Grasp all, lose all. [ Proverb ]
Were I so tall to reach the pole,
Or grasp the ocean with my span,
I must be measured by my soul:
The mind's the standard of the man. [ Watts ]
I love a hand that meets mine own
With grasp that causes some sensation. [ Mrs. Osgood ]
Grasp no more than your hand will hold. [ Proverb ]
Where can I grasp thee, infinite Nature? [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]
We gape, we grasp, we gripe, add store to store;
Enough requires too much; too much craves more. [ Quarles ]
Grasp the whole worlds of reason, lip and sense,
In one close system of benevolence. [ Pope ]
We have all a propensity to grasp at forbidden fruit. [ Cudworth ]
Hope is a delusion; no hand can grasp a wave or a shadow. [ Victor Hugo ]
For what are men who grasp at praise sublime, but bubbles on the rapid stream of time? [ Young ]
The world is a picnic to which every one takes his basket, to carry back whatever he can grasp.
Mishaps are like knives, that either serve us or cut us, as we grasp them by the blade or the handle. [ Lowell ]
Stern is the on-look of necessity. Not without a shudder may the hand of man grasp the mysterious urn of destiny. [ Schiller ]
Thrice I attempted to throw my arms round her neck there, and her ghost, thrice clutched in vain, eluded my grasp. [ Virgil ]
At the last, when we die, we have the dear angels for our escort on the way. They who can grasp the whole world in their hands can surely also guard our souls, that they make that last journey safely. [ Luther ]
Much that is published as a novel is only anonymous biography. Many a man who is a bore in conversation may have qualities which give indescribable charms to narrative; and the egotist, if he only have the art to conceal his identity, can then hold the reader by the powerful grasp of sympathy. [ R. S. Mackenzie ]
Heroes have gone out; quacks have come in; the reign of quacks has not ended with the nineteenth century. The sceptre is held with a firmer grasp; the empire has a wider boundary. We are all the slaves of quackery in one shape or another. Indeed, one portion of our being is always playing the successful quack to the other. [ Carlyle ]
The little flower which sprung up through the hard pavement of poor Picciola's prison was beautiful from contrast with the dreary sterility which surrounded it. So here amid rough walls, are there fresh tokens of nature. And O, the beautiful lessons which flowers teach to children, especially in the city! The child's mind can grasp with ease the delicate suggestions of flowers. [ Chapin ]
The little flower which sprung up through the hard payment of poor Picciola's prison, was beautiful from contrast with the dreary sterility which surrounded it. So here, amid the rough walls, are there fresh tokens of nature; and oh, the beautiful lessons which flowers teach to children, especially in the city! The child's mind can grasp with ease the delicate suggestions of flowers. [ E. H. Chapin ]
There is a hand that has no heart in it, there is a claw or paw, a flipper or fin, a bit of wet cloth to take hold of, a piece of unbaked dough on the cook's trencher, a cold clammy thing we recoil from, or greedy clutch with the heat of sin, which we drop as a burning coal. What a scale from the talon to the horn of plenty, is this human palmleaf! Sometimes it is what a knifeshaped, thin-bladed tool we dare not grasp, or like a poisonous thing we shake off, or unclean member, which, white as it may look, we feel polluted by! [ C. A. Bartol ]