James Beattie Quotes

30 Sourced Quotes

Ah, who can tell how hard it is to climb
The steep where Fame's proud temple shines afar?

James Beattie
What cannot art and industry perform,
When science plans the progress of their toil!

James Beattie
'Twas thus by the glare of false science betray'd, That leads, to bewilder; and dazzles, to blind...

James Beattie
Some deemed him wondrous wise, and some believed him mad.

James Beattie
In all instances where our experience of the past has been extensive and uniform, our judgment concerning the future amounts to moral certainty.

James Beattie
Is there a heart that music cannot melt?
Alas! how is that rugged heart forlorn.

James Beattie
Fancy a thousand wondrous forms descries
More wildly great than ever pencil drew,
Rocks, torrents, gulfs, and shapes of giant size,
And glittering cliffs on cliffs, and fiery ramparts rise.

James Beattie
No jealousy their dawn of love o'ercast,
Nor blasted were their wedded days with strife;
Each season look'd delightful as it past,
To the fond husband, and the faithful wife.

James Beattie
Borne on the swift, tho' silent wings of time,
Old age comes on apace, to ravage all the clime.

James Beattie
When squint-eyed Slander plies the unhallow'd tongue,
From poison'd maw when Treason weaves his line,
And Muse apostate (infamy to song!)
Grovels, low muttering, at Sedition's shrine.

James Beattie
Let those deplore their doom,
Whose hope still grovels in this dark sojourn;
But lofty souls, who look beyond the tomb,
Can smile at Fate, and wonder how they mourn.

James Beattie
Mine be the breezy hill that skirts the down,
Where a green grassy turf is all I crave,
With here and there a violet bestrewn,
Fast by a brook or fountain's murmuring wave;
And many an evening sun shine sweetly on my grave!

James Beattie
And from the prayer of Want, and plaint of Woe,
O never, never turn away thine ear!
Forlorn, in this bleak wilderness below,
Ah! what were man, should Heaven refuse to hear!

James Beattie
In the deep windings of the grove, no more
The hag obscene, and grisly phantom dwell;
Nor in the fall of mountain-stream, or roar
Of winds, is heard the angry spirit's yell.

James Beattie
Laws, as we read in ancient sages,
Have been like cobwebs in all ages:
Cobwebs for little flies are spread,
And laws for little folks are made;
But if an insect of renown,
Hornet or beetle, wasp or drone,
Be caught in quest of sport or plunder,
The flimsy fetter flies in sunder.

James Beattie
What is a law, if those who make it
Become the forwardest to break it?

James Beattie
They who, by speech or writing, present to the ear or eye of modesty any of the indecencies, are pests of society.

James Beattie
There is not a book on earth so favorable to all the kind and to all the sublime affections, or so unfriendly to hatred and persecution, to tyranny, injustice, and every sort of malevolence, as the Gospel.

James Beattie
But when shall spring visit the mouldering urn?
Oh when shall it dawn on the night of the grave?

James Beattie
Thy shades, thy silence, now be mine,
Thy charms my only theme;
My haunt the hollow cliff, whose pine
Waves o'er the gloomy stream.
Where the sacred owl, on pinions gray,
Breaks from the rustling boughs,
And down the lone vale sails away,
To more profound repose.

James Beattie
'Tis night, and the landscape is lovely no more;
I mourn, but you woodlands I mourn not for you!
For spring is returning your charms to restore,
Perfumed with fresh fragrance and glittering with dew.
Nor yet for the ravage of winter I mourn,
Kind nature the embryo blossom shall save;
But when shall spring visit the mouldering urn?

James Beattie
True dignity is his whose tranquil mind
Virtue has raised above the things below;
Who, every hope and fear to heaven resign'd
Shrinks not, though fortune aims her deadliest blow.

James Beattie
Dreadful is their doom, whom doubt has driven
To censure fate, and pious hope forego.

James Beattie
By the glare of false science betray'd,
That leads to bewilder, and dazzles to blind.

James Beattie
To think everything disputable is a proof of a weak mind and a captious temper.

James Beattie
The love of God ought continually to predominate in the mind, and give to every act of duty grace and animation.

James Beattie
The aim of education should be to teach us rather how to think than what to think, — rather to improve our minds, so as to enable us to think for ourselves, than to load the memory with the thoughts of other men.

James Beattie
And, lo! in the dark east, expanded high,
The rainbow brightens to the setting Sun.

James Beattie
Zealous, yet modest; innocent, though free;
Patient of toil, serene amidst alarms;
Inflexible in faith, invincible in arms.

James Beattie
At the close of the day when the hamlet is still,
And mortals the sweets of forgetfulness prove,
When naught but the torrent is heard on the hill,
And naught but the nightingale's song in the grove.

James Beattie