Vices are seldom single. [ Robert Hall ]
Not a single shaft can hit
Till the God of love sees fit. [ Ryland ]
I feel a host in this single arm. [ Schiller ]
Beauty draws us with a single hair. [ Pope ]
Just above yon sandy bar,
As the day grows fainter and dimmer.
Lonely and lovely, a single star
Lights the air with a dusky glimmer. [ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ]
Kings alone are no more than single men. [ Proverb ]
A single little word can strike him dead. [ Luther ]
Women read each other at a single glance. [ Rivarol ]
A single moment may transform everything. [ Wieland ]
Like two single gentlemen rolled into one. [ G. Colman ]
I cannot tell what you and other men
Think of this life; but for my single self,
I had as lief not be as live to be
In awe of such a thing as I myself. [ William Shakespeare ]
A single word often betrays a great design. [ Racine ]
Heaven is not reached at a single bound,
But we build the ladder by which we rise
From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies,
And we mount to its summit, round by round. [ J. G. Holland, Pseudonym: Timothy Titcomb ]
The whole ocean is made up of single drops. [ Proverb ]
A single soul is richer than all the worlds. [ Alexander Smith ]
The honey-bee that wanders all day long
The field, the woodland, and the garden over.
To gather in his fragrant winter store.
Humming in calm content his winter song,
Seeks not alone the rose's glowing breast,
The lily's dainty cup, the violet's lips.
But from all rank and noxious weeds he sips
The single drop of sweetness closely pressed
Within the poison chalice. [ Anne C. Lynch Botta ]
'Tis not the many oaths that makes the truth.
But the plain single vow that is vowed true. [ William Shakespeare ]
From a single instance you may infer the whole.
I never could tread a single pleasure under foot. [ Browning ]
A spirit may be known from only a single thought. [ Swedenborg ]
A whole bushel of wheat is made up of single grains. [ Proverb ]
We must strive to make of humanity one single family. [ Mazzini ]
On a single winged word hath hung the destiny of nations. [ Wendell Phillips ]
A single profane expression betrays a man's low breeding. [ Joseph Cook ]
A monster whose vices are not redeemed by a single virtue. [ Juv ]
There is not a single heart but has its moments of longing. [ Beecher ]
The character of the common people changes in a single day. [ Voltaire ]
To Truth's house there is a single door, which is Experience. [ Bayard Taylor ]
The applause of a single human being is of great consequence. [ Dr. Johnson ]
When sorrows come, they come not single spies. But in battalions! [ William Shakespeare ]
One single positive weighs more. You know, than negatives a score. [ Prior ]
A single grateful thought towards heaven is the most perfect prayer. [ Lessing ]
No single action creates, however it may exhibit, a man's character. [ Jeremy Taylor ]
A single grateful thought towards fiea%-en is the most perfect prayer. [ Lessing ]
To what gulfs a single deviation from the track of human duties leads! [ Byron ]
A single grateful thought turned heavenwards is the most perfect prayer. [ Lessing ]
Marriage has in it less of beauty, but more of safety, than the single life. [ Jeremy Taylor ]
The drying up a single tear has more of honest fame than shedding seas of gore. [ Byron ]
I shall leave the world without regret, for it hardly contains a single good listener. [ Fontenelle ]
There is no book so poor that it would not be a prodigy if wholly made by a single man. [ Johnson ]
What is more at ease, more abstracted from the world, than a true single-hearted honesty? [ Thomas à Kempis ]
There are not good things enough in life to indemnify us for the neglect of a single duty. [ Madame Swetchine ]
Art, not less eloquently than literature, teaches her children to venerate the single eye. [ Willmott ]
All the scholastic scaffolding falls, as a ruined edifice, before one single word, - faith. [ Napoleon I ]
By persistently remaining single a man converts himself into a permanent public temptation. [ Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest ]
It is better to break off a thousand friendships, than to endure the sight of a single enemy. [ Saadi ]
That which is not for the interest of the whole swarm is not for the interest of a single bee. [ Marcus Aurelius ]
A single conversation across the table with a wise man is better than ten years' study of books. [ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ]
No cord or cable can draw so forcibly, or bind so fast, as love can do with only a single thread. [ Burton ]
Perhaps the greatest lesson which the lives of literary men teach us is told in a single word: Wait! [ Longfellow ]
There is not a single spot between Christianity and atheism, upon which a man can firmly fix his foot. [ Emmons ]
Better a child should be ignorant of a thousand truths than have consecrated in its heart a single lie. [ John Ruskin ]
These blasted pines, wrecks of a single winter, barkless, branchless, a blighted trunk upon a cursed root [ Byron ]
A single bad habit will mar an otherwise faultless character, as an ink-drop soileth the pure white page. [ H. Ballou ]
War--the trade of barbarians, and the art of bringing the greatest physical force to bear on a single point. [ Napoleon ]
Childish, imbecile carelessness is enough to render any man poor, without the aid of a single positive vice. [ Francis Wayland ]
It is necessary to repent for years in order to efface a fault in the eyes of men; a single tear suffices with God. [ Chateaubriand ]
Every man feels instinctively that all the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action. [ Lowell ]
A sentimentalist is a man who sees an absurd value in everything and doesn't know the market price of a single thing. [ Oscar Wilde, Lady Windemere's Fan ]
If the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him. [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]
A happy home is the single spot of rest which a man has upon this earth for the cultivation of his noblest sensibilities. [ F. W. Robertson ]
A single seed of fact will produce in a season or two a harvest of calumnies: but sensible men will pay no attention to them. [ Froude ]
A single word is often a concentrated poem, a little grain of pure gold, capable of being beaten out into a broad extent of gold-leaf. [ Trench ]
A single thought is that which it is from other thoughts as a wave of the sea takes its form and shape from the waves which precede and follow it. [ Coleridge ]
That single effort by which we stop short in the down-hill path to perdition is of itself a greater exertion of virtue than a hundred acts of justice. [ Goldsmith ]
Speech is a laggard and a sloth; but the eyes shoot out electric fluid that condenses all the elements of sentiment and passion in one single emanation. [ Horace Smith ]
A well-cultivated mind is, so to speak, made up of all the minds of preceding ages; it is only one single mind which has been educated during all this time. [ Fontenelle ]
Three letters! but one syllable! Still less, a single motion of the head, and all is done! one is married for ever! I do not know any breakneck comparable to it. [ A. Ricard ]
That is, in a great degree, true of all men, which was said of the Athenians, that they were like sheep, of which a flock is more easily driven than a single one. [ Whately ]
Resolve to edge in a little reading every day, if it is but a single sentence. If you gain fifteen minutes a day, it will make itself felt at the end of the year. [ Horace Mann ]
Pride of origin, whether high or low, springs from the same principle in human nature; one is but the positive, the other the negative, pole of a single weakness. [ Lowell ]
Few of the many wise apothegms which have been uttered, from the time of the seven sages of Greece to that of poor Richard, have prevented a single foolish action. [ Macaulay ]
Happiness is that single and glorious thing which is the very light and sun of the whole animated universe; and where she is not it were better that nothing should be. [ Colton ]
When I think back on all the blessings I have been given in my life, I can't think of a single one, unless you count that rattlesnake that granted me all those wishes. [ Jack Handey, Deep Thoughts ]
Occasionally a single anecdote opens a character: biography has its comparative anatomy, and a saying or a sentiment enables the skilful hand to construct the skeleton. [ Willmott ]
The seven wise men of Greece, so famous for their wisdom all the world over, acquired all that fame, each of them, by a single sentence consisting of two or three words. [ South ]
All the joys of earth will not assuage our thirst for happiness; while a single grief suffices to shroud life in a sombre veil, and smite it with nothingness at all points. [ Mme. Swetchine ]
A lady of genius will give a genteel air to her whole dress by a well-fancied suit of knots, as a judicious writer gives a spirit to a whole sentence by a single expression. [ Gay ]
Women speak easily of platonic love; but, while they appear to esteem it highly, there is not a single ribbon of their toilette that does not drive platonism from our hearts. [ A. Ricard ]
Let us recognize the beauty and power of true enthusiasm; and whatever we may do to enlighten ourselves and others, guard against checking or chilling a single earnest sentiment. [ H. T. Tuckerman ]
Let there be an entire abstinence from intoxicating drinks throughout this country during the period of a single generation, and a mob would be as impossible as combustion without oxygen. [ Horace Mann ]
Learn the lesson of your own pain - learn to seek God, not in any single event of past history, but in your own soul - in the constant verifications of experience, in the life of Christian love. [ Mrs. Humphry Ward ]
A copious manner of expression gives strength and weight to our ideas, which frequently make impression upon the mind, as iron does upon solid bodies, rather by repeated strokes than a single blow. [ Melmoth ]
The great moments of life are but moments like others. Your doom is spoken in a word or two. A single look from the eyes, a mere pressure of the hand, may decide it; or of the lips, though they cannot speak. [ Thackeray ]
The great moments of life are but moments like the others. Your doom is spoken in a word or two. A single look from the eyes, a mere pressure of the hand, may decide it; or of the lips though they cannot speak. [ Thackeray ]
Friendship has steps which lead up on the throne of God, through all spirits, even to the Infinite; only love is satiable, and like truth admits no three degrees of comparison; and a single being fills the heart. [ Richter ]
To this end, nothing is to be more carefully consulted than plainness. In a lady's attire this is the single excellence: for to be what some people, call fine, is the same vice, in that case, as to be florid is in writing or speaking. [ Addison ]
The chief art of learning is to attempt but little at a time. The widest excursions of the mind are made by short flights, frequently repeated, the most lofty fabrics of science are formed by the continued accumulation of single propositions. [ Locke ]
Genius is not a single power, but a combination of great powers. It reasons, but it is not reasoning; it judges, but it is not judgment: it imagines, but it is not imagination; it feels deeply and fiercely, but it is not passion. It is neither, because it is all. [ Whipple ]
Great works are performed, not by strength, but by perseverance. Yonder palace was raised by single stones, yet you see its height and spaciousness. He that shall walk with vigor three hours a day will pass in seven years a space equal to the circumference of the globe. [ Johnson ]
Wit throws a single ray, separated from the rest, - red, yellow, blue, or any intermediate shade, - upon an object; never white light; that is the province of wisdom. We get beautiful effects from wit, - all the prismatic colors, - but never the object as it is in fair daylight. [ Holmes ]
From the year 1789 to the year 1860 no nation has ever known a more unbounded prosperity, a fuller space of happiness. In the short space of seventy years, within the turn of a single life, the nation, poor, weak and despised, raised itself to the pinnacle of power and of glory. [ Robert C. Winthrop ]
Pound St. Paul's Church into atoms, and consider any single atom; it is to be sure, good for nothing; but put all these atoms together, and you have St. Paul's Church. So it is with human felicity, which is made up of many ingredients, each of which may be shown to be very insignificant. [ Dr. Johnson ]
Sudden blaze of kindness may, by a single blast of coldness, be extinguished; but that fondness which length of time has connected with many circumstances and occasions, though it may for a while be suppressed by disgust or resentment, with or without cause, is hourly revived by accidental recollection. [ Johnson ]
Let every mother consider herself as an instrument in the hands of Providence - let her reflect on the immense importance the proper education of one single family may eventually prove; and that, while the fruit of her labors may descend to generations yet unborn, she will herself reap a glorious reward. [ Miss Hamilton ]
A few words worthy to be remembered suffice to give an idea of a great mind. There are single thoughts that contain the essence of a whole volume, single sentences that have the beauties of a large work, a simplicity so finished and so perfect that it equals in merit and in excellence a large and glorious composition. [ Joubert ]
Opportunities do not come with their values stamped upon them. Everyone must be challenged. A day dawns, quite like other days; in it a single hour comes, quite like other hours; but in that day and in that hour the chance of a lifetime faces us. To face every opportunity of life thoughtfully and ask its meaning bravely and earnestly, is the only way to meet the supreme opportunities when they come, whether open-faced or disguised. [ Maltbie Babcock ]
Art, not less eloquently than literature, teaches her children to venerate the single eye. Remember Matsys. His representations of miser-life are breathing. A forfeited bond twinkles in the hard smile. But follow him to an altar-piece. His Apostle has caught a stray tint from his usurer. Features of exquisite beauty are seen and loved; but the old nature of avarice frets under the glow of devotion. Pathos staggers on the edge of farce. [ Willmott ]
Do you wish to become rich? You may become rich, that is, if you desire it in no half way, but thoroughly. A miser sacrifices all to his single passion; hoards farthings and dies possessed of wealth. Do you wish to master any science or accomplishment? Give yourself to it and it lies beneath your feet. Time and pains will do anything. This world is given as the prize for the men in earnest; and that which is true of this world is truer still of the world to come. [ F. W. Robertson ]
What profusion is there in His work! When trees blossom there is not a single breastpin, but a whole bosom full of gems; and of leaves they have so many suits that they can throw them away to the winds all summer long. What unnumbered cathedrals has He reared in the forest shades, vast and grand, full of curious carvings, and haunted evermore by tremulous music; and in the heavens above, how do stars seem to have flown out of His hand faster than sparks out of a mighty forge! [ Beecher ]
Those who worship gold in a world so corrupt as this we live in have at least one thing to plead in defense of their idolatry - the power of their idol. It is true that, like other idols, it can neither move, see, hear, feel, nor understand; but, unlike other idols, it has often communicated all these powers to those who had them not, and annihilated them in those who had. This idol can boast of two peculiarities; it is worshipped in all climates, without a single temple, and by all classes, without a single hypocrite. [ Colton ]
All the performances of human art, at which we look with praise or wonder, are instances of the resistless force of perseverance; it is by this that the quarry becomes a pyramid, and that distant countries are united by canals. If a man was to compare the effect of a single stroke of a pickaxe, or of one impression of the spade, with the general design and last result, he would be overwhelmed with the sense of their disproportion; yet those petty operations, incessantly continued, in time surmount the greatest difficulties, and mountains are leveled and oceans bounded, by the slender force of human beings. [ Dr. Johnson ]
Morals are an acquirement - like music, like a foreign language, like piety, poker, paralysis - no man is born with them. I wasn't myself, I started poor. I hadn't a single moral. There is hardly a man in this house that is poorer than I was then. Yes, I started like that - the world before me, not a moral in the slot. Not even an insurance moral. I can remember the first one I ever got. I can remember the landscape, the weather, the - I can remember how everything looked. It was an old moral, an old second-hand moral, all out of repair, and didn't fit, anyway. But if you are careful with a thing like that, and keep it in a dry place, and save it for processions, and Chautauquas, and World's Fairs, and so on, and disinfect it now and then, and give it a fresh coat of whitewash once in a while, you will be surprised to see how well she will last and how long she will keep sweet, or at least inoffensive. When I got that mouldy old moral, she had stopped growing, because she hadn't any exercise; but I worked her hard, I worked her Sundays and all. Under this cultivation she waxed in might and stature beyond belief, and served me well and was my pride and joy for sixty-three years; then she got to associating with insurance presidents, and lost flesh and character, and was a sorrow to look at and no longer competent for business. She was a great loss to me. Yet not all loss. I sold her - ah, pathetic skeleton, as she was - I sold her to Leopold, the pirate King of Belgium; he sold her to our Metropolitan Museum, and it was very glad to get her, for without a rag on, she stands 57 feet long and 16 feet high, and they think she's a brontosaur. Well, she looks it. They believe it will take nineteen geological periods to breed her match. [ Mark Twain, Seventieth Birthday speech ]