239 quotes
Where have my ravish'd senses been!
What joys, what wonders, have I seen!
Henry in Rosamond (1707)
How beautiful is death, when earn'd by virtue!
Who would not be that youth? What pity is it
That we can die but once to serve our country!
Cato, A Tragedy (1713)
There in no virtue so truly great and godlike as justice.
The ideal man bears the accidents of life
With dignity and grace, the best of circumstances.
Cato, A Tragedy (1713)
Justice discards party, friendship, kindred, and is therefore always represented as blind.
The Guardian (1713)
Cheerfulness is the best promoter of health and is as friendly to the mind as to the body.
What an absurd thing it is to pass over all the valuable parts of a man, and fix our attention on his infirmities.
The Spectator (1711)
There is no passion that steals into the heart more imperceptibly and covers itself under more disguises than pride.
When a man becomes familiar with his goddess, she quickly sinks into a woman.
That nothing is capable of being well set to Musick, that is not Nonsense.
The Spectator (1711)
When love once pleads admission to our hearts,
(In spite of all the virtue we can boast),
The woman that deliberates is lost.
There is nothing which we receive with so much reluctance as advice.
The Spectator (1711)
Of all the diversions of life, there is none so proper to fill up its empty spaces as the reading of useful and entertaining authors.
The Spectator (1711)
Nothing is capable to being well set to music that is not nonsense.
There is not so variable a thing in Nature as a lady's head-dress.
The Spectator (1711)
These widows, sir, are the most perverse creatures in the world.
The Spectator (1711)
An ostentatious man will rather relate a blunder or an absurdity he has committed, than be debarred from talking of his own dear person.
The Spectator (1711)
Modesty is not only an ornament, but also a guard to virtue.
The Spectator (1711)
Antidotes are what you take to prevent dotes.
The Drummer (1716)
The friendships of the world are oft
Confederacies in vice, or leagues of pleasure;
Ours has severest virtue for its basis,
And such a friendship ends not but with life.
Cato, A Tragedy (1713)