289 quotes
Oh! I could thresh his old jacket till I made his pension jingle in his pockets.
Oh! for a closer walk with God,
A calm and heav'nly frame;
A light to shine upon the road
That leads me to the Lamb!
Olney Hymns (1779)
I am out of humanity's reach.
I must finish my journey alone,
Never hear the sweet music of speech;
I start at the sound of my own.
Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk (1782)
My friends, do they now and then send
A wish or a thought after me?
O tell me I yet have a friend,
Though a friend I am never to see.
Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk (1782)
Call'd to the temple of impure delight
He that abstains, and he alone, does right.
If a wish wander that way, call it home;
He cannot long be safe whose wishes roam.
Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take,
The clouds ye so much dread,
Are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head.
Olney Hymns (1779)
Dress drains our cellar dry,
And keeps our larder lean; puts out our fires
And introduces hunger, frost, and woe,
Where peace and hospitality might reign.
The Task (1785)
For truth is unwelcome, however divine.
Low ambition and the thirst of praise.
Table Talk (1782)
True Charity, a plant divinely nurs'd.
Laugh at all you trembled at before.
The Progress of Error (1782)
Some people are more nice than wise.
Pity! Religion has so seldom found
A skilful guide into poetic ground!
The flowers would spring where'er she deign'd to stray
And every muse attend her in her way.
He cannot drink five bottles, bilk the score,
Then kill a constable, and drink five more;
But he can draw a pattern, make a tart,
And has ladies' etiquette by heart.
A tale should be judicious, clear, succinct;
The language plain, and incidents well link’d;
Tell not as new what ev’ry body knows;
And, new or old, still hasten to a close.
Conversation (1782)
He sees that this great roundabout
The world, with all its motley rout,
Church, army, physic, law,
Its customs and its businesses,
Is no concern at all of his,
And says—what says he?—Caw.
Candid, and generous, and just,
Boys care but little whom they trust,
An error soon corrected—
For who but learns in riper years
That man, when smoothest he appears
Is most to be suspected?
Oh that those lips had language! Life has pass'd
With me but roughly since I heard thee last.
On the Receipt of my Mother's Picture out of Norfolk (1798)
All has its date below; the fatal hour
Was register'd in Heav'n ere time began.
We turn to dust, and all our mightiest works
Die too.
The Task (1785)
Necessity invented stools,
Convenience next suggested elbow-chairs,
And Luxury the accomplish'd Sofa last.
The Task (1785)