Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyts New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Students
Rocking on a lazy billow With roaming eyes, Cushioned on a dreamy pillow, Thou art now wise. Wake the power within thee slumbering, Trim the plot thats in thy keeping, Thou wilt bless the task when reaping Sweet labours prize. John Stuart BlackieAddress to the Edinburgh Students. Quoted by Lord IddlesleighDesultory Reading.
Experience is the best of schoolmasters, only the school-fees are heavy. CarlyleMiscellaneous Essays. I. 137. (Ed. 1888). Same idea in FranklinPreliminary Address to the Pennsylvania Almanac for 1758.
The studious class are their own victims; they are thin and pale, their feet are cold, their heads are hot, the night is without sleep, the day a fear of interruption,pallor, squalor, hunger, and egotism. If you come near them and see what conceits they entertainthey are abstractionists, and spend their days and nights in dreaming some dream; in expecting the homage of society to some precious scheme built on a truth, but destitute of proportion in its presentment, of justness in its application, and of all energy of will in the schemer to embody and vitalize it. EmersonRepresentative Men. Montaigne.
Ah, pensive scholar, what is fame? A fitful tongue of leaping flame; A giddy whirlwinds fickle gust, That lifts a pinch of mortal dust; A few swift years, and who can show Which dust was Bill, and which was Joe? HolmesPoems of the Class of 29. Bill and Joe. St. 7.
Where should the scholar live? In solitude, or in society? in the green stillness of the country, where he can hear the heart of Nature beat, or in the dark, gray town where he can hear and feel the throbbing heart of man? LongfellowHyperion. Bk. I. Ch. VIII.
And then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school. As You Like It. Act II. Sc. 7. L. 145.
He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one; Exceeding wise, fair-spoken, and persuading; Lofty and sour to them that lovd him not; But to those men that sought him sweet as summer. Henry VIII. Act IV. Sc. 2. L. 51.