18th-century Author Quotes

What should I do if in fretful sleep
The ghosts of the slaughtered were to appear,
Bloody, pale, and wan, and weep
In front of me, what should I do?

Matthias Claudius
Matthias Claudius
Thou tyrant whom I will not name,
Whom heaven and hell alike disclaim;
Abhorred and shunned, for different ends,
By angels, Jesuits, beasts and fiends!...
That wretch, if such a wretch there be,
Who hopes for happiness from thee,
May search successfully as well
For truth in whores and ease in hell.

With leaden foot time creeps along
While Delia is away.

The Lawyers may revere that tree
Where thieves so oft have swung,
Since, by the Law's most wise decree,
Her thieves are never hung.

Let those who feast at ease on dainty fare,
Pity the reapers, who their feasts prepare.

Should we miss but a tree where we used to be playing,
Or find the wood cut where we sauntered a-Maying,—
If the yew-seat's away, or the ivy's a-wanting,
We hate the fine lawn and the new-fashioned planting.
Each thing called improvement seems blackened with crimes,
If it tears up one record of blissful old times.

Susanna Blamire
Susanna Blamire
One crowded hour of glorious life
Is worth an age without a name.

It often happens that the quotations constitute the most valuable part of a book.

People are far more sincere and generous than in Germany; therefore our Americans live more quietly and peacefully together than the Europeans; and all this is the result of the liberty which they enjoy and which makes them all equal.

I vow and protest there's more plague than pleasure with a secret.

A man should never boast of his courage, nor a woman of her virtue, lest their doing so should be the cause of calling their possession of them into question.

Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington
Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington
Strictly speaking, the idea of a scientific poem is probably as nonsensical as that of a poetic science.

Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
How little do they know human nature, who think they can say no to passion, so far shalt thou go, and no farther!

The only impregnable citadel of virtue is religion; for there is no bulwark of mere morality, which some temptation may not overtop or undermine, and destroy.

Jane Porter
Jane Porter
When in company with literary women, make no allusions to 'learned ladies,' or 'blue stockings,' or express surprise that they should have any knowledge of housewifery, or needle-work, or dress; or that they are able to talk on 'common things.' It is rude and foolish and shows that you really know nothing about them, either as a class or as individuals.

Eliza Leslie
Eliza Leslie
The ordinary manner of spending their time, is the only way of judging of people's inclination and genius.

Celestial sounds have sometimes been heard on earth.

Ann Radcliffe
Ann Radcliffe
Taste is, in general, considered as that faculty of the human mind by which we perceive and enjoy whatever is beautiful or sublime in the works of nature or art.

Archibald Alison
Archibald Alison
He is the happiest who renders the greatest number happy.

Mirror, mirror, here I stand. Who is the fairest in the land?

Wilhelm Grimm
Wilhelm Grimm
Yes, I'm in love, I feel it now And Caelia has undone me; And yet I swear I can't tell how The pleasing plague stole on me.

Real misery delights not in reproaches and complaints. It is like charity and love - silent, long suffering and mild.

Lady Caroline Lamb
Lady Caroline Lamb
This piercing cold I feel:
my dead wife's comb, in our bedroom
under my heel...

Don't kill!... The fly is asking you To save his life By rubbing his hands together

It is universally allowed that, though nothing can be more interesting in itself than the conversation of two lovers, yet nothing can be more insipid in detail - just as the heavenly fragrance of the rose becomes vapid and sickly under all the attempts made to retain and embody its exquisite odor.