Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Guests
Hail, guest, we ask not what thou art;
If friend, we greet thee, hand and heart;
If stranger, such no longer be;
If foe, our love shall conquer thee.
Paul Elmer More says this is an Old Welsh door Verse.
For whom he means to make an often guest,
One dish shall serve; and welcome make the rest.
Joseph Hall—Come Dine with Me.
Quo me cumque rapit tempestas deferor hospes.
Wherever the storm carries me, I go a willing guest.
Horace—Epistles. I. 1. 15.
Sometimes, when guests have gone, the host remembers
Sweet courteous things unsaid.
We two have talked our hearts out to the embers,
And now go hand in hand down to the dead.
Masefield—The Faithful.
Unbidden guests
Are often welcomest when they are gone.
Henry VI. Pt. I. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 55.
Here’s our chief guest.
If he had been forgotten,
It had been as a gap in our great feast.
Macbeth. Act III. Sc. 1. L. 11.
Be bright and jovial among your guests to-night.
Macbeth. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 28.
See, your guests approach:
Address yourself to entertain them sprightly,
And let’s be red with mirth.
Winter’s Tale. Act IV. Sc. 4. L. 52.
Methinks a father
Is at the nuptial of his son a guest
That best becomes the table.
Winter’s Tale. Act IV. Sc. 4. L. 405.
You must come home with me and be my guest;
You will give joy to me, and I will do
All that is in my power to honour you.
Shelley—Hymn to Mercury. St. 5.
To the guests that must go, bid God’s speed and brush away all traces of their steps.
Rabindranath Tagore—Gardener. 45.