Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Blindness
Oh, say! what is that thing call’d light,
Which I must ne’er enjoy?
What are the blessings of the sight?
Oh, tell your poor blind boy!
Colley Cibber—The Blind Boy.
None so blind as those that will not see.
Matthew Henry—Commentaries. Jeremiah XX.
Dispel this cloud, the light of heaven restore;
Give me to see, and Ajax asks no more.
Homer—Iliad. Bk. XVII. L. 730. Pope’s trans.
If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.
Matthew. XV. 14.
O loss of sight, of thee I most complain!
Blind among enemies, O worse than chains,
Dungeon, or beggary, or decrepit age!
Milton—Samson Agonistes. L. 67.
O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon,
Irrecoverably dark! total eclipse,
Without all hope of day.
Milton—Samson Agonistes. L. 80.
These eyes, tho’ clear
To outward view of blemish or of spot,
Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot,
Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear
Of sun, or moon, or star, throughout the year,
Or man, or woman. Yet I argue not
Against Heaven’s hand or will, nor bate a jot
Of heart or hope; but still bear up and steer
Right onward.
Milton—Sonnet XXII. L. 1.
He that is strucken blind cannot forget
The precious treasure of his eyesight lost.
Romeo and Juliet. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 238.
There’s none so blind as they that won’t see.
Swift—Polite Conversation. Dialogue III.
And when a damp
Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand
The Thing became a trumpet; whence he blew
Soul-animating strains—alas! too few.
Wordsworth—Scorn Not the Sonnet; Critic, You Have Frowned.