Quotes
Quotes about Jest
So that the jest is clearly to be seen, Not in the words--but in the gap between; Manner is all in all, whate'er is writ, The substitute for genius, sense, and wit.
Who doth not feel, until his failing sight Faints into dimness with its own delight, His changing cheek, his sinking heart confess, The might--the majesty of Loveliness?
Therefore doth heaven divide The state of man in divers functions, Setting endeavor in continual motion; To which is fixed as an aim or butt Obedience; for so work the honeybees, Creatures that by a rule in nature teach The act of order to a peopled kingdom. They have a king, and officers of sorts, Where some like magistrates correct at home, Others like merchants venture trade abroad, Others like soldiers armed in their stings Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds, Which pillage they with merry march bring home To the tent-royal of their emperor, Who, busied in his majesties, surveys The singing masons building roofs of gold, The civil citizens kneading up the honey, The poor mechanic porters crowding in Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate, The sad-eyed justice with his surly hum Delivering o'er to executors pale The lazy yawning drone.
Commemoration of Brigid, Abbess of Kildare, c.525 There is a cowardice in this age which is not Christian. We shrink from the consequences of truth. We look round and cling dependently. We ask what men will think; what others will say; whether they will not stare in astonishment. Perhaps they will; but he who is calculating that, will accomplish nothing in this life. The Fatherâthe Father which is with us and in usâwhat does He think? God's work cannot be done without a spirit of independence. A man is got some way in the Christian life when he has learned to say, humbly yet majestically, "I dare to be alone.".
I read in Shakespeare of the majesty of the moral law, in Victor Hugo of the sacredness of childhood, in Tennyson the ugliness of hypocrisy, in George Eliot the supremacy of duty, in Dickens the divinity of kindness, and in Ruskin the dignity of service. Irving teaches me the lesson of cheerfulness, Hawthorne shows me the hatefulness of sin, Longfellow gives me the soft, tranquil music of hope. Lowell makes us feel that we must give ourselves to our fellow men. Whittier sings to me of divine Fatherhood and human brotherhood. These are Christian lessons: who inspired them? Who put it into the heart of Martin Luther to nail those theses on the church door of Wittenberg? Who stirred and fired the soul of Savonarola? Who thrilled and electrified the soul of John Wesley? Jesus Christ is back of these all.
Digestion, much like Love and Wine, no trifling will brook: His cook once spoiled the dinner of an Emperor of men; The dinner spoiled the temper of his Majesty and then The Emperor made history--and no one blamed the cook.
To shake with laughter ere the jest they hear, To pour at will the counterfeited tear; And, as their patron hints the cold or heat, To shake in dog-days, in December sweat.
Only cowards insult dying majesty.
A man must serve his time to every trade Save censure--critics all are ready made. Take hackney'd jokes from Miller, got by rote, With just enough of learning to misquote; A mind well skill'd to find or forge a fault; A turn for punning, call it Attic salt; To Jeffrey go, be silent and discreet, His pay is just ten sterling pounds per sheet; Fear not to lie, 'twill seem a lucky hit; Shrink not from blasphemy, 'twill pass for wit; Care not for feeling--pass your proper jest, And stand a critic, hated yet caress'd.
To be in a world which is a hell, to be of that world and neither to believe in or guess at anything but that world is not merely hell but the only possible damnation: the act of a man damning himself. It may beâI hope it isâredemption to guess and perhaps perceive that the universe, the hell which we see for all its beauty, vastness, majesty, is only part of a whole which is quite unimaginable.
Blest be those feasts, with simple plenty crowned, Where all the ruddy family around Laugh at the jests or pranks that never fail Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale.
In every work of genius we recognise our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.
Those that will combat use and custom by the strict rules of grammar do but jest.
No marvel, an it like your majesty, My Lord Protector's hawks do tower so well; They know their master loves to be aloft And bears his thoughts above his falcon's pitch.
Irony is jesting behind hidden gravity.
Jesting is often only indigence of intellect.
Be fond of the man who jests at his scars, if you like; but never believe he is being on the level with you.
Jests that give pains are no jests.
Life is a jest; and all things show it. I thought so once; but now I know it.
Judge of a jest when you have done laughing.
All lies and jests, still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.
No time to break jests when the heartstrings are about to be broken.
Jest not with the two-edged sword of God's word.
He that will lose his friend for a jest, deserves to die a beggar by the bargain.
Less at thine own things laugh; lest in the jest Thy person share, and the conceit advance, Make not thy sport abuses: for the fly That feeds on dung is colored thereby.
