89 quotes
Fools are stubborn in their way,
As coins are harden’d by th’ allay;
And obstinacy’s ne’er so stiff
As when ’tis in a wrong belief.
Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)
He ne’er consider’d it as loath
To look a gift-horse in the mouth,
And very wisely would lay forth
No more upon it than ’twas worth.
Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)
Honour is like that glassy bubble,
That finds philosophers such trouble,
Whose least part crack’d, the whole does fly
And wits are crack’d to find out why.
Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)
Some have mistaken blocks and posts,
For spectres, apparitions, ghosts,
With saucer-eyes and horns; and some
Have heard the devil beat a drum.
Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)
’Tis not now who’s stout and bold?
But who bears hunger best, and cold?
And he’s approv’d the most deserving,
Who longest can hold out at starving.
Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)
As you sow, y’ are like to reap.
Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)
He that has two strings t’ his bow.
Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)
He was in logic a great critic,
Profoundly skill’d in analytic;
He could distinguish and divide
A hair ’twixt south and south-west side.
Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)
He’d undertake to prove, by force
Of argument, a man’s no horse.
He’d prove a buzzard is no fowl,
And that a lord may be an owl,
A calf an alderman, a goose a justice,
And rooks, committeemen or trustees.
Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)
There is a kind of physiognomy in the titles of books no less than in the faces of men, by which a skilful observer will as well know what to expect from the one as the other.
Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)
Authority intoxicates,
And makes mere sots of magistrates;
The fumes of it invade the brain,
And make men giddy, proud and vain;
By this the fool commands the wise;
The noble with the base complies;
The sot assumes the role of wit,
And cowards make the base submit.
Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)
Success, the mark no mortal wit,
Or surest hand, can always hit;
For whatsoe’er we perpetrate,
We do but row—w’are steer’d by fate,
Which in success oft disinherits,
For spurious causes, noblest merits.
Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)
’Tis the temptation of the devil
That makes all human actions evil;
For saints may do the same things by
The spirit, in sincerity,
Which other men are tempted to,
And at the devil’s instance do:
And yet the actions be contrary,
Just as the saints and wicked vary.
Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)
Whipping, that’s virtue’s governess,
Tutoress of arts and sciences;
That mends the gross mistakes of nature,
And puts new life into dull matter;
That lays foundation for renown,
And all the honours of the gown.
Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)
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)