Quotes
Quotes about Wit
Come in the evening, or come in the morning;
Come when you 're looked for, or come without warning.
Don't you remember sweet Alice, Ben Bolt?
Sweet Alice, whose hair was so brown;
Who wept with delight when you gave her a smile,
And trembl'd with fear at your frown!
On Fame's eternal camping-ground
Their silent tents are spread,
And Glory guards with solemn round
The bivouac of the dead.
For every wave with dimpled face
That leap'd upon the air,
Had caught a star in its embrace
And held it trembling there.
Those cherries fairly do enclose
Of orient pearl a double row;
Which when her lovely laughter shows,
They look like rosebuds filled with snow.
The King of France went up the hill
With twenty thousand men;
The King of France came down the hill,
And ne'er went up again.
Our days begin with trouble here,
Our life is but a span,
And cruel death is always near,
So frail a thing is man.
His wife, with nine small children and one at the breast, following him to the stake.
Note 15.In the Preface to Mr. Nichols's work on Autographs, among other albums noticed by him as being in the British Museum is that of David Krieg, with James Bobart's autograph (Dec. 8, 1697) and the verses,--
Virtus sui gloria.
"Think that day lost whose descending sun
Views from thy hand no noble action done."
Bobart died about 1726. He was a son of the celebrated botanist of that name. The verses are given as an early instance of their use.
There is no gathering the rose without being pricked by the thorns.
Wise men say that there are three sorts of persons who are wholly deprived of judgment,--they who are ambitious of preferments in the courts of princes; they who make use of poison to show their skill in curing it; and they who intrust women with their secrets.
At the beginning of the cask and at the end take thy fill, but be saving in the middle; for at the bottom saving comes too late. Let the price fixed with a friend be sufficient, and even dealing with a brother call in witnesses, but laughingly.
Diligence increaseth the fruit of toil. A dilatory man wrestles with losses.
Few men have the natural strength to honour a friend's success without envy.... I well know that mirror of friendship, shadow of a shade.
So in the Libyan fable it is told
That once an eagle, stricken with a dart,
Said, when he saw the fashion of the shaft,
"With our own feathers, not by others' hands,
Are we now smitten."
If it were possible to heal sorrow by weeping and to raise the dead with tears, gold were less prized than grief.
The gifts of a bad man bring no good with them.
Slowly but surely withal moveth the might of the gods.
When good men die their goodness does not perish,
But lives though they are gone. As for the bad,
All that was theirs dies and is buried with them.
I had a regular battle with the dunghill-cock.
It is up with you; all is over; you are ruined.
If I could believe that this was said sincerely, I could put up with anything.
Jupiter, now assuredly is the time when I could readily consent to be slain, lest life should sully this ecstasy with some disaster.
This and a great deal more like it I have had to put up with.
Take care and say this with presence of mind.
