Skip to content

The immortal mind, superior to his fate,
Amid the outrage of external things,
Firm as the solid base of this great world,
Rests on his own foundation. Blow, ye winds!
Ye waves! ye thunders! roll your tempests on!
Shake, ye old pillars of the marble sky!
Till at its orbs and all its worlds of fire
Be loosen’d from their seats; yet still serene,
The unconquer’d mind looks down upon the wreck;
And ever stronger as the storms advance,
Firm through the closing ruin holds his way,
When nature calls him to the destin’d goal.

— Mark Akenside Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)

Another quote →

More quotes by Mark Akenside

Man loves knowledge, and the beams of truth
More welcome touch his understanding's eye
Than all the blandishments of sound his ear,
Than all of taste his tongue.

The Pleasures of the Imagination (1744)

Such and so various are the tastes of men!

The Pleasures of the Imagination (1744)

The man forget not, though in rags he lies,
And know the mortal through a crown's disguise.

Epistle to Curio (1744)

Oft the hours
From morn to eve have stolen unmark'd away,
While mute attention hung upon his lips.

The Pleasures of the Imagination (1744)

Heaven's all-subduing will,
With good the progeny of ill,
Attempreth every state below.

Odes on Several Subjects (1745)

All Mark Akenside quotes →

Attribution

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