He would fain fly, but he wants wings. [ Italian Proverb ]
Fain would I climb, yet fear I to fall. [ Sir Walter Raleigh ]
Memory, and thou, Forgetfulness, not yet
Your powers in happy harmony I find;
One oft recalls what I would fain forget,
And one blots out what I would bear in mind. [ Macedonius ]
Perhaps he hath great projects in his mind,
To build a college, or to found a race,
An hospital, a church - and leave behind
Some dome surmounted by his meagre face,
Perhaps he fain would liberate mankind
Even with the very ore which makes them base;
Perhaps he would be wealthiest of his nation,
Or revel in the joys of calculation. [ Byron ]
He dwells far from neighbours who is fain to praise himself. [ Proverb ]
He who buys what he cannot pay for, sells what he fain would not. [ Italian Proverb ]
Man's activity is all too fain to relax; he soon gets fond of unconditional repose. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]
Milton saw not, and Beethoven heard not, but the sense of beauty was upon them, and they fain must speak. [ Ruskin ]
I would fain coin wisdom - mould it, I mean, into maxims, proverbs, sentences, that can easily be retained and transmitted. [ Joubert ]
Affability, mildness, tenderness, and a word which I would fain bring back to its original signification of virtue, - I mean good-nature, - are of daily use: they are the bread of mankind and staff of life. [ Dryden ]
My May of life is fallen into the sear, the yellow leaf; and that which should accompany old age, as honor, love, obedience, troops of friends, I must not look to have; but in their stead, curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honor, breath which the poor heart would fain deny and dare not. [ William Shakespeare ]
The little I have seen of the world teaches me to look upon the errors of others in sorrow, not in anger. When I take the history of one poor heart that has sinned and suffered, and represent to myself the struggles and temptations it has passed through, the brief pulsations of joy, the feverish inquietude of hope and fear, the pressure of want, the desertion of friends. I would fain leave the erring soul of my fellowman with Him from whose hand it came. [ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ]