Thomas Gray Quotes

90 Sourced Quotes

Too poor for a bribe, and too proud to importune,
He had not the method of making a fortune.

Thomas Gray
From toil he wins his spirits light,
From busy day the peaceful night;
Rich, from the very want of wealth,
In heaven's best treasures, peace and health.

Thomas Gray
The language of the age is never the language of poetry, except among the French, whose verse, where the thought or image does not support it, differs in nothing from prose.

Thomas Gray
Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears.

Thomas Gray
E'en from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,
E'en in our Ashes live their wonted Fires.

Thomas Gray
Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learned to stray;
Along the cool sequestered vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

Thomas Gray
Her track, where'er the goddess roves,
Glory pursue, and gen'rous shame,
Th' unconquerable mind, 3 and freedom's holy flame.

Thomas Gray
Iron sleet of arrowy shower
Hurtles in the darkened air.

Thomas Gray
No farther seek his merits to disclose,
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode,
(There they alike in trembling hope repose,)
The bosom of his Father and his God.

Thomas Gray
Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

Thomas Gray
Ye distant spires, ye antique towers,
That crown the wat'ry glade.

Thomas Gray
Not all that tempts your wandering eyes
And heedless hearts, is lawful prize;
Nor all that glisters gold.

Thomas Gray
Where his glowing eye−balls turn,
Thousand banners round him burn.
Where he points his purple spear,
Hasty, hasty Rout is there,
Marking with indignant eye
Fear to stop and shame to fly.
There Confusion, Terror's child,
Conflict fierce and Ruin wild,
Agony that pants for breath,
Despair and honourable Death.

Thomas Gray
Helm nor hauberk's twisted mail,
Nor even thy virtues, tyrant, shall avail
To save thy secret soul from nightly fears,
From Cambria's curse, from Cambria's tears!

Thomas Gray
The Attic warbler pours her throat,
Responsive to the cuckoo's note,
The untaught harmony of spring.

Thomas Gray
Ye towers of Julius, London's lasting shame,
With many a foul and midnight murder fed.

Thomas Gray
As sickly plants betray a niggard earth,
Whose barren bosom starves her gen'rous birth.

Thomas Gray
One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill,
Along the heath, and near his fav'rite tree:
Another came; nor yet beside the rill,
Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he.

Thomas Gray
Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth
A youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown.
Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth.
And Melancholy marked him for her own.

Thomas Gray
Loose his beard, and hoary hair
Streamed, like a meteor, to the troubled air.

Thomas Gray
Gay hope is theirs by fancy fed,
Less pleasing when possest;
The tear forgot as soon as shed,
The sunshine of the breast.

Thomas Gray
No further seek his merits to disclose,
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode
(There they alike in trembling hope repose),
The bosom of his Father and his God.

Thomas Gray
Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds.

Thomas Gray
From Helicon's harmonious springs
A thousand rills their mazy progress take.

Thomas Gray
Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows,
While proudly riding o'er the azure realm
In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes;
Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm;
Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind's sway,
That, hushed in grim repose, expects his evening prey.

Thomas Gray
Sweet is the breath of vernal shower,
The bee's collected treasures sweet,
Sweet music's melting fall, but sweeter yet
The still small voice of gratitude.

Thomas Gray
Hands, that the rod of empire might have swayed,
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre.

Thomas Gray
Brushing with hasty steps the dews away,
To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.

Thomas Gray
What female heart can gold despise?
What cat's averse to fish?

Thomas Gray
'Twas on a lofty vase's side,
Where China's gayest art had dyed
The azure flowers, that blow;
Demurest of the tabby kind,
The pensive Selima reclined,
Gazed on the lake below.

Thomas Gray