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Thomas Gray Quotes
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Thomas Gray was an English poet, letter-writer, classical scholar, and professor at Pembroke College, Cambridge. He is widely known for his Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, published in 1751.Gray was an extremely self-critical writer who published only 13 poems in his lifetime, despite being very popular. He was even offered the position of Poet Laureate in 1757, though he declined. His writing is largely considered to be pre-Romantic. Wikipedia  

✵ 26. December 1716 – 30. July 1771   •   Other names توماس قری, توماس غراي
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Thomas Gray: 81   quotes 5   likes

Thomas Gray Quotes

“Ah, happy hills! ah, pleasing shade!
Ah, fields beloved in vain!
Where once my careless childhood stray'd,
A stranger yet to pain!
I feel the gales that from ye blow
A momentary bliss bestow.”

Thomas Gray

St. 2
Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=odec (written 1742–1750)

Pain , Feeling , Childhood , Happiness

“Where his glowing eye−balls turn,
Thousand banners round him burn.
Where he points his purple spear,
Hasty, hasty Rout is there,
Marking with indignant eye
Fear to stop and shame to fly.
There Confusion, Terror's child,
Conflict fierce and Ruin wild,
Agony that pants for breath,
Despair and honourable Death.”

Thomas Gray

"The Triumphs of Owen. A Fragment", from Mr. Evans's Specimens of the Welch Poetry (1764)

Death , Fear , Flying , Despair

“And weep the more, because I weep in vain.”

Thomas Gray

Sonnet, On the Death of Mr. West; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile,
The short and simple annals of the poor.”

Thomas Gray

St. 8
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=elcc (written 1750, publ. 1751)

Smile , Home , Joy

“Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.”

Thomas Gray

St. 20
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=elcc (written 1750, publ. 1751)

“What female heart can gold despise?
What cat's averse to fish?”

Thomas Gray

St. 4
On the Death of a Favourite Cat http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=odfc (1747)

Cats , Fish , Heart

“Still as they run they look behind,
They hear a voice in every wind,
And snatch a fearful joy.”

Thomas Gray

St. 4
Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=odec (written 1742–1750)

Fear , Joy

“No dolphin came, no Nereid stirred;
Nor cruel Tom, nor Susan heard.
A favourite has no friend!”

Thomas Gray

St. 6
On the Death of a Favourite Cat http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=odfc (1747)

“Each in his narrow cell forever laid,
The rude Forefathers of the hamlet sleep.”

Thomas Gray

St. 4
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=elcc (written 1750, publ. 1751)

Sleep

“Can storied urn, or animated bust
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or Flatt'ry soothe the dull cold ear of Death?”

Thomas Gray

St. 11
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=elcc (written 1750, publ. 1751)

Death , Animals

“Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds.”

Thomas Gray

St. 2
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=elcc (written 1750, publ. 1751)

Distant