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Home  »  Dictionary of Quotations  »  Prior

James Wood, comp. Dictionary of Quotations. 1899.

Prior

Be to her virtues very kind; / Be to her faults a little blind.

Circles to square, and cubes to double, / Would give a man excessive trouble.

Fantastic tyrant of the amorous heart, / How hard thy yoke! how cruel is thy dart! / Those ’scape thy anger who refuse thy sway, / And those are punished most who most obey.

Fine by degrees and beautifully less.

For hope is but the dream of those that wake.

From ignorance our comfort flows; / The only wretched are the wise.

Joyful to live, yet not afraid to die.

Let him be kept from paper, pen, and ink; / So may he cease to write, and learn to think.

She should be humble who would please, / And she must suffer who can love.

They never taste who always drink; / They always talk who never think.

Thy sum of duty let two words contain; / Be humble and be just.

Timely advised, the coming evil shun; / Better not do the deed, than weep it done.

Variety alone gives joy; / The sweetest meats the soonest cloy.

We happiness pursue; we fly from pain; / Yet the pursuit, and yet the flight is vain.

When people once are in the wrong, / Each line they add is much too long.

Who breathes must suffer, and who thinks must mourn; / And he alone is bless’d who ne’er was born.

Who fastest walks, but walks astray, / Is only farthest from his way.