414 quotes
Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses; whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings.
A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775)
Some fiery fop, with new commission vain,
Who sleeps on brambles till he kills his man;
Some frolic drunkard, reeling from a feast,
Provokes a broil, and stabs you for a jest.
London: A Poem (1738)
'Paradise Lost' is one of the books which the reader admires and lays down, and forgets to take up again. None ever wished it longer than it is.
Lives of the English Poets (1779)
In this work are exhibited, in a very high degree, the two most engaging powers of an author. New things are made familiar, and familiar things are made new.
Lives of the English Poets (1779)
To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labour tends, and of which every desire prompts the prosecution.
The Rambler (1750)
Very few live by choice. Every man is placed in his present condition by causes which acted without his foresight and with which he did not always willingly cooperate.
The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759)
I have always suspected that the reading is right, which requires many words to prove it wrong; and the emendation wrong, that cannot without so much labour appear to be right.
There mark what Ills the Scholar's Life assail,
Toil, Envy, Want, the Garret, and the Jail.
The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749)
The world is not yet exhausted: let me see something to-morrow which I never saw before.
The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759)
Milton, Madam, was a genius that could cut a Colossus from a rock; but could not carve heads upon cherry-stones.
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)
There Poetry shall tune her sacred voice,
And wake from ignorance the Western World.
The Tragedy of Irene (1749)
This mournful truth is everywhere confess'd,
Slow rises worth by poverty depress'd.
I live in the crowd of jollity, not so much to enjoy company as to shun myself.
The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759)
GRUBSTREET — The name of a street near Moorsfield, London, much inhabited by writers of small histories, dictionaries, and temporary poems.
A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)
There is no wisdom in useless and hopeless sorrow; but there is something in it so like virtue, that he who is wholly without it cannot be loved.
Trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed (1919)
Declamation roared, while Passion slept.
Prologue at the Opening of Drury Lane Theatre (1747)
The future is purchased by the present.
The Rambler (1750)
You see they'd have fitted him to a T.
Towering in confidence of twenty-one.