Quotes by English Authors - Page 26

Things alter for the worse spontaneously if they be not altered for the better designedly.
Francis Bacon
Praise the sea on shore remain.
John Florio
All hell broke loose.
John Milton
It is only in the CREATION that all our ideas and conceptions of a word of God can unite. The Creation speaketh an universal language, independently of human speech or human language, multiplied and various as they be. It is an ever existing original, which every man can read. It cannot be forged; it cannot be counterfeited; it cannot be lost; it cannot be altered; it cannot be suppressed. It does not depend upon the will of man whether it shall be published or not; it publishes itself from one end of the earth to the other. It preaches to all nations and to all worlds; and this word of God reveals to man all that is necessary for man to know of God.Do we want to contemplate his power? We see it in the immensity of the creation. Do we want to contemplate his wisdom? We see it in the unchangeable order by which the incomprehensible Whole is governed. Do we want to contemplate his munificence? We see it in the abundance with which he fills the earth. Do we want to contemplate his mercy? We see it in his not withholding that abundance even from the unthankful. In fine, do we want to know what God is? Search not the book called the scripture, which any human hand might make, but the scripture called the Creation.
Thomas Paine
It is well there is no one without fault for he would not have a friend in the world. He would seem to belong to a different species.
William Hazlitt
Many would be cowards if they had courage enough.
Thomas Fuller
Happy thou art not for what thou hast not still thou striv'est to get and what thou hast forget'est.
William Shakespeare
A dungeon horrible, on all sides round, As one great furnace flamed; yet from those flames No light; but rather darkness visible Served only to discover sights of woe
John Milton
The universe, the whole mass of things that are, is corporeal, that is to say, body, and hath the dimensions of magnitude, length, breadth and depth. Every part of the universe is ‘body’ and that which is not ‘body’ is no part of the universe, and because the universe is all, that which is no part of it is nothing, and consequently nowhere.
Thomas Hobbes
Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly.
Francis Bacon
Now the soul says, ‘Lord, where shall I go? You have the words of eternal life.’ [John 6: 68] Here he centers, here he settles. It is the entrance of heaven to him; he sees his interest in God.
Joseph Alleine
[Thine] face is not worth sunburning.
William Shakespeare
What you doStill betters what is done. When you speak, sweet.I'ld have you do it ever: when you sing,I'ld have you buy and sell so, so give alms,Pray so; and, for the ordering your affairs,To sing them too: when you do dance, I wish youA wave o' the sea, that you might ever doNothing but that; move still, still so,And own no other function: each your doing,So singular in each particular,Crowns what you are doing in the present deed,That all your acts are queens.
William Shakespeare
I will not meddle with that which I cannot mend.
Thomas Fuller
I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, heal'd by the same means, warm'd and cool'd by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, do we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that.
William Shakespeare
As full of spirit as the month of May.
William Shakespeare
In the first place, most princes apply themselves to the arts of war, in which I have neither ability nor interest, instead of to the good arts of peace. They are generally more set on acquiring new kingdoms by hook or by crook than on governing well those that they already have.
Thomas More
Hell is truth seen too late.
Thomas Hobbes
Yet nothing can to nothing fall,Nor any place be empty quite;Therefore I think my breast hath allThose pieces still, though they be not unite;And now, as broken glasses showA hundred lesser faces, soMy rags of heart can like, wish, and adore,But after one such love, can love no more.
John Donne
All the world's a stage And all the men and women merely players.
William Shakespeare
I have shown in all the foregoing parts of this work that the Bible and Testament are impositions and forgeries; and I leave the evidence I have produced in proof of it to be refuted, if any one can do it; and I leave the ideas that are suggested in the conclusion of the work to rest on the mind of the reader; certain as I am that when opinions are free, either in matters of govemment or religion, truth will finally and powerfully prevail.
Thomas Paine
I should think this a gull, but that the white-bearded fellow speaks it; knavery cannot, sure, hide himself in such reverence.
William Shakespeare
Forgiveness is the most tender part of love.
John Sheffield
May it please your Majesty I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place but as the House is pleased to direct me whose servant I am here.
William Lenthall
The British boy suffers the greatest restraint during the period when the call of nature, the instincts of play and adventure, are most urgent. Naturally, he looks eagerly forward to the time of escape, which he fondly imagines will be when his boyhood is over and he is free of masters.
William Henry Hudson
… scientific thought does not mean thought about scientific subjects with long names. There are no scientific subjects. The subject of science is the human universe; that is to say, everything that is, or has been, or may be related to man.
William Kingdon Clifford
Hope! of all ills that men endure The only cheap and universal cure.
Abraham Cowley
One man in his time plays many parts.
William Shakespeare
But what is woman? Only one of nature's agreeable blunders.
Abraham Cowley
Christmas ought to be brought up to date,” Maria said. “It ought to have gangsters, and aeroplanes and a lot of automatic pistols.
John Masefield
Let them obey that know not how to rule.
William Shakespeare
They do not love that do not show their love.
William Shakespeare
O, she's warm!If this be magic, let it be an artLawful as eating.
William Shakespeare
What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated.
Thomas Paine
When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.
William Shakespeare
Lo, which a greet thing is affeccioun!Men may die of imaginacioun,So depe may impressioun be take.
Geoffrey Chaucer
It were a grief so brief to part with thee.Farewell.
William Shakespeare
Romeo: Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much.Mercutio: No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door; but 'tis enough, 'twill serve. Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man.
William Shakespeare
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,To the last syllable of recorded time;And all our yesterdays have lighted foolsThe way to dusty death.- Macbeth Act V, Scene V
William Shakespeare
O war! thou son of Hell!
William Shakespeare
If music be the food of love, play on,Give me excess of it; that surfeiting,The appetite may sicken, and so die.
William Shakespeare
Let the fear of danger be a spur to prevent it; he that fears not, gives advantage to the danger.
Francis Quarles
The most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties, and the greatest miseries, that have afflicted the human race have had their origin in this thing called revelation, or revealed religion. It has been the most dishonourable belief against the character of the divinity, the most destructive to morality, and the peace and happiness of man, that ever was propagated since man began to exist. It is better, far better, that we admitted, if it were possible, a thousand devils to roam at large, and to preach publicly the doctrine of devils, if there were any such, than that we permitted one such impostor and monster as Moses, Joshua, Samuel, and the Bible prophets, to come with the pretended word of God in his mouth, and have credit among us.Whence arose all the horrid assassinations of whole nations of men, women, and infants, with which the Bible is filled; and the bloody persecutions, and tortures unto death and religious wars, that since that time have laid Europe in blood and ashes; whence arose they, but from this impious thing called revealed religion, and this monstrous belief that God has spoken to man? The lies of the Bible have been the cause of the one, and the lies of the Testament of the other.
Thomas Paine
Be not lost So poorly in your thoughts.
William Shakespeare
I have furnished myself with a Bible and Testament; and I can say also that I have found them to be much worse books than I had conceived. If I have erred in any thing, in the former part of the Age of Reason, it has been by speaking better of some parts than they deserved.
Thomas Paine
What comes from the heart goes to the heart.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
What cannot be avoided t'were childish weakness to lament or fear.
William Shakespeare
How art thou out of breath when thou hast breathTo say to me that thou art out of breath?
William Shakespeare
Modest doubt is call'd the beacon of the wise.
William Shakespeare
The course of true love never did run smooth.
William Shakespeare
Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are and what they ought to be.
William Hazlitt
Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty?
William Shakespeare
Pride perceiving humility honourable often borrows her cloak.
Thomas Fuller
A grief without a pang, void, dark and drear,A drowsy, stifled, unimpassioned grief,Which finds no natural outlet or relief,In word, or sigh, or tear.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
We are much beholden to Machiavelli and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do . For it is not possible to join serpentine wisdom with the columbine innocency, except men know exactly all the conditions of the serpent; his baseness and going upon his belly, his volubility and lubricity, his envy and sting, and the rest; that is, all forms and natures of evil. For without this, virtue lieth open and unfenced. Nay, an honest man can do no good upon those that are wicked, to reclaim them, without the help of the knowledge of evil.
Francis Bacon
Alack, there lies more peril in thine eyeThan twenty of their swords: look thou but sweet,And I am proof against their enmity.
William Shakespeare
To climb steep hills Requires slow pace at first.
William Shakespeare
Good-nature, or what is often considered as such, is the most selfish of all the virtues: it is nine times out of ten mere indolence of disposition.
William Hazlitt
The honester the man the worse luck.
John Ray
One sword keeps another in the sheath.
George Herbert