What gainst thou, brutal man, if I confess Thy strength superior, when thy wit is less? Mind is the man; I claim my whole desert From the minds vigour, and the immortal part. Ovid.Meta. XIII., Dryden. (Reply of Ulysses to Ajax.)
Were I so tall to reach the pole, Or grasp the ocean with my span, I must be measurd by my soul; The minds the standard of the man. Watts.False Greatness, Verse 3.
John Gilpin kissd his loving wife; Oerjoyd was he to find That, though on pleasure she was bent, She had a frugal mind. Cowper.John Gilpin, Verse 8.
The mind, relaxing into needful sport, Should turn to writers of an abler sort, Whose wit well managed, and whose classic style, Give truth a lustre, and make wisdom smile. Cowper.Retirement, Line 715.
How fleet is the glance of the mind Compared with the speed of its flight! The tempest itself lags behind, And the swift-winged arrows of light. Cowper.Alex. Selkirk, Verse 6.
My mind to me a kingdom is; Such perfect joys therein I find, As far exceeds all earthly bliss That God or nature hath assignd: Though much I want that most would have, Yet still my mind forbids to crave. Sir Edward Dyer.
[See Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, by Thomas Percy, Lord Bishop of Dromore, Vol. I. Page 307; and Byrds Psalms, Sonnets, &c. The thought is said to be from Seneca; see the verse in the Thyestes: Mens regnum bona possidet. Giffords Ed. of Ben Jonsons Plays, Page 28.]
He that has treasures of his own May leave the cottage or the throne, May quit the globe, and dwell alone Within his spacious mind. Locke hath a soul wide as the sea, Calm as the night, bright as the day, There may his vast ideas play, Nor feel a thought confined. Dr. Watts.Lyric Poems, To John Locke, Esq. Verse 2.
There is so little to redeem the dry mass of follies and errors from which the materials of life are composed, and anything to love or to reverence becomes, as it were, the sabbath for the mind. E. Bulwer Lytton.Devereux, Book I. Chap. VI.