Quote collection
387 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"No murmur arose from its bed, and so gently it wandered along, that the pearly pebbles upon which we loved to gaze, far down within its bosom, stirred not at all, but lay in a motionless content, each in its own old station, shining on gloriously forever."
"The Merchant, to Secure His Treasure The merchant, to secure his treasure, Conveys it in a borrowed name: Euphelia serves to grace my measure, But Cloe is my real flame. My softest verse, my darling lyre Upon Euphelia's toilet lay - When Cloe noted her desire That I should sing, that I should play. My lyre I tune, my voice I raise, But with my numbers mix my sighs; And whilst I sing Euphelia's praise, I fix my soul on Cloe's eyes. Fair Cloe blushed; Euphelia frowned: I sung, and gazed; I played, and trembled: And Venus to the Loves around Remarked how ill we all dissembled."
"If the propositions of this Discourse are tenable, the "state of progressive collapse" is precisely that state in which alone we are warranted in considering All Things."
"I stand amid the roar Of a surf-tormented shore, And I hold within my hand Grains of golden sand- How few! yet how they creep Through my fingers to the deep, While I weep- while I weep!"
"Thou wouldst be loved? - then let thy heart From its present pathway part not! Being everything which now thou art, Be nothing which thou art not. So with the world thy gentle ways, Thy grace, thy more than beauty, Shall be an endless theme of praise, And love - a simple duty."
"Literature is the most noble of professions. In fact, it is about the only one fit for a man."
"I have not only labored solely for the benefit of others (receiving for myself a miserable pittance), but have been forced to model my thoughts at the will of men whose imbecility was evident to all but themselves"
"For my own part, I have never had a thought which I could not set down in words, with even more distinctness than that with which I conceived it."
"The most 'popular,' the most 'successful' writers among us (for a brief period, at least) are, 99 times out of a hundred, persons of mere effrontery-in a word, busy-bodies, toadies, quacks."
"Whether people grow fat by joking, or whether there is something in fat itself which predisposes to a joke, I have never been quite able to determine."
"No pictorial or sculptural combinations of points of human loveliness, do more than approach the living and breathing human beauty as it gladdens our daily path."
"...for the question is of will, and not, as the insanity of logic has assumed of power. It is not that the Deity cannot modify his laws, but that we insult him in imagining a possible necessity for modification. In their origin these laws were fashioned to embrace all contingencies which could lie in the future. With God all is Now."
"As a poet and as a mathematician, he would reason well; as a mere mathematician, he could not have reasoned at all."
"In visions of the dark night I have dreamed of joy departed-- But a waking dream of life and light Hath left me broken-hearted."
"The rudiment of verse may, possibly, be found in the spondee."
"Lord help my poor soul."
"Ah, broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown forever! Let the bell toll!-a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river; And, Guy de Vere, hast thou no tear?-weep now or nevermore!"
"In the tale proper--where there is no space for development of character or for great profusion and variety of incident--mere construction is, of course, far more imperatively demanded than in the novel."
"He must be theory-mad beyond redemption who ... shall ... persist in attempting to reconcile the obstinate oils and waters of Poetry and Truth."
"Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!"