Charles Churchill Quotes

57 Sourced Quotes

There's a strange something, which without a brain
Fools feel, and which e'en wise men can't explain,
Planted in man, to bind him to that earth,
In dearest ties, from whence he drew his birth.

Charles Churchill
And adepts in the speaking trade
Keep a cough by them ready made.

Charles Churchill
Why should we fear; and what? The laws?
They all are armed in virtue's cause;
And aiming at the self-same end,
Satire is always virtue's friend.

Charles Churchill
…He for subscribers baits his hook,
And takes your cash; but where's the book?
No matter where; wise fear, you know,
Forbids the robbing of a foe;
But what, to serve our private ends,
Forbids the cheating of our friends?
Satirizing Samuel johnson

Charles Churchill
With curious art the brain, too finely wrought,
Preys on herself, and is destroy'd by thought:
Constant attention wears the active mind,
Blots out our powers, and leaves a blank behind.

Charles Churchill
Of actors:
The strolling tribe, a despicable race,
Like wand'ring Arabs, shift from place to place.

Charles Churchill
There webs were spread of more than common size,
And half-starved spiders prey'd on half-starved flies.

Charles Churchill
No statesman e'er will find it worth his pains
To tax our labours and excise our brains.

Charles Churchill
Genius is of no country; her pure ray Spreads all abroad, as general as the day.

Charles Churchill
Who to patch up his fame, or fill his purse,
Still pilfers wretched plans, and makes them worse;
Like gypsies, lest the stolen brat be known,
Defacing first, then claiming for his own.

Charles Churchill
When fiction rises pleasing to the eye, men will believe, because they love the lie; but truth herself, if clouded with a frown, must have some solemn proof to pass her down.

Charles Churchill
Amongst the sons of men how few are known
Who dare be just to merit not their own?

Charles Churchill
Old-age, a second child, by Nature cursed
With more and greater evils than the first,
Weak, sickly, full of pains; in ev'ry breath
Railing at life, and yet afraid of death.

Charles Churchill
Who, with tame cowardice familiar grown, would hear my thoughts, but fear to speak their own.

Charles Churchill
But, spite of all the criticising elves,
Those who would make us feel—must feel themselves.

Charles Churchill
Though by whim, envy, or resentment led,
They damn those authors whom they never read.

Charles Churchill
Where he falls short, 'tis Nature's fault alone;
Where he succeeds, the merit's all his own.
Of the actor, Thomas Sheridan

Charles Churchill
Learn'd without sense, and venerably dull.

Charles Churchill
No merit but mere knack of rhyme,
Short gleams of sense, and satire out of time.

Charles Churchill
Keep up appearances; there lies the test;
The world will give thee credit for the rest.
Outward be fair, however foul within;
Sin if thou wilt, but then in secret sin.

Charles Churchill
The danger chiefly lies in acting well;
No crime's so great as daring to excel.

Charles Churchill
Men the most infamous are fond of fame,
And those who fear not guilt yet start at shame.

Charles Churchill
Greatly his foes he dreads, but more his friends; He hurts me most who lavishly commends.

Charles Churchill
As the law does think fit
No butchers shall on juries sit.

Charles Churchill
The rigid saint, by whom no mercy's shown To saints whose lives are better than his own.

Charles Churchill
The virtuous to those mansions go
Where pleasures unembitter'd flow,
Where, leading up a jocund band,
Vigor and Youth dance hand in hand,
Whilst Zephyr, with harmonious gales,
Pipes softest music through the vales,
And Spring and Flora, gaily crown'd,
With velvet carpet spread the ground;
With livelier blush where roses bloom,
And every shrub expires perfume.

Charles Churchill
Within the brain's most secret cells
A certain Lord Chief Justice dwells
Of sovereign power, whom one and all
With common voice, we Reason call.

Charles Churchill