Anna Laetitia Barbauld Quotes

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All those who love Nature she loves in return, and will richly reward, not perhaps with the good things, as they are commonly called, but with the best things, of this world; not with money and titles, horses and carriages, but with bright and happy thoughts, contentment and peace of mind.

Anna Laetitia Barbauld
Lo! the bright train their radiant wings unfold, With silver fring'd and freckl'd o'er with gold. On the gay bosom of some fragrant flower They idly fluttering live their little hour; Their life all pleasure, and their task all play, All spring their age, and sunshine all their day.

Anna Laetitia Barbauld
While Genius was thus wasting his strength in eccentric flights, I saw a person of a very different appearance, named Application.

Anna Laetitia Barbauld
Society than solitude is worse, And man to man is still the greatest curse.

Anna Laetitia Barbauld
What atom forms of insect life appear! And who can follow Nature's pencil here? Their wings with azure, green and purple gloss'd, Studded with color eyes, with gems embossed, Inlaid with pearl, and marked with various stains Of lovely crimson, through their dusky veins.

Anna Laetitia Barbauld
Of her scorn the maid repented, And the shepherd - of his love.

Anna Laetitia Barbauld
So fades a summer cloud away;
So sinks the gale when storms are o'er;
So gently shuts the eye of day;
So dies a wave along the shore.

Anna Laetitia Barbauld
Thy peace is sealed, thy rest is sure,
My sorrows are to come.

Anna Laetitia Barbauld
If mind, as ancient sages taught,
A never dying flame,
Still shifts thro' matter's varying forms,
In every form the same, Beware, lest in the worm you crush
A brother's soul you find;
And tremble lest thy luckless hand
Dislodge a kindred mind.

Anna Laetitia Barbauld
Let us confess a truth, humiliating to human pride; — a very small part only of the opinions of the coolest philosopher are the result of fair reasoning; the rest are formed by his education, his temperament, by the age in which he lives, by trains of thought directed to a particular track through some accidental association — in short, by prejudice.

Anna Laetitia Barbauld
Child of mortality, whence comest thou? Why is thy countenance sad, and why are thine eyes red with weeping?

Anna Laetitia Barbauld
Life! I know not what thou art,
But know that thou and I must part;
And when, or how, or where we met,
I own to me's a secret yet.

Anna Laetitia Barbauld
We should contract our ideas of education, and expect no more from it than it is able to perform.

Anna Laetitia Barbauld
Many things I knew, I have forgotten; many things I thought I knew, I find I know nothing about; some things I know, I have found not worth knowing; and some things I would give — O what would one not give to know? are beyond the reach of human ken.

Anna Laetitia Barbauld
Who can resist those dumb beseeching eyes,
Where genuine eloquence persuasive lies?
Those eyes, where language fails, display thy heart
Beyond the pomp of phrase and pride of art.

Anna Laetitia Barbauld
The world has little to bestow
Where two fond hearts in equal love are joined.

Anna Laetitia Barbauld
The well-taught philosophic mind
To all compassion gives;
Casts round the world an equal eye,
And feels for all that lives.

Anna Laetitia Barbauld
Come calm content serene and sweet,
O gently guide my pilgrim feet
To find thy hermit cell.

Anna Laetitia Barbauld
Man is the nobler growth our realms supply,
And souls are ripened in our northern sky.

Anna Laetitia Barbauld
Flowers, the sole luxury which nature knew,
In Eden's pure and guiltless garden grew—
Gay without toil, and lovely without art,
They spring to cheer the sense, and glad the heart.

Anna Laetitia Barbauld
Haste, precious pledge of happy love, to go
Auspicious borne through life's mysterious gate.

Anna Laetitia Barbauld
Health to my friend, and long unbroken years,
By storms unruffled and unstained by tears:
Winged by new joys may each white minute fly;
Spring on her cheek, and sunshine in her eye.

Anna Laetitia Barbauld
We may think all religions beneficial, and believe of one alone that it is true.

Anna Laetitia Barbauld
Happy is he to whom, in the maturer season of life, there remains one tried and constant friend...

Anna Laetitia Barbauld
If e'er thy breast with freedom glow'd,
And spurn'd a tyrant's chain,
Let not thy strong oppressive force
A free-born mouse detain.

Anna Laetitia Barbauld