Reference > Quotations > John Bartlett, comp. > Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. > 4517. William Cowper
  PREVIOUS NEXT  
CONTENTS · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD · AUTHOR INDEX · CONCORDANCE INDEX
John Bartlett (1820–1905).  Familiar Quotations, 10th ed.  1919.
 
 
NUMBER:4517
AUTHOR:William Cowper (1731–1800)
QUOTATION:From reveries so airy, from the toil
Of dropping buckets into empty wells,
And growing old in drawing nothing up. 1
ATTRIBUTION:The Task. Book iii. The Garden. Line 188.
 
Note 1.
He has spent all his life in letting down buckets into empty wells; and he is frittering away his age in trying to draw them up again.—Lady Holland’s Memoir of Sydney Smith, vol. i. p. 259. [back]
 

CONTENTS · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD · AUTHOR INDEX · CONCORDANCE INDEX
  PREVIOUS NEXT  
 
Loading
Click here to shop the Bartleby Bookstore.
Shakespeare · Bible · Saints · Anatomy · Harvard Classics · Lit. History · Quotations · Poetry
© 1993–2013 Bartleby.com · [Top 150]