| James Wood, comp. Dictionary of Quotations. 1899. | | | | Thomson |
| | | Base envy withers at another’s joy, / And hates that excellence it cannot reach. | 1 |
| Beauty, when unadorned, adorned the most. | 2 |
| Cruel as death, and hungry as the grave. | 3 |
| Delightful task! to rear the tender thought, / To teach the young idea how to shoot. | 4 |
| Desponding fear, of feeble fancies full, / Weak and unmanly, loosens every power. | 5 |
| From seeming evil still educing good. | 6 |
| He little merits bliss who others can annoy. | 7 |
| He whom toil has braced or manly play, / As light as air each limb, each thought as clear as day. | 8 |
| Heavens! can you then thus waste, in shameful wise, / Your few important days of trial here? / Heirs of eternity! yborn to rise / Through endless states of being, still more near / To bliss approaching, and perfection clear. | 9 |
| Heavens! if privileged from trial, / How cheap a thing were virtue! | 10 |
| Justice were cruel weakly to relent; / From Mercy’s self she got her sacred glaive: / Grace be to those who can and will repent; / But penance long and dreary to the slave. | 11 |
| Loveliness / Needs not the foreign aid of ornament, / But is, when unadorn’d, adorn’d the most. | 12 |
| Never yet, since the proud selfish race / Of men began to jar, did passion give, / Nor can it ever give, a right decision. | 13 |
| Oft when blind mortals think themselves secure, in height of bliss, they touch the brink of ruin. | 14 |
| Passion often makes a fool of the most ingenious man, and often makes the greatest blockhead ingenious. | 15 |
| Peace is the happy natural state of man; war his corruption, his disgrace. | 16 |
| Poor is the triumph o’er the timid hare. | 17 |
| Resolve, resolve, and to be men aspire. / Exert that noblest privilege, alone / Here to mankind indulged; control desire: / Let godlike Reason, from her sovereign throne, / Speak the commanding word “I will!” and it is done. | 18 |
| Rule, Britannia, Britannia rules the waves; / Britons never shall be slaves. | 19 |
| The valiant in himself, what can he suffer? / Or what need he regard his single woes? | 20 |
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| Their only labour was to kill the time, / And labour dire it is, and weary woe. | 21 |
| These / Are but the varied God. The rolling year / Is full of thee. | 22 |
| Those tender tears that humanise the soul. | 23 |
| Thrice happy he who without rigour saves. | 24 |
| ’Tis sweet to hear of heroes dead, / To know them still alive, / But sweeter if we earn their bread, / And in us they survive. | 25 |
| True comeliness, which nothing can impair, / Dwells in the mind; all else is vanity and glare. | 26 |
| Up from unfeeling mould, / To seraphs burning round the Almighty’s throne, / Life rising still on life, in higher tone, / Perfection forms, and with perfection bliss. | 27 |
| Weak Virtue that amid the shade / Lamenting lies, with future schemes amused, / While Wickedness and Folly, kindred powers, / Confound the world! | 28 |
| What avail the largest gifts of Heaven, / When drooping health and spirits go amiss? / How tasteless then whatever can be given! / Health is the vital principle of bliss, / And exercise of health. | 29 |
| What is the adored Supreme Perfection, say?— / What, but eternal never-resting soul, / Almighty power, and all-directing day; / By whom each atom stirs, the planets roll; / Who fills, surrounds, informs, and agitates the whole. | 30 |
| What makes people discontented with their condition is the chimerical idea they conceive of the happiness of others. | 31 |
| What proves the hero truly great, / Is never, never to despair. | 32 |
| When nothing is enjoyed, can there be greater waste? | 33 |
| When unadorn’d, adorn’d the most. | 34 |
| Who does not act is dead; absorpt entire / In miry sloth, no pride, no joy he hath: / O leaden-hearted men, to be in love with death! | 35 |
| Who so unworthy but may proudly deck him / With his fair-weather virtue, that exults / Glad o’er the summer main? The tempest comes, / The rough winds rage aloud; when from the helm / This virtue shrinks, and in a corner lies / Lamenting. | 36 | | |
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