English Author Quotes

A king may spille, a king may save; A king may make of lorde a knave; And of a knave a lorde also.

They plucked communion tables down
And broke our painted glasses;
They threw our altars to the ground
And tumbled down the crosses.
They set up Cromwell and his heir—
The Lord and Lady Claypole—
Because they hated Common Prayer,
The organ and the maypole.

In following their line through, and those of Plantagenet and Tudor, there is but little to soothe the mind.

Charlotte Turner Smith

Celestial sounds have sometimes been heard on earth.

The sea never resting, but perpetually winning land in one place and losing in another, doth show what may be done in length of time by a continual operation, not subject unto ceasing or intermission.

Gabriel Plattes

A little common sense, goodwill, and a tiny dose of unselfishness could make this goodly earth into an earthly paradise.

Richard Aldington

But while our parting was mutually acceptable and even expedient, still it was painful. And I would like to think it hurt both of us, for I certainly felt it: a wrenching inside, like some small but improbably necessary organ was no longer in there, that it was missing, torn or fallen out. And at the time I'd thought that was the end of it; what was missing was gone forever

We, however, place the love of God and His honour above our own and above the acquisition of many regions

Richard I of England

The wife ought to have the first child and the husband the second, then there wouldn't ever be any more.

My Lord Tomnoddy is thirty-four;
The Earl can last but a few years more.
My Lord in the Peers will take his place:
Her Majesty's councils his words will grace.
Office he'll hold and patronage sway;
Fortunes and lives he will vote away;
And what are his qualifications?—ONE!
He's the Earl of Fitzdotterel's eldest son.

Robert Barnabas Brough

The total and universal want of manners, both in males and females, is... remarkable... that polish which removes the coarser and rougher parts of our nature is unknown and undreamed of.

Frances Trollope

For when thy folding-star arising shows
His paly circlet, at his warning lamp
The fragrant hours, and elves
Who slept in buds the day,
And many a nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge
And sheds the fresh'ning dew, and lovelier still,
The pensive pleasures sweet
Prepare thy shadowy car.

William Collins

The walks put on their summer liveries,
And all things else did hold like similes:
The trees with leaves, with fruits, with flowers clad,
Embrac'd each other, seeming to be glad.

The difficult art I was attempting had, indeed a powerful fascination, before which the past faded, the future receded, and the whole of experience narrowed down to this stretch of glancing, glimmering water, and the fly I was trying to cast across it.

It is frequently of much importance, not to the comfort only, but to the recovery of the patient, that he should be enabled to look upon his Physician as his friend.

Thomas Gisborne

The axe is laid to the root of the tree.... I will hew it down. And as I live, I will plague your Honor, Pomp, Greatness, Superfluity, and confound it into parity, equality, community.

In a herber green, asleep where I lay,
The birds sang sweet in the mids of the day;
I dreamed fast of mirth and play.
In youth is pleasure, in youth is pleasure.

The ignorant frighten children with ghosts, and the better educated assure them there is no such thing. Our understanding may believe the latter, but our instincts believe the former; so that, out of this education, we retain the terror, and just believe enough to make it very troublesome whenever we are placed in circumstances that awaken it.

Catherine Crowe

Bright clasp of her whole hand around my finger My daughter as we walk together now. All my life I'll feel a ring invisibly Circle this bone with shining When she is grown.

Stephen Spender

Look on the grave where thou must sleep Thy last, and strongest foe; It is endurance not to weep, If that repose seem woe.

The loves that meet in Paradise shall cast out fear, And Paradise hath room for you and me and all.

Christina Rossetti

So Orpheus did for his owne bride,
So I unto my selfe alone will sing,
The woods shall to me answer and my Eccho ring.

Any anxious thought as to the means to be employed in the accomplishment of our purposes is quite unnecessary. If the end is already secured, then it follows that all the steps leading to it are secured also.

By the waters of Life we sat together,
Hand in hand, in the golden days
Of the beautiful early summer weather,
When skies were purple and breath was praise.

O God! O God! that it were possible To undo things done; to call back yesterday! That Time could turn up his swift sandy glass, To untell the days, and to redeem these hours.