All things obey fixed laws. [ Lucretius ]
A fixed idea ends in madness or heroism. [ Victor Hugo ]
Fixed to no spot is Happiness sincere;
'Tis nowhere to be found, or everywhere;
'Tis never to be bought, but always free. [ Pope ]
O Thou, whose certain eye foresees
The fixed event of fate's remote decrees. [ Homer ]
Europe's eye is fixed on mighty things,
The fall of empires and the fate of kings. [ Burns ]
Mark what unvaried laws preserve each state.
Laws wise as Nature, and as fixed as Fate. [ Pope ]
Draw not your bow before your arrow be fixed. [ Proverb ]
Custom forms us all.
Our thoughts, our morals, our most fixed belief
Are consequences of our place of birth. [ Hill ]
These earthly god-fathers of heaven's lights
That give a name to every fixed star
Have no more profit of their shining nights
Than those that walk, and wot not what they are. [ William Shakespeare ]
His eloquence is classic in its style,
Not brilliant with explosive coruscations
Of heterogeneous thoughts, at random caught.
And scattered like a shower of shooting stars,
That end in darkness: no; - his noble mind
Is clear, and full, and stately, and serene.
His earnest and undazzled eye he keeps
Fixed on the sun of Truth, and breathes his words
As easily as eagles cleave the air,
And never pauses till the height is won;
And all who listen follow where he leads. [ Mrs. Hale ]
Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove;
No! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error, and upon me proved;
I never writ, nor no man ever loved. [ William Shakespeare ]
Nature is not fixed, but fluid; spirit alters, moulds, makes it. [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]
Dress is the great business of all women, and the fixed idea of some. [ Alphonse Karr ]
Half a word fixed upon, or near, the spot is worth a cartload of recollection. [ Gray to Palgrave ]
Of permanent mourning there is none; no cloud remains fixed. The sun will shine tomorrow. [ Richter ]
What are Raphael's Madonnas but the shadow of a mother's love fixed in permanent outline. [ Thomas Wentworth Higginson ]
There are opinions which come from the heart, and whoever has no fixed opinions has no constant feelings. [ Joubert ]
Hearts may be attracted by assumed qualities, but the affections are only to be fixed by those that are real. [ De Moy ]
Hearts may be attracted by assumed qualities, but the affections are not to be fixed but by those which are real. [ De Moy ]
If one must be rejected, one succeed, make him my lord within whose faithful breast is fixed my image, and who loves me best. [ Dryden ]
He who seldom thinks of heaven is not likely to get thither; as the only way to hit the mark is to keep the eye fixed upon it. [ Bishop Horne ]
We must love our friends as true amateurs love paintings; they have their eyes perpetually fixed on the fine parts, and see no others. [ Mme. d'Epinay ]
We should love our friends as true amateurs love pictures: they keep their eyes perpetually fixed on the fine points, and do not see the defects. [ Mme. Dufresnoy ]
Nature intends that, at fixed periods, men should succeed each other by the instrumentality of death. We shall never outwit Nature; we shall die as usual. [ Fontenelle ]
A maxim is the exact and noble expression of an important and unquestionable truth. Good maxims are the germs of all excellence. When firmly fixed on the memory, they nourish the will. [ Joseph Joubert ]
When we see our enemies and friends gliding away before us, let us not forget that we are subject to the general law of mortality, and shall soon be where our doom will be fixed forever. [ Johnson ]
Nature has lent us life, as we do a sum of money; only no certain day is fixed for payment. What reason then to complain if she demands it at pleasure, since it was on this condition that we received it? [ Cicero ]
In sculpture did ever anybody call the Apollo a fancy piece? Or say of the Laocoon how it might be made different? A masterpiece of art has in the mind a fixed place in the chain of being, as much as a plant or a crystal. [ Emerson ]
When all moves equally (says Pascal), nothing seems to move, as in a vessel under sail; and when all run by common consent into vice, none appear to do so. He that stops first, views as from a fixed point the horrible extravagance that transports the rest. [ Colton ]
Local esteem is far more conducive to happiness than general reputation. The latter may be compared to the fixed stars which glimmer so remotely as to afford little light and no warmth. The former is like the sun, each day shedding his prolific and cheering beams. [ W. B. Clulow ]
It is not the nature of avarice to be satisfied with anything but money. Every passion that acts upon mankind has a peculiar mode of operation. Many of them are temporary and fluctuating; they admit of cessation and variety. But avarice is a fixed, uniform passion. [ Thomas Paine ]
Custom is a violent and treacherous school mistress. She, by little and little, slyly and unperceived, slips in the foot of her authority; but having by this gentle and humble beginning, with the benefit of time, fixed and established it, she then unmasks a furious and tyrannic countenance, against which we have no more the courage or the power so much as to lift up our eyes. [ Montaigne ]