This is the slowest, yet the daintiest sense;
For even the ears of such as have no skill,
Perceive a discord, and conceive offence;
And knowing not what's good, yet find the ill. [ Sir John Davies ]

But slaves that once conceive the glowing thought
Of freedom, in that hope itself possess
All that the contest calls for; spirit, strength,
The scorn of danger, and united hearts,
The surest presage of the good they seek. [ Cowper ]

Nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches as to conceive how others can be in want. [ Swift ]

I cannot conceive that mere idlers can have respect enough for themselves to be comfortable. [ Timothy Flint ]

Fully to understand a grand and beautiful thought requires, perhaps, as much time as to conceive it. [ Joubert ]

We conceive, I think, more nobly of the weak presence of Paul than of the fair and ruddy countenance of David. [ John Ruskin ]

The art requires more delicacy in the practice than those conceive who can see nothing more in a quotation than an extract. [ Isaac Disraeli ]

The only kind of sublimity which a painter or sculptor should aim at is to express by certain proportions and positions of limbs and features that strength and dignity of mind, and vigor and activity of body, which enables men to conceive and execute great actions. [ Burke ]

There is a sort of harmless liars, frequently to be met with in company, who deal much in exaggeration; their usual intention is to please and entertain; but as men are most delighted with what they conceive to be truth, these people mistake the means of pleasing, and incur universal blame. [ Hume ]

The shortest way to arrive at glory should be to do that for conscience which we do for glory. And the virtue of Alexander appears to me with much less vigor in his theater than that of Socrates in his mean and obscure employment. I can easily conceive Socrates in the place of Alexander, but Alexander in that of Socrates I cannot. [ Montaigne ]

Society is infected with rude, cynical, restless, and frivolous persons who prey upon the rest, and whom no public opinion concentrated into good manners, forms accepted by the sense of all, can reach; the contradictors and railers at public and private tables, who are like terriers, who conceive it the duty of a dog of honor to growl at any passer-by, and do the honors of the house by barking him out of sight. [ Emerson ]