The heart's attorney. [ Shakespeare ]
Music's golden tongue. [ Keats ]
The artillery of words. [ Swift ]
His tongue is no slander. [ Proverb ]
The bell strikes one.
We take no note of time,
But from its loss,
To give it then a tongue,
Is wise in man. [ Young ]
Give thy thoughts no tongue. [ Shakespeare ]
Peace is holding the tongue. [ Ahmed Vesik ]
The quill hath a good tongue. [ Yriarte ]
The lame tongue gets nothing. [ Proverb ]
A good tongue is a good weapon. [ Proverb ]
Cool words scald not the tongue. [ Proverb ]
Egotism is the tongue of vanity. [ Chamfort ]
A honey-tongue, a heart of gall. [ Proverb ]
One faith, one tongue, one heart. [ French Proverb ]
The countenance
Is more eloquent than the tongue. [ Lavater ]
The pen is the tongue of the mind. [ Cervantes ]
The tongue is a world of iniquity. [ Bible ]
Believe not each accusing tongue,
As most weak persons do;
But still believe that story wrong
Which ought not to be true. [ Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan ]
Sweet music! sacred tongue of God. [ Charles G. Leland ]
No ear can hear nor tongue can tell
The tortures of that inward hell! [ Byron ]
He talks in the Bear-garden tongue. [ Proverb ]
Be slow of tongue and quick of eye. [ Cervantes ]
A killing tongue and a quiet sword. [ William Shakespeare ]
Fair language grates not the tongue. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
A maiden hath no tongue but thought. [ William Shakespeare ]
The tongue talks at the head's cost. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
The windy satisfaction of the tongue. [ Homer ]
One tongue is sufficient for a woman. [ Attributed to Milton ]
Better the foot slip than the tongue. [ Proverb ]
The tongue is the rudder of our ship. [ Proverb ]
O! as a bee upon the flower, I hang
Upon the honey of thy eloquent tongue. [ Bulwer ]
Literature is the tongue of the world. [ T. Paine ]
See what a ready tongue suspicion hath! [ William Shakespeare ]
Point thy tongue on the anvil of truth. [ Pindar ]
She sits tormenting every guest,
Nor gives her tongue one moment's rest,
In phrases battered, stale, and trite,
Which modern ladies call polite. [ Swift ]
Ah, pensive scholar, what is fame?
A fitful tongue of leaping flame:
A giddy whirlwind's fickle gust,
That lifts a pinch of mortal dust;
A few swift years, and who can show,
Which dust was Bill, and which was Joe? [ O. W. Holmes ]
Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news
Hath but a losing office; and his tongue
Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,
Remember'd tolling a departed friend. [ Shakespeare ]
A long tongue is a sign of a short hand. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
The tongue is not of steel, but it cuts. [ Proverb ]
The tongue, the ambassador of the heart. [ Lyly ]
Woman is made of tongue, as fox of tail. [ Proverb ]
The effect speaks, the tongue needs not. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
The tongue of idle persons is never idle. [ Proverb ]
One may hold one's tongue in an ill time. [ Proverb ]
What the heart thinks, the tongue speaks. [ Proverb ]
Common fame hath a blister on its tongue. [ Proverb ]
On Rumor's tongue continual slanders ride. [ William Shakespeare ]
Your tongue has got the start of your wit. [ Proverb ]
Your tongue is made of very loose leather. [ Proverb ]
The tongue ever turns to the aching tooth. [ Proverb ]
His tongue is now a stringless instrument. [ William Shakespeare ]
For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: It might have been. [ Whittier ]
Every tongue that speaks
But Romeo's name speaks heavenly eloquence. [ William Shakespeare ]
No eye to watch, and no tongue to wound us,
All earth forgot, and all heaven around us. [ Moore ]
The tongue is the vile slave's vilest part. [ Juvenal ]
The absurdest tongue that is can disparage. [ Proverb ]
The tongue walks where the teeth speed not. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
The tongue of the just is as choice silver. [ Bible ]
Love, therefore, and tongue-tied simplicity
In least speak most, to my capacity. [ William Shakespeare, Midsummer Night's Dream, Act V. Sc.1 ]
The tongue is not steel yet it cuts sorely. [ Proverb ]
Fie! What a spendthrift he is of his tongue! [ William Shakespeare ]
An evil tongue is the proof of an evil mind. [ Publius Syrus ]
His tongue is as cloven as the devil's foot. [ Proverb ]
No sword bites so fiercely as an evil tongue. [ Sir P. Sidney ]
A generous heart repairs a slanderous tongue. [ Homer ]
So many miseries have crazed my voice,
That my woe-wearied tongue is still and mute. [ William Shakespeare ]
Murther, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ. [ William Shakespeare ]
The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve;
Lovers, to bed; 'tis almost fairy time. [ William Shakespeare ]
You shall never clap a padlock upon my tongue. [ Proverb ]
Death and life are in the power of the tongue. [ Bible ]
Let not your tongue run away with your brains. [ Proverb ]
The tongue is the worst part of a bad servant. [ Juvenal ]
Sweet letters of the angel tongue,
I've loved ye long and well.
And never have failed in your fragrance sweet
To find some secret spell -
A charm that has bound me with witching power,
For mine is the old belief,
That midst your sweets and midst your bloom,
There's a soul in every leaf! [ M. M. Ballou ]
The sweetest noise on earth, a woman's tongue;
A string which hath no discord. [ Barry Cornwall ]
The wise man has long ears and a short tongue. [ German Proverb ]
Assail'd by scandal and the tongue of strife,
His only answer was a blameless life;
And he that forged, and he that threw the dart,
Had each a brother's interest in his heart. [ Cowper ]
The deeper the sorrow, the less tongue hath it. [ Talmud ]
No might nor greatness in mortality
Can censure escape; brick-wounding calumny
The whitest virtue strikes: what king so strong
Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue? [ William Shakespeare ]
For man loves knowledge, and the beams of truth
More welcome touch his understanding's eye,
Than all the blandishments of sound his ear,
Than all of taste his tongue. [ Akenside ]
The tongue is ever turning to the aching tooth. [ Proverb ]
The heart must glow before the tongue can gild. [ W. R. Alger ]
When gold speaks you may even hold your tongue. [ Proverb ]
The wise hand does not all the tongue dictates. [ Cervantes ]
He knows much who knows how to hold his tongue. [ Proverb ]
Immortal art! Where'er the rounded sky
Bends over the cradle where thy children lie,
Their home is earth, their herald every tongue. [ Holmes ]
When over the street the morning peal is flung,
From yon tall belfry with the brazen tongue,
Its wide vibrations, wafted by the gale,
To each far listener tell a different tale. [ Holmes ]
A good tongue has seldom need to beg attention. [ Proverb ]
I should think your tongue had broken its chain! [ Longfellow ]
You play the spaniel,
And think with wagging of your tongue to win me. [ William Shakespeare ]
Grey hairs are wisdom - if you hold your tongue;
Speak - and they are but hairs, as in the young. [ Philo ]
'Tis good nature only wins the heart;
It moulds the body to an easy grace
And brightens every feature of the face;
It smoothes the unpolish'd tongue with eloquence
And adds persuasion to the finest sense. [ Stillingfleet ]
The pleasant books, that silently among
Our household treasures take familiar places,
And are to us as if a living tongue
Spake from the printed leaves or pictured faces! [ Longfellow ]
In every ear it spread, on every tongue it grew. [ Pope ]
Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportioned thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd unfledged comrade. [ William Shakespeare, Hamlet ]
This punishment a prating tongue brought on him. [ Ovid ]
Be aware of a fine tongue, 'twill sting mortally. [ Proverb ]
We must be free or die, who speak the tongue
That Shakespeare spake; the faith and morals hold
Which Milton held! [ Wordsworth ]
He cannot speak well that cannot hold his tongue. [ Proverb ]
Much tongue and much judgment seldom go together. [ Sir Roger l'Estrange ]
What my tongue dares not that my heart shall say. [ William Shakespeare ]
It is pity you are not a little more tongue-tied. [ Proverb ]
I know enough to hold my tongue, but not to speak. [ Proverb ]
The face should give leave to the tongue to speak. [ Proverb ]
Virtue dwells not in the tongue, but in the heart. [ Proverb ]
Dip the pen of the tongue in the ink of the heart. [ Edlin ]
Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste:
For valour, is not love a Hercules? [ William Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost, Act. IV. Sc. 3 ]
The tattler’s tongue is ever dancing a silly jig. [ Proverb ]
Her tongue steals away all the time from her hands. [ Proverb ]
Drunkards have a fool's tongue and a knave's heart. [ Proverb ]
This fellow must have a rare understanding;
For nature recompenseth the defects
Of one part with redundance in another;
Blind men have excellent memories, and the tongue
Thus indisposed, there's treasure in the intellect. [ Shirley ]
Sculpture, the tongue on the balance of expression. [ Quoted by Emerson ]
I think the first wisdom is to restrain the tongue. [ Cato ]
The mind will quote whether the tongue does or not. [ Emerson ]
Many a man's tongue shakes out his master's undoing. [ William Shakespeare ]
Whenever he speaks, Heaven, how the listening throng
Dwell on the melting music of his tongue!
His arguments are emblems of his mien,
Mild but not faint, and forcing, though serene:
And when the power of eloquence he'd try,
Here lightning strikes you, there soft breezes sigh. [ Garth ]
His tongue goes always of errands, but never speeds. [ Proverb ]
Give me the ready hand rather than the ready tongue. [ Garibaldi ]
For there are deeds
Which have no form, sufferings which have no tongue. [ Shelley ]
An ox is taken by the horns, and a man by the tongue. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
A fool's tongue is long enough to cut his own throat. [ Proverb ]
A slip of the tongue ought not to be rashly punished. [ Law ]
Oh, help thou my weak wit, and sharpen my dull tongue! [ Spenser ]
Give your tongue more holiday than your hands or eyes. [ Rabbi Ben Azai ]
Light griefs do speak, while sorrow's tongue is bound. [ Seneca ]
The thought hath good legs and the quill a good tongue. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
He must have leave to speak who cannot hold his tongue. [ Proverb ]
The discreet hand does not do all that the tongue says. [ Proverb ]
Woman's tongue is her sword, which she never lets rust. [ Madame Necker ]
The tongue breaks the bone, though it hath none itself. [ Proverb ]
To restrain the tongue is not the least of the virtues.
He that strikes with his tongue must ward with his head. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
The thought has good wings, and the quill a good tongue. [ Proverb ]
A bridle for the tongue is a necessary piece of furniture. [ Proverb ]
One with more of soul in his face than words on his tongue. [ Wordsworth ]
A good cause and a good tongue, and yet money must carry it. [ Proverb ]
An head with a good tongue in it, is worth double the price. [ Proverb ]
To many men well-fitting doors are not set on their tongues. [ Theognis ]
Such a stroke with the tongue is worse than one with a lance. [ French Proverb ]
The venom of a viperous tongue may be converted into treacle. [ Proverb ]
He who has a tongue in his head can travel all the world over. [ Italian Proverb ]
Hold your tongue, husband; let me talk, that have all the wit. [ Proverb ]
She has an eye that could speak, though her tongue were silent. [ Aaron Hill ]
He that knows not how to hold his tongue knows not how to talk. [ Proverb ]
Faster than his tongue did make offense, his eye did heal it up. [ William Shakespeare ]
Death? Translated into the heavenly tongue, that word means life! [ Beecher ]
If thou desire to be held wise, be so wise as to hold thy tongue. [ Quarles ]
He has seen a wolf. (Proverb of one who suddenly curbs his tongue.) [ ? ]
He that has no silver in his purse should have silver on his tongue. [ Proverb ]
Meditation is the tongue of the soiu and the language of our spirit. [ Jeremy Taylor ]
You can speak well, if your tongue deliver the message of your heart. [ John Ford ]
My tongue within my lips I rein. For who talks much must talk in vain. [ Gay ]
Commonly they use their feet for defence whose tongue is their weapon. [ Sir P. Sidney ]
In these days, whether we like it or not, the power is with the tongue. [ Lord Salisbury ]
He who knows not, knows a good deal if he knows how to hold his tongue. [ Italian Proverb ]
The tongue of the wise useth knowledge aright, and is as choice silver. [ Bible ]
In nine cases out of ten, the evil tongue belongs to a disappointed man. [ Bancroft ]
Learn to hold thy tongue. Five words cost Zacharias forty weeks silence. [ Fuller ]
The tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. [ St. James ]
The pen is the tongue of the hand; a silent utterer of words for the eye. [ Henry Ward Beecher ]
Use your ears and eyes, but hold your tongue, if you would live in peace.
A fool's heart is in his tongue; but a wise man's tongue is in his heart. [ Quarles ]
A sharp tongue is the only edge-tool that grows keener with constant use. [ Washington Irving ]
He does me double wrong, that wounds me with the flatteries of his tongue. [ William Shakespeare ]
The tongue of a fool carves a piece of his heart, to all that sit near him. [ Proverb ]
He hath tied a knot with his tongue that he cannot untie with all his teeth. [ Proverb ]
The shadow of a sound, - a voice without a mouth, and words without a tongue. [ Paul Chatfield ]
One whom the music of his own vain tongue doth ravish like enchanting harmony. [ William Shakespeare ]
And whatsoever else shall hap tonight. Give it an understanding, but no tongue. [ William Shakespeare ]
A slip of the foot may be soon recovered; but that of the tongue perhaps never. [ Proverb ]
The eyes, the ears, the tongue, the hands, the feet, they all fast in their way. [ Proverb ]
Genius does not need a special language; it newly uses whatever tongue it finds. [ Stedman ]
True gladness doth not always speak; joy bred and born but in the tongue is weak. [ Ben Jonson ]
Great knowledge, if it be without vanity, is the most severe bridle of the tongue. [ Jeremy Taylor ]
Though we have two eyes, we are supplied with but one tongue. Draw your own moral. [ Alphonse Karr ]
Words do sometimes fly from the tongue that the heart did neither hatch nor harbour. [ Feltham ]
The wise man, even when he holds his tongue, says more than the fool, when he speaks. [ Proverb ]
It is a shame for the tongue to cast itself upon the uncertain pardon of other's ears. [ Bishop Hall ]
That man that has a tongue, I say, is no man if with his tongue he cannot win a woman. [ William Shakespeare ]
It is a pity those that taught you to talk, did not also teach you to hold your tongue. [ Proverb ]
The man that hath a tongue, I say, is no man, if with his tongue be cannot win a woman. [ William Shakespeare ]
Ten Things To Do.
Do good to all.
Speak evil of none.
Hear and know the facts before judging.
Think before speaking.
Hold an angry tongue.
Be kind to the distressed.
Ask pardon for all wrongs.
Be patient toward everybody.
Stop the ears to a tale-bearer.
Disbelieve most of the ill reports concerning friends, neighbors, and people in general.
To check the starts and sallies of the soul, and break off all its commerce with the tongue. [ Addison ]
If the tongue had not been formed for articulation, man would still be a beast in the forest. [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]
The tongue of a fool is the key of his counsel, which, in a wise man, wisdom hath in keeping. [ Socrates ]
The speech of the tongue is best known to men; God best understands the language of the heart. [ Warwick ]
The chameleon, who is said to feed upon nothing but air, has of all animals the nimblest tongue. [ Swift ]
The upright, if he suffer calumny to move him, fears the tongue of man more than the eye of God. [ Colton ]
From a confidence to an indiscretion, there is only the distance between the ear and the tongue. [ Pichot ]
Men are such cowards. They outrage every law of the world, and are afraid of the world's tongue. [ Oscar Wilde, Lady Windemere's Fan ]
The tongue is the instrument of the greatest good and the greatest evil that is done in the world. [ Sir Walter Raleigh ]
A jest's prosperity lies in the ear of him that hears it, never in the tongue of him that makes it. [ William Shakespeare, Love's Labor Lost ]
Silence holds the door against the strife of tongue and all the impertinences of idle conversation. [ James Hervey ]
If you would make a pair of good shoes, take for the sole the tongue of a woman: it never wears out. [ Alsatian Proverb ]
The Golden Rule Of Three.
Three things to be - pure, just and honest.
Three things to govern - temper, tongue and conduct.
Three things to live - courage, affection and gentleness.
Three things to love - the wise, the virtuous and the innocent.
Three things to commend - thrift, industry and promptness.
Three things about which to think - life, death and eternity.
Three things to despise - cruelty, arrogance and ingratitude.
Three things to admire - dignity, gracefulness and intellectual power.
Three things to cherish - the true, the beautiful and the good.
Three things for which to wish - health, friends and contentment.
Three things for which to fight - honor, home and country.
Three things to attain - goodness of heart, integrity of purpose and cheerfulness of disposition.
Three things to give - alms to the needy, comfort to the sad and appreciation to the worthy.
Three things to desire - the blessing of God, an approving conscience and the fellowship of the good.
Three things for which to work - a trained mind, a skilled hand and a regulated heart.
Three things for which to hope - a haven of peace, a robe of righteousness and the crown of life. [ Beattie ]
If any man think it a small matter, or of mean concernment, to bridle his tongue, he is much mistaken. [ Plutarch ]
Men are born with two eyes, but with one tongue, in order that they should see twice as much as they say. [ Colton ]
Wisdom is the olive that springeth from the heart, bloometh on the tongue, and beareth fruit in the actions. [ Grymestone ]
Since I cannot govern my own tongue, though within my own teeth, how can I hope to govern the tongue of others? [ Franklin ]
When we advance a little into life, we find that the tongue of man creates nearly all the mischief of the world. [ Paxton Hood ]
His tongue dropped manna, and could make the worse appear the better reason, to perplex and dash maturest counsels. [ Milton ]
The tale-bearer and the tale-hearer should be both hanged up, back to back, one by the tongue, the other by the ear. [ South ]
Let me be cruel, not unnatural; I will speak daggers to her; but use none; my tongue and soul in this be hypocrites. [ William Shakespeare ]
Open, candid, and generous, his heart was the constant companion of his hand, and his tongue the artless index of his mind. [ George Canning ]
When the tongue or the pen is let loose in a frenzy of passion, it is the man, and not the subject, that becomes exhausted. [ Thomas Paine ]
By examining the tongue of a patient, physicians find out the diseases of the body, and philosophers the diseases of the mind. [ Justin ]
A wound from a tongue is worse than a wound from the sword; the latter affects only the body - the former, the spirit, the soul. [ Pythagoras ]
No tongue can tell the joy of a pious mother, when her child is converted or turned from the way of folly to that of true wisdom. [ Mrs. Willard ]
O this itch of the ear, that breaks out at the tongue! Were not curiosity so over-busy, detraction would soon be starved to death. [ Douglas Jerrold ]
When thou are obliged to speak, be sure to speak the truth; for equivocation is half-way to lying and lying is the whole way to hell. [ William Penn ]
A little scandal is an excellent thing; nobody is ever brighter or happier of tongue than when he is making mischief of his neighbors. [ Ouida ]
To have the tongue cut out, and to be seated deaf and dumb in a corner, were preferable to his condition who cannot govern his tongue. [ Sadi ]
Never hold any one by the button or the hand in order to be heard out; for if people are unwilling to hear you, you had better hold your tongue. [ Chesterfield ]
I think the first virtue is to restrain the tongue; he approaches nearest to the gods who knows how to be silent, even though he is in the right. [ Cato ]
Words may be counterfeit, false coined, and current only from the tongue, without the mind; but passion is in the soul, and always speaks the heart. [ Southern ]
Great joy, especially after a sudden change and revolution of circumstances, is apt to be silent, and dwells rather in the heart than on the tongue. [ Fielding ]
When the tongue is the weapon, a man may strike where he cannot reach; and a word shall do execution both further and deeper than the mightiest blow. [ South ]
There is something irresistibly pleasing in the conversation of a fine woman; even though her tongue be silent, the eloquence of her eyes teach wisdom. [ Goldsmith ]
The tongue is, at the same time, the best part of man and his worst; with good government, none is more useful, and without it, none is more mischievous. [ Anacharsis ]
God gave you that gifted tongue of yours, and set it between your teeth, to make known your true meaning to us, not to be rattled like a muffinman's bell. [ Carlyle ]
The hearing ear is always found close to the speaking tongue; and no genius can long or often utter anything which is not invited and gladly entertained by men around him. [ Emerson ]
No one loves to tell of scandal except to him who loves to hear it. Learn, then, to rebuke and check the detracting tongue by showing that you do not listen to it with pleasure. [ St. Jerome ]
No one can take less pains than to hold his tongue. Hear much, and speak little; for the tongue is the instrument of the greatest good and greatest evil that is done in the world. [ Sir Walter Raleigh ]
I should as soon think of swimming across the Charles River when I wish to go to Boston, as of reading all my books in originals, when I have them rendered for me in my mother tongue. [ Emerson ]
There is a silence, the child of love, which expresses everything, and proclaims more loudly than the tongue is able to do; there are movements that are involuntary proofs of what the soul feels. [ Alfieri ]
The tongue tells the thought of one man only, whereas the face expresses a thought of nature itself; so that every one is worth attentive observation, even though every one may not be worth talking to. [ Arthur Schopenhauer ]
In my opinion, the unjust man whose tongue is full of glozing rhetoric, merits the heaviest punishment; vaunting that he can with his tongue gloze over injustice, he dares to act wickedly, yet he is not over-wise. [ Euripides ]
If wealth come, beware of him, the smooth, false friend! There is treachery in his proffered hand; his tongue is eloquent to tempt; lust of many harms is lurking in his eye; he hath a hollow heart; use him cautiously. [ Tupper ]
Give not thy tongue too great a liberty, lest it take thee prisoner. A word unspoken is like the sword in the scabbard, thine; if vented, thy sword is in another's hand. If thou desire to be held wise, be so wise as to hold thy tongue. [ Quarles ]
The tongue of man is powerful enough to render the ideas which the human intellect conceives; but in the realm of true and deep sentiments it is but a weak interpreter. These are inexpressible, like the endless glory of the Omnipotent. [ Kossuth ]
The intelligence of affection is carried on by the eye only; good-breeding has made the tongue falsify the heart, and act a part of continued restraint, while nature has preserved the eyes to herself, that she may not be disguised or misrepresented. [ Addison ]
From the crown of his head to the sole of his foot he is all mirth; he has twice or thrice cut Cupid's bowstring, and the little hangman dare not shoot at him: he hath a heart as sound as a bell, and his tongue is the clapper; for what his heart thinks his tongue speaks. [ William Shakespeare ]
In the use of the tongue God hath distinguished us from beasts, and by the well or ill using it we are distinguished from one another; and therefore, though silence be innocent as death, harmless as a rose's breath to a distant passenger, yet it is rather the state of death than life. [ Jeremy Taylor ]
The productions of the press, fast as steam can make and carry them, go abroad through all the land, silent as snowflakes, but potent as thunder. It is an additional tongue of steam and lightning, by which a man speaks his first thought, his instant argument or grievance, to millions in a day. [ Chapin ]
His eloquent tongue so well seconds his fertile invention that no one speaks better when suddenly called forth. His attention never languishes; his mind is always before his words; his memory has all its stock so turned into ready money that, without hesitation or delay, it supplies whatever the occasion may require. [ Erasmus ]
The clear conception, outrunning the deductions of logic, the high purpose, the dauntless spirit, speaking on the tongue, beaming from the eye, informing every feature, and urging the whole man onward, right onward, to his object - this is eloquence, or rather it is something greater and higher than all eloquence - it is action, noble, sublime, godlike action. [ Webster ]
Living authors, therefore, are usually bad companions. If they have not gained character, they seek to do so by methods often ridiculous, always disgusting; and if they have established a character, they are silent for fear of losing by their tongue what they have acquired by their pen - for many authors converse much more foolishly than Goldsmith, who have never written half so well. [ Colton ]
In eloquence, the great triumphs of the art are when the orator is lifted above himself; when consciously he makes himself the mere tongue of the occasion and the hour, and says what cannot but be said. Hence the term abandonment,
to describe the self-surrender of the orator. Not his will, but the principle on which he is horsed, the great connection and crisis of events, thunder in the ear of the crowd. [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]
Mr. Johnson had never, by his own account, been a close student, and used to advise young people never to be without a book in their pocket, to be read at bye-times, when they had nothing else to do. It has been by that means,
said he to a boy at our house one day, that all my knowledge has been gained, except what I have picked up by running about the world with my wits ready to observe, and my tongue ready to talk.
[ Mrs. Piozzi ]
His tongue, like the tail of Samson's foxes, carries firebrands, and is enough to set the whole field of the world on a flame. Himself begins table-talk of his neighbor at another's board, to whom he bears the first news, and adjures him to conceal the reporter; whose choleric answer he returns to his first host, enlarged with a second edition; so as it used to be done in the fight of unwilling mastiffs, he claps each on the side apart, and provokes them to an eager conflict. [ Bishop Hall ]