Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Disappointment
But evil fortune has decreed,
(The foe of mice as well as men)
The royal mouse at last should bleed,
Should fall—ne’er to arise again.
Michael Bruce—Musiad.
The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men,
Gang aft a-gley,
And leave us nought but grief and pain,
For promised joy.
Burns—To a Mouse. St. 7. Mrs. Barbauld—Rose’s Petition. Dryden—Hide and Panther. Pope—Imitation of Horace. Bk. II. Satire 6.
Like to the apples on the Dead Sea’s shore,
All ashes to the taste.
Byron—Childe Harold. III. 34.
As distant prospects please us, but when near
We find but desert rocks and fleeting air.
Sam’l Garth—The Dispensary. Canto III. L. 27.
Lightly I sped when hope was high
And youth beguiled the chase,—
I follow, follow still: But I
Shall never see her face.
Fred’k Locker-Lampson.—The Unrealized Ideal.
But O! as to embrace me she inclin’d,
I wak’d, she fled, and day brought back my night.
Milton—On His Deceased Wife.
Sed ut acerbum est, pro benefactis quom malis messem metas!
It is a bitter disappointment when you have sown benefits, to reap injuries.
Plautus—Epidicus. V. 2. 52.
All is but toys; renown and grace is dead;
The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees
Is left this vault to brag of.
Macbeth. Act II. Sc. 3. L. 99.