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Wit's an unruly engine, wildly striking
Sometimes a friend, sometimes the engineer.

— George Herbert The Temple (1633)

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More quotes by George Herbert

A verse may finde him,who a sermon flies
And turns delight into a sacrifice.

The Temple (1633)

Knowledge is folly unless grace guide it.

The worst speak something good; if all want sense,
God takes a text, and preacheth Pa-ti-ence.

The Temple (1633)

Love your neighbor, yet pull not down your hedge.

Jacula Prudentum (1651)

Do well and right, and let the world sink.

Herbert's Remains (1652)

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A tragedy can never suffer by delay: a comedy may, because the allusions or the manners represented in it maybe temporary.

Horace Walpole

The world is a comedy to those that think; a tragedy to those that feel– a solution of why Democritus laughed and Heraclitus wept.

Horace Walpole

Laughter is the closest thing to the grace of God.

Karl Barth The Harper Book of Quotations (1993)

Generosity without delicacy, like wit without judgment, generally brings as much pain as pleasure.

Frances Burney Evelina (1778)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: George Herbert (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.