215 quotes
In the wicked there’s no vice,
Of which the saints have not a spice,
And yet that thing that’s pious in
The one, in the other is a sin.
Is it not ridiculous, and nonsense,
A saint should be a slave to conscience?
Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)
Laws do not put the least restraint
Upon our freedom, but maintain ’t;
Or, if it does, ’tis for our good,
To give us freer latitude;
For wholesome laws preserve us free,
By stinting of our liberty.
Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)
There’s but the twinkling of a star
Between a man of peace and war;
A thief and justice, fool and knave,
A huffing off’cer and a slave;
A crafty lawyer and a pickpocket,
A great philosopher and a blockhead;
A formal preacher and a player,
A learn’d physician and man-slayer.
Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)
Man with raging drink inflam’d,
Is far more savage and untamed;
Supplies his loss of wit and sense
With barb’rousness and insolence;
Believes himself, the less he’s able
The more heroic and formidable.
Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)
Critics are a kind of wild flies, that breed
In wild fig trees, and when they’re grown up feed
Upon the raw fruit of the nobler kind,
And by their nibbling on the outer rind,
Open the pores, and make way for the sun
To ripen it sooner than he would have done.
Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)
When civil dudgeon first grew high,
And men fell out, they knew not why;
When hard words, jealousies, and fears
Set folk together by the ears,
And made them fight, like mad or drunk,
For dame Religion, as for punk.
Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)
Look before you ere you leap.
Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)
Prejudice may be considered as a continual false medium of viewing things, for prejudiced persons not only never speak well, but also never think well, of those whom they dislike, and the whole character and conduct is considered with an eye to that particular thing which offends them.
Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)
Nothing’s more dull and negligent
Than an old lazy government,
That knows no interest of state,
But such as serves a present strait,
And, to patch up, or shift, will close
Or break alike with friends or foes;
That runs behindhand, and has spent
Its credit to the last extent;
And, the first time ’tis at a loss,
Has not one true friend, nor one cross.
Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)
The Queen of night, whose large command
Rules all the sea, and half the land,
And over moist and crazy brains,
In high spring-tides, at midnight reigns,
Was now declining to the west,
To go to bed, and take her rest.
Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)
For as two cheats, that play one game,
Are both defeated of their aim;
So those who play a game of state,
And only cavil in debate,
Altho’ there’s nothing lost nor won,
The public bus’ness is undone,
Which still the longer ’tis in doing,
Becomes the surer way to ruin.
Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)
No man takes or keeps a vow,
But just as he sees others do;
Nor are they ’blig’d to be so brittle
As not to yield and bow a little:
For as best temper’d blades are found,
Before they break, to bend quite round;
So truest oaths are still more tough,
And tho’ they bow, are breaking proof.
Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)
All our scourging of religion
Began with tumult and sedition;
When hurricanes of fierce commotion
Became strong motives to devotion,
As carnal seamen, in a storm,
Turn pious converts and reform.
Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)
Those that go up hill, use to bow,
Their bodies forward, and stoop low
To poise themselves, and sometimes creep,
When th’ way is difficult and steep:
So those at court, that do address,
By low ignoble offices,
Can stoop at anything that’s base,
To wriggle into trust and grace,
Are like to rise to greatness sooner,
Than those that go by worth and honor.
Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)
So Noah, when he anchor’d safe on
The mountain’s top, his lofty haven,
And all the passengers he bore
Were on the new world set ashore,
He made it next his chief design
To plant and propagate a vine,
Which since has overwhelmed and drown’d
Far greater numbers, on dry ground
Of wretched mankind, one by one,
Than all the flood before had done.
Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)