Charles Churchill Quotes

57 Sourced Quotes

Be England what she will,
With all her faults she is my country still.

Charles Churchill
Great use they have, when in the hands
Of one like me, who understands,
Who understands the time and place,
The person, manner, and the grace,
Which fools neglect; so that we find,
If all the requisites are join'd,
From whence a perfect joke must spring,
A joke's a very serious thing.

Charles Churchill
Though folly, robed in purple, shines, Though vice exhausts Peruvian mines, Yet shall they tremble and turn pale When satire wields her mighty flail.

Charles Churchill
The oak, when living, monarch of the wood; The English oak, which, dead, commands the flood.

Charles Churchill
Wit, who never once Forgave a brother, shall forgive a dunce.

Charles Churchill
No two on earth in all things can agree;
All have some darling singularity;
Women and men, as well as girls and boys,
In gewgaws take delight, and sigh for toys,
Your sceptres and your crowns, and such like things,
Are but a better kind of toys for kings.
In things indifferent reason bids us choose,
Whether the whim's a monkey or a muse.

Charles Churchill
Little do such men know the toil, the pains, the daily, nightly racking of the brains, to range the thoughts, the matter to digest, to cull fit phrases, and reject the rest.

Charles Churchill
Enough of self, that darling luscious theme,
O'er which philosophers in raptures dream;
Of which with seeming disregard they write
Then prizing most when most they seem to slight.

Charles Churchill
Gipsies, who every ill can cure,
Except the ill of being poor
Who charms 'gainst love and agues sell,
Who can in hen-roost set a spell,
Prepar'd by arts, to them best known
To catch all feet except their own,
Who, as to fortune, can unlock it,
As easily as pick a pocket.

Charles Churchill
Who shall dispute what the Reviewers say? Their word's sufficient; and to ask a reason, In such a state as theirs, is downright treason.

Charles Churchill
When satire flies abroad on falsehood's wing, Short is her life, and impotent her sting; But when to truth allied, the wound she gives Sinks deep, and to remotest ages lives.

Charles Churchill
Childhood, who like an April morn appears,
Sunshine and rain, hopes clouded o'er with fears.

Charles Churchill
A servile race Who, in mere want of fault, all merit place; Who blind obedience pay to ancient schools, Bigots to Greece, and slaves to musty rules.

Charles Churchill
England a fortune-telling host, As num'rous as the stars, could boast; Matrons, who toss the cup, and see The grounds of Fate in grounds of tea....

Charles Churchill
The Scots are poor, cries surly English pride; True is the charge, nor by themselves denied. Are they not then in strictest reason clear, Who wisely come to mend their fortunes here?

Charles Churchill
England, a happy land we know,
Where follies naturally grow,
Where without culture they arise,
And tow'r above the common size.

Charles Churchill
This a sacred rule we find
Among the nicest of mankind,
(Which never might exception brook
From Hobbes even down to Bolingbroke,)
To doubt of facts, however true,
Unless they know the causes too.

Charles Churchill
Most of those evils we poor mortals know From doctors and imagination flow.

Charles Churchill
By different methods different men excel, but where is he who can do all things well?

Charles Churchill
Truth! why shall every wretch of letters Dare to speak truth against his betters! Let ragged virtue stand aloof, Nor mutter accents of reproof; Let ragged wit a mute become, When wealth and power would have her dumb.

Charles Churchill
Nature, through all her works, in great degree,
Borrows a blessing from variety.
Music itself her needful aid requires
To rouse the soul, and wake our dying fires.

Charles Churchill
Who all in raptures their own works rehearse, And drawl out measur'd prose, which they call verse.

Charles Churchill
The villager, born humbly and bred hard,
Content his wealth, and poverty his guard,
In action simply just, in conscience clear,
By guilt untainted, undisturb'd by fear,
His means but scanty, and his wants but few,
Labor his business, and his pleasure too,
Enjoys more comforts in a single hour
Than ages give the wretch condemn'd to power.

Charles Churchill
Quick-circulating slanders mirth afford; and reputation bleeds in every word.

Charles Churchill
Drawn by conceit from reason's plan
How vain is that poor creature man;
How pleas'd in ev'ry paltry elf
To grate about that thing himself.

Charles Churchill
Tis mighty easy o'er a glass of wine
On vain refinements vainly to refine,
To laugh at poverty in plenty's reign,
To boast of apathy when out of pain,
And in each sentence, worthy of the schools,
Varnish'd with sophistry, to deal out rules
Most fit for practice, but for one poor fault
That into practice they can ne'er be brought.

Charles Churchill
Weak is that throne, and in itself unsound,
Which takes not solid virtue for its ground.

Charles Churchill
Enough of satire; in less harden'd times
Great was her force, and mighty were her rhymes.
I've read of men, beyond man's daring brave,
Who yet have trembled at the strokes she gave;
Whose souls have felt more terrible alarms
From her one line, than from a world in arms.

Charles Churchill
With that malignant envy which turns pale, And sickens, even if a friend prevail.

Charles Churchill
Happy, thrice happy now the savage race,
Since Europe took their gold, and gave them grace!
Pastors she sends to help them in their need,
Some who can't write, with others who can't read.

Charles Churchill