destruction?
'T is the divinity that stirs within us;
'T is Heaven itself that points out an hereafter,
And intimates eternity to man.
Eternity! thou pleasing, dreadful thought!
Ah, how unjust to Nature and himself
Is thoughtless, thankless, inconsistent man!
Thoughts shut up want air,
And spoil, like bales unopen'd to the sun.
The picture placed the busts between
Adds to the thought much strength;
Wisdom and Wit are little seen,
But Folly's at full length.
Remembrance and reflection how allied!
What thin partitions sense from thought divide!
Chaos of thought and passion, all confused;
Still by himself abused or disabused;
Created half to rise, and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled,--
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world.
With too much quickness ever to be taught;
With too much thinking to have common thought.
True wit is Nature to advantage dress'd,
What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd.
Me let the tender office long engage
To rock the cradle of reposing age;
With lenient arts extend a mother's breath,
Make languor smile, and smooth the bed of death;
Explore the thought, explain the asking eye,
And keep awhile one parent from the sky.
One thought of thee puts all the pomp to flight;
Priests, tapers, temples, swim before my sight.
And what he greatly thought, he nobly dar'd.
Note 3.Thus we never live, but we hope to live; and always disposing ourselves to be happy.--Blaise Pascal: Thoughts, chap. v. 2.
Life is a jest, and all things show it;
I thought so once, but now I know it.
Style is the dress of thoughts.
Delightful task! to rear the tender thought,
To teach the young idea how to shoot.
This man [Chesterfield], I thought, had been a lord among wits; but I find he is only a wit among lords.
I do not know, sir, that the fellow is an infidel; but if he be an infidel, he is an infidel as a dog is an infidel; that is to say, he has never thought upon the subject.
For his chaste Muse employ'd her heaven-taught lyre
None but the noblest passions to inspire,
Not one immoral, one corrupted thought,
One line which, dying, he could wish to blot.
So sweetly she bade me adieu,
I thought that she bade me return.
To each his suff'rings; all are men,
Condemn'd alike to groan,--
The tender for another's pain,
Th' unfeeling for his own.
Yet ah! why should they know their fate,
Since sorrow never comes too late,
And happiness too swiftly flies?
Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more; where ignorance is bliss,
'T is folly to be wise.
