Quotes
Quotes about Gold
I remember a passage in Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wakefield," which he was afterwards fool enough to expunge: "I do not love a man who is zealous for nothing."... There was another fine passage too which he struck out: "When I was a young man, being anxious to distinguish myself, I was perpetually starting new propositions. But I soon gave this over; for I found that generally what was new was false."
Of Dr. Goldsmith he said, "No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he had."
What female heart can gold despise?
What cat's averse to fish?
Are these the choice dishes the Doctor has sent us?
Is this the great poet whose works so content us?
This Goldsmith's fine feast, who has written fine books?
Heaven sends us good meat, but the Devil sends cooks?
Here lies Nolly Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll,
Who wrote like an angel, and talk'd like poor Poll.
Than Timoleon's arms require,
And Tully's curule chair, and Milton's golden lyre.
Those golden times
And those Arcadian scenes that Maro sings,
And Sidney, warbler of poetic prose.
He that holds fast the golden mean,
And lives contentedly between
The little and the great,
Feels not the wants that pinch the poor,
Nor plagues that haunt the rich man's door.
No, let the monarch's bags and others hold
The flattering, mighty, nay, al-mighty gold.
Than all Bocara's vaunted gold,
Than all the gems of Samarcand.
The golden hours on angel wings
Flew o'er me and my dearie;
For dear to me as light and life
Was my sweet Highland Mary.
The princeps copy, clad in blue and gold.
Now cheaply bought for thrice their weight in gold.
How pure the joy, when first my hands unfold
The small, rare volume, black with tarnished gold!
Turning, for them who pass, the common dust
Of servile opportunity to gold.
'T is an old tale and often told;
But did my fate and wish agree,
Ne'er had been read, in story old,
Of maiden true betray'd for gold,
That loved, or was avenged, like me.
Clothing the palpable and familiar
With golden exhalations of the dawn.
Rich and rare were the gems she wore,
And a bright gold ring on her wand she bore.
I shall defer my visit to Faneuil Hall, the cradle of American liberty, until its doors shall fly open on golden hinges to lovers of Union as well as lovers of liberty.
From Greenland's icy mountains,
From India's coral strand,
Where Afric's sunny fountains
Roll down their golden sand.
The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold.
The world's great age begins anew,
The golden years return,
The earth doth like a snake renew
Her winter weeds outworn.
Through the laburnum's dropping gold
Rose the light shaft of Orient mould,
And Europe's violets, faintly sweet,
Purpled the mossbeds at its feet.
Music's golden tongue
Flatter'd to tears this aged man and poor.
Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne,
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific, and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise,
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
