Ceremony leads her bigots forth, prepared to fight for shadows of no worth. While truths, on which eternal things depend, can hardly find a single friend.
— William Cowper
An epigram is but a feeble thing - With straw in tail, stuck there by way of sting.
Knowledge is proud that it knows so much; wisdom is humble that it knows no more.
They whom truth and wisdom lead, can gather honey from a weed.
Existence is a strange bargain. Life owes us little; we owe it everything. The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose.
God made the country, and man made the town.
Remorse, the fatal egg that pleasure laid.
A self-made man? Yes, and one who worships his creator.
Glory, built on selfish principles, is shame and guilt.
Man may dismiss compassion from his heart, but God never will.
No wild enthusiast could rest, till half the world like him was possessed.
The dogs did bark, the children screamed, Up flew the windows all; And every soul bawled out, Well done! As loud as he could bawl.
Meditation here may think down hours to moments. Here the heart may give a useful lesson to the head and learning wiser grow without his books.
God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform. He plants his footsteps in the sea, and rides upon the storm.
The darkest day, if you live till tomorrow, will have passed away.
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.
A fool must now and then be right, by chance.
No one was ever scolded out of their sins.
Thus happiness depends, as nature shows, less on exterior things than most suppose.
Nature is a good name for an effect whose cause is God.
Satan trembles when he sees the weakest saint upon their knees.
The parson knows enough who knows a Duke.
Absence from whom we love is worse than death, and frustrates hope severer than despair.
Absence of proof is not proof of absence.
The earth was made so various, that the mind Of desultory man, studious of change, And pleased with novelty, might be indulged.
Where men of judgment creep and feel their way, The positive pronounce without dismay.
Variety's the very spice of life, That gives it all its flavor.
Who loves a garden loves a greenhouse too.
O solitude, where are the charms That sages have seen in thy face? Better dwell in the midst of alarms, Than reign in this horrible place.
Absence of occupation is not rest; A mind quite vacant is a mind distressed.
It chills my blood to hear the blest Supreme Rudely appealed to on each trifling theme.
How much a dunce that has been sent to roam, excels a dunce that has been kept at home.
The innocent seldom find an uncomfortable pillow.
O, popular applause! what heart of man is proof against thy sweet, seducing charms?
No man can be a patriot on an empty stomach.
Reasoning at every step he treads, Man yet mistakes his way, Whilst meaner things, whom instinct leads, Are rarely known to stray.
