Familiar Quotations: Being an Attempt to Trace to Their Source Passages and Phrases In Common Use: Chiefly from English Authors

Front Cover
John Bartlett
Little, Brown and Company, 1865 - 480 pages
 

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 105 - But that I am forbid To tell the secrets of my prison-house, I could a tale unfold whose lightest word Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood, Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres, Thy knotted and combined locks to part, And each particular hair to stand on end, Like quills upon the fretful porpentine : But this eternal blazon must not be To ears of flesh and blood.
Page 243 - THE EPITAPH Here rests his head upon the lap of earth A youth to fortune and to fame unknown: Fair science frowned not on his humble birth, And melancholy marked him for her own. Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere, . Heaven did a recompense as largely send: He gave to misery all he had, a tear: He gained from heaven ('twas all he wished) a friend.
Page 352 - And thinking of the days that are no more. Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, That brings our friends up from the underworld, Sad as the last which reddens over one That sinks with all we love below the verge; So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.
Page 147 - Satan except, none higher sat, with grave Aspect he rose, and in his rising seemed A pillar of state : deep on his front engraven Deliberation sat and public care ; And princely counsel in his face yet shone, Majestic though in ruin : sage he stood, With Atlantean shoulders fit to bear The weight of mightiest monarchies ; his look Drew audience and attention still as night Or summer's noontide air...
Page 249 - For, e'en though vanquished, he could argue still, While words of learned length and thundering sound Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around; And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew That one small head could carry all he knew.
Page 96 - The times have been That, when the brains were out, the man would die, And there an end ; but now they rise again, With twenty mortal murders on their crowns, And push us from our stools.
Page 101 - gainst that season comes Wherein our saviour's birth is celebrated, This bird of dawning singeth all night long : And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad ; The nights are wholesome ; then no planets strike, No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.
Page 78 - Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world, Like a Colossus ; and we petty men Walk under his huge legs, and peep about To find ourselves dishonorable graves.
Page 287 - In darkness and amid the many shapes Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir Unprofitable, and the fever of the world, Have hung upon the beatings of my heart— How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee, O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro' the woods, How often has my spirit turned to thee!
Page 373 - And yet, on the other hand, unless wariness be used, as good almost kill a man as kill a good book. Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image ; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were in the eye.

Bibliographic information