Laconics: Or the Best Words of the Best Authors ...H.G. Bohn, 1856 - Aphorisms and apothegms |
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Page 10
... poets of his time , And they his vassals that supply him ; Can judge more justly of what he takes Than any of the best he makes , And more impartially conceive What's fit to choose , and what to leave . For men reflect more strictly ...
... poets of his time , And they his vassals that supply him ; Can judge more justly of what he takes Than any of the best he makes , And more impartially conceive What's fit to choose , and what to leave . For men reflect more strictly ...
Page 27
... poet , in liberal art . CI . Steele . Be not the fourth friend of him who had three before and lost them . - Lavater . 2 CII . To a huntsman , His toil is his delight , and to complain Of weariness , would show as poorly in him As if a ...
... poet , in liberal art . CI . Steele . Be not the fourth friend of him who had three before and lost them . - Lavater . 2 CII . To a huntsman , His toil is his delight , and to complain Of weariness , would show as poorly in him As if a ...
Page 54
... poets would address the same to their muse , they would act more agreeable to nature and to truth . - Shenstone . CCXII . 2/2 Judge we by nature ? habit can efface , Int'rest ... Poet . CCXIV . 24 . A man may flatter himself as 54 LACONICS .
... poets would address the same to their muse , they would act more agreeable to nature and to truth . - Shenstone . CCXII . 2/2 Judge we by nature ? habit can efface , Int'rest ... Poet . CCXIV . 24 . A man may flatter himself as 54 LACONICS .
Page 58
... poet includes a critic ; the reverse will not hold . - Shenstone . CCXXXI . 23 / As old sinners have all points O ' th ' compass in their bones and joints , Can by their pangs and aches find All turns and changes of the wind , And ...
... poet includes a critic ; the reverse will not hold . - Shenstone . CCXXXI . 23 / As old sinners have all points O ' th ' compass in their bones and joints , Can by their pangs and aches find All turns and changes of the wind , And ...
Page 61
... poet must necessarily borrow of the philo- sopher , as to be master of the common topics of morality . He must at least be speciously honest , and in all appear- ance a friend to virtue throughout his poem . The good and wise will abate ...
... poet must necessarily borrow of the philo- sopher , as to be master of the common topics of morality . He must at least be speciously honest , and in all appear- ance a friend to virtue throughout his poem . The good and wise will abate ...
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Common terms and phrases
Addison authors Bacon beauty Ben Jonson better body Butler common Confucius Congreve conversation Cynthia's Revels death delight doth Dryden Epictetus eyes fair fame fear fellow folly fool fortune friends genius give Godfrey Kneller gold Goldsmith gout grace happiness hath heart heaven hobby-horse honour Hudibras humour idle Jonson keep kind king labour laugh learning live look looking-glass Lord Bacon Lord Bolingbroke lover man's mankind marriage Massinger men's mind mirth nature never o'er observed once Ovid pains passions person play pleased pleasure Plutarch poet poison'd poor Pope praise pride reason rich scarce seldom sense Shakspeare Shenstone shew sleep Socrates sometimes soul speak sweet taste tell temper thee thing thou art thought tion tongue true truth turn vex'd virtue wealth whole wisdom wise woman words write youth
Popular passages
Page 304 - A strange fish! Were I in England now, as once I was, and had but this fish painted, not a holiday fool there but would give a piece of silver. There would this monster make a man. Any strange beast there makes a man. When they will not give a doit to relieve a lame beggar, they will lay out ten to see a dead Indian.
Page 291 - Heaven doth with us as we with torches do: Not light them for themselves ; for if our virtues Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike As if we had them not.
Page 293 - Love thyself last: cherish those hearts that hate thee; Corruption wins not more than honesty. Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace, To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not: Let all the ends, thou aim'st at, be thy country's, 4 — — make use — 1 ie make interest. Thy God's, and truth's; then if thou fall'st, O Cromwell, Thou fall'st a blessed martyr.
Page 257 - O, who can hold a fire in his hand By thinking on the frosty Caucasus? Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite By bare imagination of a feast?
Page 224 - Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in all Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day ere you find them ; and, when you have them, they are not worth the search.
Page 232 - LAERTES' head. And these few precepts in thy memory Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue, Nor any unproportion'd thought his act. Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar. The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel ; But do not dull thy palm with entertainment Of each new hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade.
Page 192 - Thou art not thyself; For thou exist'st on many a thousand grains That issue out of dust : happy thou art not : For what thou hast not, still thou striv'st to get i And what thou hast, forget'st : thou art not certain ; For thy complexion shifts to strange effects, After the moon : if thou art rich, thou art poor ; For, like an ass, whose back with ingots bows, Thou bear'st thy heavy riches but a journey, And death unloads thee...
Page 172 - This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune, — often the surfeit of our own behaviour, — we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars: as if we were villains by necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on: an admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to...
Page 171 - When Love with unconfine'd wings Hovers within my Gates ; And my divine Althea brings To whisper at the Grates : When I lie tangled in her hair, And fetter'd to her eye ; The Birds, that wanton in the Air, Know no such Liberty.
Page 236 - Not where he eats, but where he is eaten : a certain convocation of politic worms are e'en at him. Your worm is your only emperor for diet : we fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots...