203 quotes
His house was known to all the vagrant train,
He chid their wanderings but reliev'd their pain;
The long remembered beggar was his guest,
Whose beard descending swept his aged breast.
The Deserted Village (1770)
Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay;
Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade;
A breath can make them, as a breath has made;
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroyed, can never be supplied.
The Deserted Village (1770)
Forc'd from their homes, a melancholy train,
To traverse climes beyond the western main;
Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around,
And Niagara stuns with thundering sound.
The Traveller (1764)
Heroes themselves had fallen behind!
—Whene'er he went before.
O blest retirement! friend to life's decline—
Retreats from care, that never must be mine
How blest is he who crowns, in shades like these,
A youth of labour with an age of ease!
The Deserted Village (1770)
I armed her against the censures of the world; showed her that books were sweet unreproaching companions to the miserable, and that if they could not bring us to enjoy life, they would at least teach us to endure it.
The Vicar of Wakefield (1766)
Yet, he was kind, or, if severe in aught,
The love he bore to learning was in fault;
The village all declar'd how much he knew,
'Twas certain he could write and cipher too.
The Deserted Village (1770)
The whitewashed wall, the nicely sanded floor,
The varnished clock that clicked behind the door;
The chest contrived a double debt to pay,
A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day.
The Deserted Village (1770)
[To Mr. Johnson] If you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales.
No flocks that range the valley free
To slaughter I condemn;
Taught by that Power that pities me,
I learn to pity them:
But from the mountain’s grassy side
A guiltless feast I bring;
A scrip with herbs and fruits supplied,
And water from the spring.
The Vicar of Wakefield (1766)
So, with decorum all things carry'd;
Miss frown'd, and blush'd, and then was—married.
Baw! Damme, but I'll fight you both, one after the other!
With baskets.
She Stoops to Conquer (1771)
The first blow is half the battle.
She Stoops to Conquer (1771)
In all my wanderings round this world of care,
In all my griefs—and God has given my share—
I still had hopes my latest hours to crown,
Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down.
The Deserted Village (1770)
The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay;
Sat by his fire, and talked the night away,
Wept o'er his wounds, or tales of sorrow done,
Shoulder'd his crutch, and show'd how fields were won.
The Deserted Village (1770)
O Memory! thou fond deceiver.
The Captivity, An Oratorio (1764)
Oh sir! I must not tell my age.
They say women and music should never be dated.
She Stoops to Conquer (1771)
At night returning, every labour sped,
He sits him down, the monarch of a shed;
Smiles by his cheerful fire, and round surveys
His children's looks, that brighten at the blaze;
While his lov'd partner, boastful of her hoard,
Displays her cleanly platter on the board.
The Traveller (1764)
The watch-dog's voice that bay'd the whispering wind,
And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind:
These all in sweet confusion sought the shade,
And fill'd each pause the nightingale had made.
The Deserted Village (1770)
The premises being thus settled, I proceed to observe that the concatenation of self-existence, proceeding in a reciprocal duplicate ratio, naturally produces a problematical dialogism, which in some measure proves that the essence of spirituality may be referred to the second predicable.
The Vicar of Wakefield (1766)