After dinner sit a while,
After supper walk a mile. [ Proverb ]

Go where glory waits thee;
But while fame elates thee,
Oh! still remember me. [ Moore ]

Best to bend it while a twig. [ Proverb ]

Strike while the iron is hot. [ Proverb ]

Gather roses while they bloom,
Tomorrow is yet far away.
Moments lost have no room,
In tomorrow or today. [ Gleim ]

Make hay while the sun shines. [ Proverb ]

Plough deep while sluggards sleep. [ Benjamin Franklin ]

That holy dream - that holy dream.
While all the world were chiding,
Hath cheered me as a lovely beam,
A lonely spirit guiding. [ Poe ]

Oh, may I with myself agree,
And never covet what I see.
Content me with an humble shade,
My passions tamed, my wishes laid;
For, while our wishes wildly roll.
We banish quiet from the soul.
It is thus the busy beat the air,
And misers gather wealth and care. [ Dyer ]

While there is life there is hope. [ Proverb ]

Study sickness while you are well. [ Proverb ]

Wickedness may prosper for a while. [ L'Estrange ]

At a great pennyworth pause a while. [ Benjamin Franklin ]

While rocking winds are piping loud. [ Milton ]

Heaven trims our lamps while we sleep. [ Alcott ]

Good things come to some while asleep. [ French Proverb ]

Muses were dumb while Apollo lectured. [ Lamb ]

Here quench your thirst, and mark in me
An emblem of true charity;
Who, while my bounty I bestow.
Am neither seen, nor heard to flow. [ Hone ]

Gather the rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying,
And this same flower that smiles today,
Tomorrow will be dying. [ Herrick ]

Mortal beauty stings while it delights. [ Bovee ]

While bright-eyed Science watches round. [ Gray ]

A spirit pure as hers,
Is always pure, even while it errs:
As sunshine, broken in the rill,
Though turned astray, is sunshine still. [ Moore ]

While the grass grows the steed starves. [ Proverb ]

A sturdy oak, which nature forms
To brave a hundred winter's storms.
While round its head the whirlwinds blow.
Remains with root infix'd below:
When fell'd to earth, a ship it sails
Through dashing waves and driving gales
And now at sea, again defies
The threatening clouds and howling skies. [ Hoole ]

While man's desires and aspirations stir,
He can not choose but err. [ Goethe ]

To rock and river, plain and wood,
I cry, Ye are my kin. While I, O Earth!
Am but an atom of thee, and a breath,
Passing unseen and unrecorded, like
The tiny throb here in my temple's pulse. [ Philip J. Bailey ]

The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight.
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night. [ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ]

While a sick man has life, there is hope. [ Proverb ]

Sinks to the grave with unperceived decay,
while resignation gently slopes the way. [ Goldsmith ]

While man is growing, life is in decrease;
And cradles rock us nearer to the tomb.
Our birth is nothing but our death begun. [ Young ]

Dashing in big drops on the narrow pane,
And making mournful music for the mind,
While plays his interlude the wizzard wind,
I hear the singing of the frequent rain. [ William H. Burleigh ]

Why, let the stricken deer go weep,
The heart ungalled play;
For some must watch, while some must sleep;
Thus runs the world away. [ William Shakespeare ]

Sometimes virtue starves while vice is fed. [ Pope ]

You are like a hog, never good while living. [ Proverb ]

Evil news rides post, while good news bates. [ Milton ]

Take time while time is, for time will away. [ Proverb ]

There are, while human miseries abound,
A thousand ways to waste superfluous wealth,
Without one fool or flatterer at your board,
Without one hour of sickness or disgust. [ Armstrong ]

The foxglove, with its stately bells,
Of purple, shall adorn thy dells;
The wallflower, on each rifted rock,
From liberal blossoms shall breathe down,
(Gold blossoms frecked with iron-brown,)
Its fragrance; while the hollyhock,
The pink, and the carnation vie
With lupin and with lavender.
To decorate the fading year;
And larkspurs, many-hued, shall drive
Gloom from the groves, where red leaves lie.
And Nature seems but half alive. [ D. M. Moir ]

Destroy the lion while he is yet but a whelp. [ Proverb ]

Small service is true service while it lasts. [ Wordsworth ]

Man, while he loves, is never quite depraved. [ Lamb ]

'Tis our fast intent
To shake all cares and business from our age,
Conferring them on younger strengths, while we
Unburden'd crawl toward death. [ William Shakespeare ]

And evermore the waters worship God;
And bards and prophets tune their mystic lyres
While listening to the music of the waves! [ Mrs. Hale ]

'Tis beautiful, when first the dewy light
Breaks on the earth! while yet the scented air
Is breathing the cool freshness of the night
And the bright clouds a tint of crimson wear. [ Elizabeth M. Chandler ]

While Reason drew the plan, the Heart informed
The moral page and Fancy lent it grace. [ Thomson ]

But on he moves to meet his latter end,
Angels around befriending virtue's friend;
Sinks to the grave with unperceived decay,
While resignation gently slopes the way;
And all his prospects bright'ning to the last,
His heaven commences, ere the world be past! [ Goldsmith ]

Not oft near home does genius brightly shine,
No more than precious stones while in the mine. [ Omar Khayyam ]

While resignation gently slopes the way;
And, all his prospects brightening to the last,
His heaven commences ere the world be past. [ Goldsmith ]

Grief hallows hearts, even while it ages heads. [ Bailey ]

Jove weighs affairs of earth in dubious scales.
And the good suffers while the bad prevails. [ Homer ]

Long while I sought to what I might compare
Those powerful eyes, which light my dark spirit;
Yet found I nought on earth, to which I dare
Resemble the image of their goodly light.
Not to the sun, for they do shine by night;
Nor to the moon, for they are changed never;
Nor to the stars, for they have purer sight;
Nor to the fire, for they consume not ever;
Nor to the lightning, for they still persevere;
Nor to the diamond, for they are more tender;
Nor unto crystal, for nought may they sever;
Nor unto glass, such baseness might offend her;
Then to the Maker's self the likest be;
Whose light doth lighten all that here we see. [ Spenser ]

Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows,
While proudly rising over the azure realm,
In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes,
Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm. [ Gray ]

A man is a stark fool all the while he is angry. [ Proverb ]

Though wisdom wake, suspicion sleeps
At wisdom's gate, and to simplicity
Resigns her charge, while goodness thinks no ill
Where no ill seems. [ Milton ]

Trade hardly deems the busy day begun,
Till his keen eye along the sheet has run;
The blooming daughter throws her needle by.
And reads her schoolmate's marriage with a sigh;
While the grave mother puts her glasses on.
And gives a tear to some old crony gone.
The preacher, too, his Sunday theme lays down,
To know what last new folly fills the town;
Lively or sad, life's meanest, mightiest things.
The fate of fighting cocks, or fighting kings. [ Sprague ]

Many have reached their fate while reading fate. [ Seneca ]

Here lies Dame Dorothy Peg,
Who never had issue except in her leg,
So great was her art, so deep was her cunning,
That while one leg stood, the other kept running. [ Epitaph ]

Hear the mellow wedding bells.
Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells
Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight!
From the molten golden notes,
And all in tune
What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle-dove that listen? while she gloats
On the moon! [ Poe ]

O happy unowned youths! your limbs can bear
The scorching dog-star and the winter's air,
While the rich infant, nursed with care and pain,
Thirsts with each heat and coughs with every rain! [ Gay ]

His words seem'd oracles
That pierced their bosoms; and each man would turn
And gaze in wonder on his neighbour's face,
That with the like dumb wonder answer'd him.
You could have heard
The beating of your pulses while he spoke. [ George Croly ]

Life wastes itself while we are preparing to live. [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]

Benefits please like flowers while they are fresh. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]

O very gloomy is the House of Woe,
Where tears are falling while the bell is knelling.
With all the dark solemnities which show
That Death is in the dwelling!
O, very, very dreary is the room
Where Love, domestic Love, no longer nestles.
But smitten by the common stroke of doom.
The corpse lies on the trestles! [ Hood ]

You are in the roast-meat, while we are in the sod. [ Proverb ]

The fool runs away while his house is burning down. [ Proverb ]

Humour is consistent with pathos, while wit is not. [ Coleridge ]

The man that once did sell the lion's skin
While the beast lived, was killed with hunting him. [ William Shakespeare ]

Small service is true service while it lasts.
Of humblest friends, bright creature! scorn not one:
The daisy, by the shadow that it casts,
Protects the lingering dewdrop from the sun. [ Wordsworth, to a child ]

While words of learned length, and thundering sound,
Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around;
And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew,
That one small head should carry all he knew. [ Goldsmith ]

While love decreases with age, friendship increases. [ E. P. Day ]

... but while
I breathe Heaven's air, and Heaven looks down on me.
And smiles at my best meanings, I remain
Mistress of mine own self and mine own soul. [ Tennyson ]

I have this while with leaden thoughts been pressed;
But I shall, in a more continuate time,
Strike off this score of absence. [ William Shakespeare ]

While we are reasoning concerning life, life is gone. [ Hume ]

While the discreet advise the fool doth his business. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]

An infant when it gazes on the light,
A child the moment when it drains the breast,
A devotee when soars the Host in sight,
An Arab with a stranger for a guest,
A sailor when the prize has struck in fight,
A miser filling his most hoarded chest,
Feel rapture; but not such true joy are reaping
As they who watch over what they love while sleeping. [ Byron ]

The more light a torch gives, the less while it lasts. [ Proverb ]

Light griefs do speak, while sorrow's tongue is bound. [ Seneca ]

Enjoy your little while the fool is in search of more. [ Spanish Proverb ]

The eye strays not while under the guidance of reason. [ Publius Syrus ]

While we flee from our fate, we like fools rush on it. [ Buchanan ]

A good dinner sharpens wit, while it softens the heart. [ Doran ]

Hope itself is a pain, while it is overmatched by fear. [ Sir P. Sidney ]

While you look at what is given, look also at the giver. [ Seneca ]

Though the cat winks a while, yet sure she is not blind. [ Proverb ]

Friendship always benefits, while love sometimes injures. [ Seneca ]

Leave jesting while it pleaseth, lest it turn to earnest. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]

Many weep for the sin, while they laugh over the pleasure. [ Marguerite de Valois ]

And never shall the sons of Columbia be slaves.
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves. [ Robert Treat Paine ]

Philosophy, while it soothes the reason, damps the ambition. [ Bulwer-Lytton ]

+{Instruction} Seek to, delight, that they may mend mankind.
And, while they captivate, inform the mind. [ Cowper ]

The ideal of friendship is to feel as one while remaining two. [ Madame Swetchine ]

While you trust to the dog the wolf slips into the sheep fold. [ Proverb ]

Love manufactures every man into a poet while the fever lasts. [ Mrs. Campbell Praed ]

Gaming, women, and wine, while they laugh, they make men pine. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]

It becomes one, while exempt from woes, to look to the dangers. [ Sophocles ]

No nation can be destroyed while it possesses a good home life. [ J. G. Holland ]

Religion worships God, while superstition profanes that worship. [ Seneca ]

Virtue may be overclouded a while, but 'twill shine at the last. [ Proverb ]

He has oratory who ravishes his hearers while he forgets himself. [ Lavater ]

We thought her dying while she slept, and sleeping when she died. [ Hood ]

Ah! perhaps while we are hoping, mischief has already overtaken us. [ Friedrich Schiller ]

Not only strike while the iron is hot, but make it hot by striking. [ Cromwell ]

While our hearts are pure, our lives are happy and our peace is sure. [ William Winter ]

Error will slip through a crack, while truth will stick in a doorway. [ H. W. Shaw ]

Faith and hope themselves shall die, while deathless charity remains. [ Prior ]

As we are born to work, so others are born to watch over us while working. [ Goldsmith ]

What is man's love? His vows are broke even while his parting kiss is warm. [ Halleck ]

Thought is like opium: it can intoxicate us while it leaves us broad awake. [ Amiel ]

Great events are the hour-hands of time, while small events mark the minutes. [ Ramsay ]

Diligence is the mother, while negligence is but a step-dame to all learning. [ Boethius ]

Pardon is voluntary forgetfulness, while forgetfulness is involuntary pardon. [ Stahl ]

O how portentous is prosperity! How, comet-like, it threatens, while it shines! [ Young ]

While memory watches over the sad review of joys that faded like the morning dew. [ Campbell ]

While his off-heel, insidiously aside. Provokes the caper which he seems to chide. [ Sheridan ]

Experience is a keen knife that hurts, while it extracts the cataract that blinds. [ De Finod ]

Men, like peaches and pears, grow sweet a little while before they begin to decay. [ Holmes ]

Some pretences daunt and discourage us, while others raise us to a brisk assurance. [ Glanville ]

Let us be quick to repent of injuries while repentance may not be a barren anguish. [ Dr. Johnson ]

Wives must have their wills, while they live; because they make none, when they die. [ Proverb ]

We must not only strike the iron while it is hot, but strike it till it is made hot. [ Sharp ]

It is a maxim that no man was ever enslaved by influence while he was fit to be free. [ Johnson ]

Stupid people move like lay-figures, while every joint of an intelligent man is eloquent. [ Arthur Schopenhauer ]

Offend her, and she knows not to forgive; Oblige her, and she'll hate you while you live. [ Pope ]

Press on! - for in the grave there is no work And no device - Press on! while yet ye may! [ N. P. Willis ]

When I am dead, may earth be mingled with fire! Ay, said Nero, and while I am living, too. [ From a Greek Tragedian ]

The artful injury, whose venomed dart scarce wounds the hearing, while it stabs the heart. [ Hannah More ]

While Selfishness joins hands with no one of the virtues. Benevolence is allied to them all. [ Oliver Goldsmith ]

Ridicule, while it often checks what is absurd, fully as often smothers that which is noble. [ Scott ]

Circumstances form the character; but, like petrifying matters, they harden while they form. [ Landor ]

Nature will sometimes lie buried a great while, and yet revive upon occasion of a temptation. [ Proverb ]

As we advance in life the circle of our pains enlarges, while that of our pleasures contracts. [ Madame Swetchine ]

He whom the gods love dies young, while he is in health, has his senses and his judgment sound. [ Plautus ]

Think not your estate your own, while any man can call upon you for money which you cannot pay. [ Johnson ]

There will be mistakes in divinity while men preach, and errors in governments while men govern. [ Sir Dudley Carlton ]

Labour is exercise continued to fatigue; exercise is labour used only while it produces pleasure. [ Johnson ]

Books, while they teach us to respect the interest of others, often make us unmindful of our own. [ Goldsmith ]

As amber attracts a straw, so does beauty admiration, which only lasts while the warmth continues. [ Robert Burton ]

While you are prosperous, you can number many friends; but when the storm comes, you are left alone. [ Ovid ]

While black with storms the ruffled ocean rolls, and from the fisher's art defends her finny shoals. [ Sir R. Blackmore ]

The cheek may be tinged with a warm sunny smile, though the cold heart to ruin runs darkly the while. [ Moore ]

We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done. [ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ]

Costly followers are not to be liked, lest while a man maketh his train longer, he make his wings shorter. [ Bacon ]

He who has published an injurious book sins in his very grave, corrupts others while he is rotting himself. [ South ]

Better that people should laugh at one while they instruct, than that they should praise without benefiting. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]

Friendship closes its eye rather than see the moon eclipsed; while malice denies that it is ever at the full. [ J. C. Hare ]

Fancy rules over two-thirds of the universe, the past and the future, while reality is confined to the present. [ Jean Paul ]

Our immortal souls, while righteous, are by God himself beautified with the title of his own image and similitude. [ Sir Walter Raleigh ]

I change my place, but not my company. While here I have sometimes walked with God, and now I go to rest with Him. [ Dr. Preston ]

Time is like a river, in which metals and solid substances are sunk, while chaff and straws swim upon the surface. [ Bacon ]

What is a miracle? - 'Tis a reproach, 'Tis an implicit satire on mankind; And while its satisfies, it censures too. [ Young ]

Friendship throws a greater luster on prosperity, while it lightens adversity by sharing in its griefs and anxieties. [ Cicero ]

We are either progressing or retrograding all the while; there is no such thing as remaining stationary in this life. [ James Freeman Clarke ]

The flatterer easily insinuates himself into the closet, while honest merit stands shivering in the hall or antechamber. [ Jane Porter ]

A man who does not learn to live while he is getting a living is a poorer man after his wealth is won than he was before. [ J. G. Holland ]

Codes are treacherous seas in which the poor barks of smugglers perish, while big corsairs traverse them under full sail. [ E. Souvestre ]

The greatest pleasure in life is that of reading while we are young. I have had as much of this pleasure perhaps as any one. [ Hazlitt ]

It is not how many books thou hast, but how good; careful reading profiteth, while that which is full of variety delighteth. [ Seneca ]

Oh, how a small portion of earth will hold us when we are dead, who ambitiously seek after the whole world while we are living! [ Philip, King of Macedon ]

The thing formed says that nothing formed it; and that which is made is, while that which made it is not! The folly is infinite. [ Jeremy Taylor ]

The old prose writers wrote as if they were speaking to an audience; while, among us, prose is invariably written for the eye alone. [ Niebuhr ]

That wonderful book, while it obtains admiration from the most fastidious critics, is loved by those who are too simple to admire it. [ Macaulay ]

Difficulty excites the mind to the dignity which sustains and finally conquers misfortunes, and the ordeal refines while it chastens. [ Aughey ]

Since time is not a person we can overtake when he is past, let us honour him with mirth and cheerfulness of heart while he is passing. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]

Such a one seems to applaud, while he is really ridiculing you; attach yourself to those who advise you rather than to those who praise. [ Boileau ]

Intellectually the difficulties of unbelief are as great as those of belief, while morally the argument is wholly on the side of belief. [ Dr. T. Arnold ]

False friends are like our shadow, keeping close to us while we walk in the sunshine, but leaving us the instant we cross into the shade. [ Bovee ]

Time, as a river, hath brought down to us what is more light and superficial, while things more solid and substantial have been immersed. [ Glanvill ]

A father who whipped his son for swearing and swore at him while he whipped him, did more harm by his example than good by his correction. [ Thomas Fuller ]

With the world, do not resort to injuries, but only to irony and gayety: injury revolts, while irony makes one reflect, and gayety disarms. [ Voltaire ]

To despond is to be ungrateful beforehand. Be not looking for evil. Often thou drainest the gall of fear while evil is passing thy dwelling. [ Tupper ]

We never know the true value of friends. While they live we are too sensitive of their faults: when we have lost them we only see their virtues. [ J. C. and A. W. Hare ]

You can have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government; while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect, and defend it. [ Abraham Lincoln ]

Patience is very good, but perseverance is much better; while the former stands as a stoic under difficulties, the latter whips them out of the ring. [ Elizabeth Appleton ]

While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till grief be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it. [ Johnson ]

I must confess, as the experience of my own soul, that the expectation of loving my friends in heaven principally kindles my love to them while on earth. [ Richard Baxter ]

To give you nothing and to make you expect everything, to dawdle on the threshold of love, while the doors are closed: this is all the science of a coquette. [ De Bernard ]

The land of marriage has this peculiarity: that strangers are desirous of inhabiting it, while its natural inhabitants would willingly be banished from thence. [ Montaigne ]

Youth is not like a new garment which we can keep fresh and fair by wearing sparingly. Youth, while we have it, we must wear daily; and it will fast wear away. [ John Foster ]

Diligence is the mother of good luck, and God gives all things to industry. Then plough deep while sluggards sleep, and you shall have corn to sell and to keep. [ Benjamin Franklin ]

Love has a way of cheating itself consciously, like a child who plays at solitary hide-and-seek; it is pleased with assurances that it all the while disbelieves. [ George Eliot ]

Humour is a sort of inverse sublimity, exalting, as it were, into our affections what is below us, while sublimity draws down into our affections what is above us. [ Carlyle ]

The difference between you and me, said a philosopher, is that you say to masked hypocrites, I know you, while I leave them with the idea that they have deceived me. [ Chamfort ]

There are errors which no wise man will treat with rudeness while there is a probability that they may be the refraction of some great truth still below the horizon. [ Coleridge ]

All papas and mammas have exactly that sort of sight which distinguishes objects at a distance clearly, while they need spectacles to see those under their very noses. [ Ruffini ]

At first one omits writing for a little while; and then one stays a little while to consider of excuses; and at last it grows desperate, and one does not write at all. [ Swift ]

Commonsense in one view is the most uncommon sense. While it is extremely rare in possession, the recognition of it is universal. All men feel it, though few men have it [ H. N. Hudson ]

Coleridge cried, O God, how glorious it is to live! Renan asks, O God, when will it be worth while to live? In Nature we echo the poet; in the world we echo the thinker. [ Ouida ]

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 ]

We ought to be thankful to nature for having made those things which are necessary easy to be discovered; while other things that are difficult to be known are not necessary. [ Epicurus ]

Artists will sometimes speak of Rome with disparagement or indifference while it is before them; but no artist ever lived in Rome and then left it, without sighing to return. [ Hillard ]

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 ]

Genius, without religion, is only a lamp on the outer gate of a palace. It may serve to cast a gleam of light on those that are without while the inhabitant sits in. darkness. [ Hannah More ]

Urge them while their souls are capable of this ambition, lest zeal, now melted by the windy breath of soft petitions, pity and remorse, cool and congeal again to what it was. [ William Shakespeare ]

It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them. [ George Eliot ]

It is singular how impatient men are with overpraise of others, how patient of overpraise of themselves; and yet the one does them no injury, while the other may be their ruin. [ Lowell ]

The art of saying well what one thinks is different from the faculty of thinking. The latter may be very deep and lofty and far-reaching, while the former is altogether wanting. [ Joubert ]

I am one who finds within me a nobility that spurns! the idle pratings of the great, and their mean boasts of what their fathers were, while they themselves are fools effeminate. [ Percival ]

Amiable people, while they are more liable to imposition in casual contact with the world, yet radiate so much of mental sunshine that they are reflected in all appreciative hearts. [ Madame Deluzy ]

The mob is a sort of bear; while your ring is through its nose, it will even dance under jour cudgel; but; should the ring slip, and you lose your hold, the brute will turn and rend you. [ Jane Porter ]

We are not to be astonished that the wise walk more slowly in their road to virtue than fools in their passage to vice; since passion drags us along, while wisdom only points out the way. [ Confucius ]

He who only tastes his error will long dwell with it, will take delight in it as in a singular felicity; while he who drains it to the dregs will, if he be not crazy, find it to be what it is. [ Goethe ]

It is more reasonable to wish for reputation while it may be enjoyed, as Anacreon calls upon his companions to give him for present use the wine and garlands which they propose to bestow upon his tomb. [ Dr. Johnson ]

Men and communities in this world are often in the position of Arctic explorers, who are making great speed in a given direction, while the ice-floe beneath them is making greater speed in the opposite. [ John Burroughs ]

The sun had not risen, but the vault of heaven was rich with the winning softness that brings and shuts the day, while the whole air was filled with the carols of birds, the hymns of the feathered tribe. [ James Fenimore Cooper ]

Praise or Applause? We express our approbation by praise and applause. Praise is the general, applause, the specific term. Applause springs from impulse, while praise is the result of reason and reflection. [ Pure English, Hackett And Girvin, 1884 ]

If we can sleep without dreaming, it is well that painful dreams are avoided. If, while we sleep, we can have any pleasing dreams, it is as the French say, tant gagne, so much added to the pleasure of life. [ Franklin ]

Those who wish to forget painful thoughts do well to absent themselves for a while from the ties and objects that recall them: but we can be said only to fulfill our destiny in the place that gave us birth. [ Hazlitt ]

Genius is intensity of life; an overflowing vitality which floods and fertilizes a continent or a hemisphere of being; which makes a nature many-sided and whole, while most men remain partial and fragmentary. [ Hamilton W. Mabie ]

Some eyes threaten like a loaded and levelled pistol, and others are as insulting as hissing or kicking; some have no more expression than blueberries, while others are as deep as a well which you can fall into. [ Emerson ]

For the short-lived bloom and contracted span of brief and wretched life is fast fleeting away! While we are drinking and calling for garlands, ointments, and women, old age steals swiftly on with noiseless step. [ Juvenal ]

When I was a kid my favorite relative was Uncle Caveman. After school we'd all go play in his cave, and every once in a while he would eat one of us. It wasn't until later that I found out that Uncle Caveman was a bear. [ Jack Handey, Deep Thoughts ]

Some read books only with a view to find fault, while others read only, to be taught; the former are like venomous spiders, extracting a poisonous quality, where the latter, like the bees, sip out a sweet and profitable juice. [ L'Estrange ]

The great difficulty is first to win a reputation; the next to keep it while you live; and the next to preserve it after you die, when affection and interest are over, and nothing but sterling excellence can preserve your name. [ B. R. Haydon ]

As he that lives longest lives but a little while, every man may be certain that he has no time to waste. The duties of life are commensurate to its duration; and every day brings its task, which, if neglected, is doubled on the morrow. [ Dr. Johnson ]

There are many arts among men, the knowledge of which is acquired bit by bit by experience. For it is experience that causes our life to move forward by the skill we acquire, while want of experience subjects us to the effects of chance. [ Plato ]

That policy that can strike only while the iron is hot will be overcome by that perseverance which, like Cromwell's, can make the iron hot by striking; and he that can only rule the storm must yield to him who can both raise and rule it. [ Colton ]

The vengeful thought that has root merely in the mind is but a dream of idlest sort which one clear day will dissipate; while revenge, the passion, is a disease of the heart which climbs up, up to the brain, and feeds itself on both alike. [ Lew Wallace ]

Wisdom is like electricity. There is no permanently wise man, but men capable of wisdom, who, being put into certain company, or other favorable conditions, become wise for a short time, as glasses rubbed acquire electric power for a while. [ Emerson ]

Abridge your hopes in proportion to the shortness of the span of human life; for while we converse, the hours, as if envious of our pleasure, fly away. Enjoy, therefore, the present time, and trust not too much to what tomorrow may produce. [ Horace ]

There is before the eyes of men, on the brink of dissolution, a glassy film, which death appears to impart, that they may have a brief prospect of eternity when some behold the angels of light, while others have the demons of darkness before them. [ Cockton ]

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 ]

Human excellence, parted from God, is like a fable flower, which, according to Rabbis, Eve plucked when passing out of paradise - severed from its native root, it is only the touching memorial of a lost Eden; sad, while charming - beautiful, but dead. [ C. Stanford ]

Noted or Notorious? As adjectives, these terms are sometimes misused; as, He is a noted criminal. The better word here would be notorious, the meaning of which is restricted to that which is bad; while noted may be used in either a good or a bad sense. [ Pure English, Hackett And Girvin, 1884 ]

Peacefully and reasonably to contemplate is at no time hurtful, and while we use ourselves to think of the advantages of others, our own mind comes insensibly to imitate them; and every false activity to which our fancy was alluring us is then willingly abandoned. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]

There are three classes of readers; some enjoy without judgment; others judge without enjoyment; and some there are who judge while they enjoy, and enjoy while they judge. The latter class reproduces the work of art on which it is engaged. Its numbers are very small. [ Goethe ]

There is dew in one flower and not in another, because one opens its cup and takes it in, while the other closes itself and the drop runs off. So God rains goodness and mercy as wide as the dew, and if we lack them, it is because we do not open our hearts to receive them. [ Aughey ]

Art employs method for the symmetrical formation of beauty, as science employs it for the logical exposition of truth; but the mechanical process is, in the last, ever kept visibly distinct, while in the first it escapes from sight amid the shows of color and the curves of grace. [ Bulwer-Lytton ]

The higher enthusiasm of man's nature is for the while without exponent; yet does it continue indestructible, unweariedly active, and work blindly in the great chaotic deep. Thus sect after sect, and church after church, bodies itself forth, and melts again into new metamorphosis. [ Carlyle ]

Observe or Say? While the dictionaries authorize the common use of these words, it is in better taste to restrict the employment of observe to its primitive signification; namely, to notice. Hence such an expression as, What did you observe? is objectionable, and should be, What did you say? [ Pure English, Hackett And Girvin, 1884 ]

Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, you may kick it about all day like a football, and it will be round and full at evening. Does not Mr. Bryant say that Truth gets well if she is run over by a locomotive, while Error dies of lockjaw if she scratches her finger? [ Oliver Wendell Holmes ]

If one could look a while through the chinks of heaven's door, and see the beauty and bliss of paradise; if he could but lay his ear to heaven, and hear the ravishing music of those seraphic spirits, and the anthems of praise which they sing, how would his soul be exhilarated and transported with joy. [ Watson ]

The style of writing required in the great world is distinguished by a free and daring grace, a careless security, a fine and sharp polish, a delicate and perfect taste; while that fitted for the people is characterized by a vigorous natural fulness, a profound depth of feeling, and an engaging naivete. [ Goethe ]

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 ]

The style of writing required in the great world is distinguished by a free and daring grace, a careless security, a fine and sharp polish, a delicate and perfect taste; while that fitted for the people is characterised by a vigorous natural fulness, a profound depth of feeling, and an engaging naïveté. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]

Liberty, and not theology, is the enthusiasm of the nineteenth century. The very men who would once have been conspicuous saints are now conspicuous revolutionists, for while their heroism and disinterestedness are their own, the direction which these qualities take is determined by the pressure of the age. [ H. W. Lecky ]

The friendship of the world is like the leaves falling from their trees in autumn; while the sap of maintenance lasts, friends swarm in abundance; but in the winter of our need, they leave us naked. He is a happy man that hath a true friend at his need; but he is more truly happy that hath no need of a friend. [ Arthur Warwick ]

Ridicule intrinsically is a small faculty; we may say, the smallest of all faculties that other men are at the pains to repay with any esteem. It is directly opposed to thought, to knowledge, properly so called; its nourishment and essence is denial, which hovers on the surface, while knowledge dwells far below. [ Carlyle ]

Evil, what we call evil, must ever exist while man exists; evil, in the widest sense we can give it, is precisely the dark, disordered material out of which man's freewill has to create an edifice of order and good. Ever must pain urge us to labour; and only in free effort can any blessedness be imagined for us. [ Carlyle ]

Wise men, for the most part, are silent at present, and good men powerless; the senseless vociferate, and the heartless govern; while all social law and providence are dissolved by the enraged agitation of a multitude, among whom every villain has a chance of power, every simpleton of praise, and every scoundrel of fortune. [ John Ruskin ]

True humor springs not more from the head than from the heart; it is not contempt; its essence is love: it issues not in laughter, but in still smiles, which lie far deeper. It is a sort of inverse sublimity, exalting, as it were, into our affections what is below us, while sublimity draws down into our affections what is above us. [ Carlyle ]

It unfortunately happens that no man believes that he is likely to die soon. So every one is much disposed to defer the consideration of what ought to be done on the supposition of such an emergency; and while nothing is so uncertain as human life, so nothing is so certain as our assurance that we shall survive most of our neighbors. [ Aughey ]

Whatever strengthens our local attachments is favorable both to individual and national character, our home, our birthplace, our native land. Think for a while what the virtues are which arise out of the feelings connected with these words, and if you have any intellectual eyes, you will then perceive the connection between topography and patriotism. [ Southey ]

It is very singular, how the fact of a man's death often seems to give people a truer idea of his character, whether for good or evil, than they have ever possessed while he was living and acting among them. Death is so genuine a fact that it excludes falsehood or betray its emptiness; it is a touchstone that proves the gold, and dishonors the baser metal. [ Hawthorne ]

There is still a real magic in the action and reaction of minds on one another. The casual deliration of a few becomes, by this mysterious reverberation, the frenzy of many; men lose the use, not only of their understandings, but of their bodily senses; while the most obdurate unbelieving hearts melt like the rest in the furnace where all are cast as victims and as fuel. [ Carlyle ]

There is the same difference between diligence and neglect, that there is between a garden curiously kept and the sluggard's field when it was all overgrown with nettles and thorns; the one is clothed with beauty and the gracious amiableness of content and cheering loveliness; while the other hath nothing but either little smarting pungencies or else such transpiercings as rankle the flesh within. [ Feltham ]

It is particularly worth observation that the more we magnify, by the assistance of glasses, the works of nature, the more regular and beautiful they appear, while it is quite different in respect to those of art, for when they are examined through a microscope we are astonished to find them so rough, so coarse and uneven, although they have been done with all imaginable care, by the best workmen. [ Sterne ]

Music may be classed into natural, social, sacred, and martial; it is the twin sister of poetry, and like it has the power to sway the feelings and command the mind; in devotion it breathes the pure spirit of inspiration and love; in martial scenes it rouses the soul to fearless deeds of daring and valor, while it alleviates the cares, and enhances the innocent and cheerful enjoyments of domestic life. [ Acton ]

A clear running brook is the best teacher of style. There is a quick forward movement - but not measured or monotonous movement - while the water is so limpid that everything is seen through the crystal medium. It seems to me that the best style is that which reveals the writer's thoughts so easily, plainly, and musically that the reader becomes engrossed in the thought or story and forgets the writer. [ E P. Roe, The Art Of Authorship, 1891 ]

The reputation of generosity is to be purchased pretty cheap; it does not depend so much upon a man's general expense, as it does upon his giving handsomely where it is proper to give at all. A man, for instance, who should give a servant four shillings would pass for covetous, while he who gave him a crown would be reckoned generous; so that the difference of those two opposite characters turns upon one shilling. [ Chesterfield ]

Those who start for human glory, like the mettled hounds of Actaeon, must pursue the game not only where there is a path, but where there is none. They must be able to simulate and dissimulate; to leap and to creep; to conquer the earth like Caesar, or to fall down and kiss it like Brutus; to throw their sword like Brennus into the trembling scale, or, like Nelson, to snatch the laurels from the doubtful hand of Victory, while she is hesitating where to bestow them. [ Colton ]

See a fond mother encircled by her children; with pious tenderness she looks around, and her soul even melts with maternal love. One she kisses on its cheeks, and clasps another to her bosom; one she sets upon her knee, and finds a seat upon her foot for another. And while, by their actions, by their lisping words, and asking eyes, she understands their numberless little wishes, to these she dispenses a look, and a word to those; and whether she grants or refuses, whether she smiles or frowns, it is all in tender love. [ Krummacher ]

A newspaper, like a theatre, must mainly owe its continuance in life to the fact that it pleases many persons; and in order to please many persons it will, unconsciously perhaps, respond to their several tastes, reflect their various qualities, and reproduce their views. In a certain sense it is evolved out of the community that absorbs it, and, therefore, partaking of the character of the community, while it may retain many merits and virtues, it will display itself, as in some respects ignorant, trivial, narrow, and vulgar. [ William Winter ]

If a man were only to deal in the world for a day, and should never have occasion to converse more with mankind, never more need their good opinion or good word, it were then no great matter (speaking as to the concernments of this world), if a man spent his reputation all at once, and ventured it at one throw; but if he be to continue in the world, and would have the advantage of conversation while he is in it, let him make use of truth and sincerity in all his words and actions; for nothing but this will last and hold out to the end. [ Tillotson ]

True hope is based on energy of character. A strong mind always hopes, and has always cause to hope, because it knows the mutability of human affairs and how slight a circumstance may change the whole course of events. Such a spirit, too, rests upon itself, it is not confined to partial views, or to one particular object. And if at last all should be lost, it has saved itself, its own integrity and worth. Hope awakens courage, while despondency is the last of all evils, it is the abandonment of good, the giving up of the battle of life with dead nothingness. He who can implant courage in the human soul is the best physician. [ Von Knebel (German), Translated by Mrs. Austin ]

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 ]