“Woes cluster. Rare are solitary woes;
They love a train, they tread each other’s heel.”
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night III, Line 63.
“Whose yesterdays look backwards with a smile.”
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night II, Line 334.
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night V, Line 717.
“With skill she vibrates her eternal tongue,
Forever most divinely in the wrong.”
Satire VI, l. 105.
Love of Fame (1725-1728)
“Be wise with speed;
A fool at forty is a fool indeed.”
Satire II, l. 282.
Love of Fame (1725-1728)
“Less base the fear of death than fear of life.”
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night V, Line 441.
“Time elaborately thrown away.”
The Last Day, book i; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“By all means use some time to be alone.”
A slight misquotation of George Herbert "The Church Porch", line 145: "By all means use sometimes to be alone", in The Temple (1633).
Misattributed
“The knell, the shroud, the mattock, and the grave,
The deep damp vault, the darkness and the worm.”
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night IV, Line 10.
“Ambition! powerful source of good and ill!”
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night VI, Line 399.
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night III, Line 104.
“None think the great unhappy but the great.”
Satire I, l. 238.
Love of Fame (1725-1728)
“Early, bright, transient, chaste as morning dew,
She sparkled, was exhal'd and went to heaven.”
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night V, Line 600.
“"I've lost a day!"—the prince who nobly cried,
Had been an emperor without his crown.”
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night II, Line 99. Suetonius says of the Emperor Titus: "Once at supper, reflecting that he had done nothing for any that day, he broke out into that memorable and justly admired saying, ‘My friends, I have lost a day!'" Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Cæsars (translation by Alexander Thomson).
“Beautiful as sweet!
And young as beautiful! and soft as young!
And gay as soft! and innocent as gay.”
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night III, Line 81.
“Tis impious in a good man to be sad”
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night IV, Line 676.
“Death loves a shining mark, a signal blow.”
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night V, Line 1011.
“T is elder Scripture, writ by God's own hand,—
Scripture authentic! uncorrupt by man.”
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night IX, Line 644.
“Ah, how unjust to Nature and himself
Is thoughtless, thankless, inconsistent man!”
Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night II, Line 112.