Matthew Prior Quotes

29 Sourced Quotes

Cured yesterday of my disease,
I died last night of my physician.

Matthew Prior
Fantastic tyrant of the amorous heart. How hard thy yoke, how cruel thy dart. Those escape your anger who refuse your sway, and those are punished most, who most obey.

Matthew Prior
They never taste who always drink;
They always talk who never think.

Matthew Prior
Euphelia serves to grace my measure;
But Chloe is my real flame.

Matthew Prior
As the chameleon, who is known To have no colours of his own, But borrows from his neighbour's hue His white or black, his green or blue, And struts as much in ready light, Which credit gives him upon sight, As if the rainbow were in tail Settled on him and his heirs male.

Matthew Prior
In this case probability must atone for want of Truth.

Matthew Prior
My copper-lamps, at any rate, For being true antique, I bought; Yet wisely melted down my plate, On modern models to be wrought; And trifles I alike pursue, Because they're old, because they're new.

Matthew Prior
Forc'd by reflective Reason I confess, That human Science is uncertain guess.

Matthew Prior
I court others in verse: but I love thee in prose:
And they have my whimsies, but thou hast my heart.

Matthew Prior
What is a King?—a man condemned to bear
The public burden of the nation's care.

Matthew Prior
No, no; for my virginity,
When I lose that, says Rose, I'll die:
Behind the elms last night, cried Dick,
Rose, were you not extremely sick?

Matthew Prior
Till their own dreams at length deceive 'em, And oft repeating, they believe 'em.

Matthew Prior
That air and harmony of shape express,
Fine by degrees, and beautifully less.

Matthew Prior
Venus, take my votive glass;
Since I am not what I was,
What from this day I shall be,
Venus, let me never see.

Matthew Prior
To John I owed great obligation;
But John, unhappily, thought fit
To publish it to all the nation:
Sure John and I are more than quit.

Matthew Prior
Now fitted the halter, now traversed the cart,
And often took leave, but was loth to depart.

Matthew Prior
A Rechabite poor Will must live,
And drink of Adam's ale.

Matthew Prior
Soft peace she brings; wherever she arrives
She builds our quiet as she forms our lives;
Lays the rough paths of peevish Nature even,
And opens in each heart a little heaven.

Matthew Prior
Nobles and heralds, by your leave,
Here lies what once was Matthew Prior;
The son of Adam and of Eve:
Can Bourbon or Nassau claim higher?

Matthew Prior
He ranged his tropes, and preached up patience;
Backed his opinion with quotations.

Matthew Prior
Be to her virtues very kind;
Be to her faults a little blind;
Let all her ways be unconfined;
And clap your padlock — on her mind!

Matthew Prior
Our hopes, like towering falcons, aim
At objects in an airy height;
The little pleasure of the game
Is from afar to view the flight.

Matthew Prior
And thought the nation ne'er would thrive
Till all the whores were burnt alive.

Matthew Prior
From ignorance our comfort flows.
The only wretched are the wise.

Matthew Prior
Who breathes must suffer, and who thinks must mourn;
And he alone is bless'd who ne'er was born.

Matthew Prior
That if weak women went astray,
Their stars were more in fault than they.

Matthew Prior
Abra was ready ere I called her name;
And though I called another, Abra came.

Matthew Prior
Often our seers and poets have confess'd,
That music's force can tame the furious beast;
Can make the wolf, or foaming boar restrain
His rage.

Matthew Prior
His noble negligences teach
What others' toils despair to reach.

Matthew Prior