Quotes
Quotes about Wit
If happy I and wretched he,
Perhaps the king would change with me.
America thou half-brother of the world!
With something good and bad of every land.
She with one breath attunes the spheres,
And also my poor human heart.
Just then, with a wink and a sly normal lurch,
The owl very gravely got down from his perch,
Walked round, and regarded his fault-finding critic
(Who thought he was stuffed) with a glance analytic.
I laugh, for hope hath happy place with me;
If my bark sinks, 't is to another sea.
This was the truest warrior
That ever buckled sword;
This the most gifted poet
That ever breathed a word;
And never earth's philosopher
Traced with his golden pen
On the deathless page truths half so sage
As he wrote down for men.
No: by the names inscribed in History's page,
Names that are England's noblest heritage,
Names that shall live for yet unnumbered years
Shrined in our hearts with Cressy and Poictiers;
Let wealth and commerce, laws and learning die,
But leave us still our old nobility.
As ships becalmed at eve, that lay
With canvas drooping, side by side,
Two towers of sail, at dawn of day
Are scarce, long leagues apart, descried.
Would that we two were lying
Beneath the churchyard sod,
With our limbs at rest in the green earth's breast,
And our souls at home with God.
To be discontented with the divine discontent, and to be ashamed with the noble shame, is the very germ of the first upgrowth of all virtue.
Knightly love is blent with reverence
As heavenly air is blent with heavenly blue.
Who can prove
Wit to be witty when with deeper ground
Dulness intuitive declares wit dull?
God give us men. The time demands
Strong minds, great hearts, true faith, and willing hands;
Men whom the lust of office does not kill;
Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy;
Men who possess opinions and a will;
Men who have honor; men who will not lie;
Men who can stand before a demagogue
And dam his treacherous flatteries without winking;
Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog
In public duty and in private thinking.
All thoughts that mould the age begin
Deep down within the primitive soul.
No man is born into the world whose work
Is not born with him. There is always work,
And tools to work withal, for those who will;
And blessed are the horny hands of toil.
They are slaves who fear to speak
For the fallen and the weak.
.......
They are slaves who dare not be
In the right with two or three.
One day with life and heart
Is more than time enough to find a world.
Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 't is prosperous to be just;
Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside,
Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified.
Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way,
Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold.
Not only around our infancy
Doth heaven with all its splendors lie;
Daily, with souls that cringe and plot,
We Sinais climb and know it not.
Who gives himself with his alms feeds three,--
Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me.
Nature fits all her children with something to do.
No, never say nothin' without you're compelled tu,
An' then don't say nothin' thet you can be held tu.
Our Pilgrim stock wuz pithed with hardihood.
