289 quotes
Oh, for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade,
Where rumour of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,
Might never reach me more!
The Task (1785)
They fix attention, heedless of your pain,
With oaths like rivets forced into the brain;
And e'en when sober truth prevails throughout,
They swear it, till affirmance breeds a doubt.
Conversation (1782)
But what is truth? 'Twas Pilate's question put
To Truth itself, that deign'd him no reply.
The Task (1785)
My dog! what remedy remains,
Since, teach you all I can,
I see you, after all my pains,
So much resemble man!
It seems idolatry with some excuse,
When our forefather Druids in their oaks
Imagined sanctity.
The Yardley Oak (1791)
Praise enough
To fill the ambition of a private man,
That Chatham's language was his mother-tongue.
The Task (1785)
O'erjoyed was he to find
That, though on pleasure she was bent,
She had a frugal mind.
The Diverting History of John Gilpin (1785)
The wildest scorner of his Maker's laws
Finds in a sober moment time to pause
Tirocinium (1785)
My sister, and my sister’s child,
Myself, and children three,
Will fill the chaise; so you must ride
On horseback after we.
The Diverting History of John Gilpin (1785)
What peaceful hours I once enjoyed!
How sweet their memory still!
But they have left an aching void
The world can never fill.
Olney Hymns (1779)
But many a crime deemed innocent on earth
Is registered in Heaven; and these no doubt
Have each their record, with a curse annex'd.
The Task (1785)
There is a fountain fill'd with blood
Drawn from Emmanuel's veins;
And sinners, plung'd beneath that flood,
Lose all their guilty stains.
Olney Hymns (1779)
Hence jarring sectaries may learn
Their real interest to discern;
That brother should not war with brother,
And worry and devour each other.
He that negotiates between God and man,
As God's ambassador, the grand concerns
Of judgment and of mercy, should beware
Of lightness in his speech.
The Task (1785)
Fate steals along with silent tread,
Found oftenest in what least we dread,
Frowns in the storm with angry brow,
But in the sunshine strikes the blow.
A business with an income at its heels.
The still small voice is wanted.
The Task (1785)
His still refuted quirks he still repeats,
New-raised objections with new quibbles meets;
Till sinking in the quicksand he defends,
He dies disputing, and the contest ends.
The mind, relaxing into needful sport,
Should turn to writers of an abler sort,
Whose wit well managed, and whose classic style,
Give truth a lustre, and make wisdom smile.
God never meant that man should scale the Heavens
By strides of human wisdom. In his works,
Though wondrous, he commands us in his word
To seek him rather where his mercy shines.
The Task (1785)