Cities are taken by the ears. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
A maid that laughs is half taken. [ Proverb ]
Though much is taken, much abides. [ Alfred Tennyson ]
Salt spilt is seldom clean taken up. [ Proverb ]
Vexation is rather taken than given. [ Proverb ]
Once taken is better than twice given. [ Proverb ]
Indolence is often taken for patience. [ French Proverb ]
I was taken by a morsel, says the fish. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
'Tis immortality to die aspiring,
As if a man were taken quick to heaven. [ Geo. Chapman ]
That is well spoken which is well taken. [ Proverb ]
You have taken a bite out of your own arm. [ Proverb ]
People are to be taken in very small doses. [ Emerson ]
Pigeons are taken when crows fly at pleasure. [ Proverb ]
No word is ill spoken if it be not ill taken. [ Proverb ]
Every penny that is taken is not clear gains. [ Proverb ]
A mouse that has only one hole is soon taken. [ French Proverb ]
He's a thief, for he has taken a cup too much. [ Proverb ]
There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows, and in miseries:
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures. [ William Shakespeare ]
The mouse that hath but one hole is quickly taken. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
Love must be taken by stratagem, not by open force. [ Goldsmith ]
Glory is a poison, good to be taken in small doses. [ Balzac ]
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 ]
Amiens was taken by the fox and retaken by the lion. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
There were no ill language, if it were not ill taken. [ Proverb ]
An ox is taken by the horns, and a man by the tongue. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
There is no end of affection taken in at the eyes only. [ Steele ]
Presents of love fear not to be ill taken of strangers. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
In love, as in war, a fortress that parleys is half taken. [ Marguerite de Valois ]
Named softly as the household name of one whom God had taken. [ Mrs. Browning ]
The grave is a common treasury, to which we must all be taken. [ Burke ]
More flies are taken with a drop of honey than a tun of vinegar. [ Proverb ]
O beautiful, awful summer day, what hast thou given, what taken away? [ Longfellow ]
A man that fortune's buffets and rewards hast taken with equal thanks. [ William Shakespeare ]
Books are the beehives of thought; laconics, the honey taken from them.
There is nothing truer than physiognomy, taken in connection with manner. [ Dickens ]
The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord. [ Bible ]
Accomplishments have taken virtue's place, and wisdom falls before exterior grace. [ Cowper ]
We are valued either too highly or not high enough; we are never taken at our real worth. [ Marie Ebner-Eschenbach ]
Words are as they are taken, and things are as they are used. There are even cursed blessings. [ Bishop Hall ]
Covetousness, like jealousy, when it has once taken root, never leaves a man but with his life. [ Thomas Hughes ]
Let Harlequin be taken with a fit of the colic, and his trappings will have to serve that mood too. [ Thoreau ]
Woman is the most precious jewel taken from Nature's casket, for the ornamentation and happiness of man. [ Guyard ]
Quills are things that are sometimes taken from the pinions of one goose to spread the opinions of another. [ Chatfield ]
Say nothing good of yourself, you will be distrusted; say nothing bad of yourself, you will be taken at your word. [ Joseph Roux ]
The man who has taken one wife deserves a crown of patience; the man who has taken two deserves two crowns of folly. [ Proverb ]
Literature, taken in all its bearings, forms the grand line of demarcation between the human and the animal kingdoms. [ W. Godwin ]
Let them take one foot in your house, and they will soon have taken four (give them an inch and they will take an ell). [ La Fontaine ]
Admiration is a forced tribute; and to extort it from mankind, envious and ignorant as they are, they must be taken unawares. [ James Northcote ]
In navigation, it is the business of the master of a vessel to see that no wind be lost, misemployed, or taken from the ship. [ Lord Bacon ]
Neither human applause nor human censure is to be taken as the test of truth; but either should set us upon testing ourselves. [ Bishop Whately ]
We live only on debris; instead of despair, we have indifference; love itself is treated as an ancient illusion. Where has the soul of the world taken refuge? [ Mme. Louise Colet ]
The best men are not those who have waited for chances, but who have taken them, besieged the chance, conquered the chance, and made the chance their servitor. [ Chapin ]
There is in human nature generally more of the fool than of the wise; and therefore those faculties by which the foolish part of men's minds are taken are more potent. [ Bacon ]
I am beholden to calumny, that she hath so endeavored and taken pains to belie me. It shall make me set a surer guard on myself, and keep a better watch upon my actions. [ Ben Jonson ]
Many young painters would never have taken their pencils in hand if they could have felt, known, and understood, early enough, what really produced a master like Raphael. [ Goethe ]
Affectation in any part of our carriage is lighting up a candle to our defects, and never fails to make us be taken notice of either as wanting sense or wanting sincerity. [ Locke ]
A nickname a man may chance to wear out; but a system of calumny, pursued by a faction, may descend even to posterity. This principle has taken full effect on this state favorite. [ Isaac Disraeli ]
Other blessings may be taken away, but if we have acquired a good friend by goodness, we have a blessing which improves in value when others fail. It is even heightened by sufferings. [ William Ellery Channing ]
Poverty breeds wealth; and wealth in its turn breeds poverty. The earth, to form the mould, is taken out of the ditch; and whatever may be the height of the one will be the depth of the other. [ J. C. and A. W. Hare ]
Simple creatures, whose thoughts are not taken up, like those of educated people, with the care of a great museum of dead phrases, are very quick to see the live facts which are going on about them. [ Holmes ]
Have you known how to compose your manners? You have done a great deal more than he who has composed books. Have you known how to take repose? You have done more than he who has taken cities and empires. [ Montaigne ]
Compliments of congratulation are always kindly taken, and cost one nothing but pen, ink, and paper. I consider them as draughts upon good breeding, where the exchange is always greatly in favor of the drawer. [ Chesterfield ]
If as much care were taken to perpetuate a race of fine men as is done to prevent the mixture of ignoble blood in horses and dogs, the genealogy of every one would be written on his face and displayed in his manners. [ Voltaire ]
Have you known how to compose your manners, you have achieved a great deal more than he who has composed books. Have you known how to attain repose, you have achieved more than he who has taken cities and subdued empires. [ Montaigne ]
Food, improperly taken, not only produces originnl diseases, but affords those that are already engendered both matter and sustenance; so that, let the father of disease be what it may. In temperance is certainly its mother. [ Burton ]
Let a woman once give you a task, and you are hers, heart and soul; all your care and trouble lend new charms to her for whose sake they are taken. To rescue, to revenge, to instruct, or protect a woman is all the same as to love her. [ Richter ]
Every man must bear his own burden, and it is a fine thing to see any one trying to do it manfully; carrying his cross bravely, silently, patiently, and in a way which makes you hope that he has taken for his pattern the greatest of all sufferers. [ James Hamilton ]
Simplicity is the straightforwardness of a soul which refuses to reflect on itself or its deeds. Many are sincere without being simple; they do not wish to be taken for other than they are, but they are always afraid of being taken for what they are not. [ Fénelon ]
I have never taken any exercise, except sleeping and resting, and I never intend to take any. Exercise is loathsome. And it cannot be any benefit when you are tired; and I was always tired. But let another person try my way, and see where he will come out. [ Mark Twain, Seventieth Birthday speech ]
It is very sad for a man to make himself servant to a thing, his manhood all taken out of him by the hydraulic pressure of excessive business. I should not like to be merely a great doctor, a great lawyer, a great minister, a great politician - I should like to be also something of a man. [ Theodore Parker ]
The difference between a parable and an apologue is that the former, being drawn from human life, requires probability in the narration, whereas the apologue, being taken from inanimate things or the inferior animals, is not confined strictly to probability. The fables of Aesop are apologues. [ Fleming ]
It takes twenty years to bring man from the state of embryo, and from that of a mere animal, as he is in his first infancy, to the point when his reason begins to dawn. It has taken thirty centuries to know his structure; it would take eternity to know something of his soul; it takes but an instant to kill him. [ Voltaire ]
Every common dauber writes rascal and villain under his pictures, because the pictures themselves have neither character nor resemblance. But the works of a master require no index. His features and coloring are taken from nature. The impression they make is immediate and uniform; nor is it possible to mistake his characters. [ Junius ]
What delight will it afford to renew the sweet counsel we have taken together, to recount the toils, the combats, and the labor of the way, and to approach, not the house, but the throne of God, in company, in order to join in the symphonies of heavenly voices, and lose ourselves amidst the splendor and fruitions of the beatific vision. [ Robert Hall ]
A wise man will select his books, for he would not wish to class them all under the sacred name of friends. Some can be accepted only as acquaintances. The best books of all kinds are taken to the heart, and cherished as his most precious possessions. Others to be chatted with for a time, to spend a few pleasant hours with, and laid aside, but not forgotten. [ Langford ]
A town, before it can be plundered and deserted, must first be taken; and in this particular Venus has borrowed a law from her consort Mars. A woman that wishes to retain her suitor must keep him in the trenches; for this is a siege which the besieger never raises for want of supplies, since a feast is more fatal to love than a fast, and a surfeit than a starvation. Inanition may cause it to die a slow death, but repletion always destroys it by a sudden one. [ Colton ]
We see a world of pains taken and the best years of life spent in collecting a set of thoughts in a college for the conduct of life, and after all the man so qualified shall hesitate in his speech to a good suit of clothes, and want commonsense before an agreeable woman. Hence it is that wisdom, valour, justice and learning cannot keep a man in countenance that is possessed with these excellencies, if he wants that inferior art of life and behaviour called good-breeding. [ Steele ]
He who expects from a great name in politics, in philosophy, in art, equal greatness in other things, is little versed in human nature. Our strength lies in our weakness. The learned in books are ignorant of the world. He who is ignorant of books is often well acquainted with other things; for life is of the same length in the learned and unlearned; the mind cannot be idle; if it is not taken up with one thing, it attends to another through choice or necessity; and the degree of previous capacity in one class or another is a mere lottery. [ Hazlitt ]
Today it is all of sixty years since I began to smoke the limit. I have never bought cigars with life-belts around them. I early found that those were too expensive for me: I have always bought cheap cigars - reasonably cheap, at any rate. Sixty years ago they cost me four dollars a barrel, but my taste has improved, latterly, and I pay seven, now. Six or seven. Seven, I think. Yes; it's seven. But that includes the barrel. I often have smoking-parties at my house; but the people that come have always just taken the pledge. I wonder why that is? [ Mark Twain, Seventieth Birthday speech ]
In the matter of diet - which is another main thing - I have been persistently strict in sticking to the things which didn't agree with me until one or the other of us got the best of it. Until lately I got the best of it myself. But last spring I stopped frolicking with mince-pie after midnight; up to then I had always believed it wasn't loaded. For thirty years I have taken coffee and bread at eight in the morning, and no bite nor sup until seven-thirty in the evening. Eleven hours. That is all right for me, and is wholesome, because I have never had a headache in my life, but headachy people would not reach seventy comfortably by that road, and they would be foolish to try it. And I wish to urge upon you this - which I think is wisdom - that if you find you can't make seventy by any but an uncomfortable road, don't you go. When they take off the Pullman and retire you to the rancid smoker, put on your things, count your checks, and get out at the first way station where there's a cemetery. [ Mark Twain, Seventieth Birthday speech ]