“His wit invites you by his looks to come,
But when you knock it never is at home.”
Source: Conversation (1782), Line 303.
“Prove that you have human feelings,
Ere you proudly question ours!”
Source: The Negro's Complaint (1788), Lines 55-56
Source: The Task (1785), Book II, The Timepiece, Line 363.
“Oh that those lips had language! Life has pass'd
With me but roughly since I heard thee last.”
On the Receipt of my Mother's Picture.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“Though on pleasure she was bent,
She had a frugal mind.”
St. 8.
The Diverting History of John Gilpin (1785)
“Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.”
No. 35, "Light Shining out of Darkness".
Olney Hymns (1779)
“But strive still to be a man before your mother.”
Connoisseur. Motto of No. iii.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“Presume to lay their hand upon the ark
Of her magnificent and awful cause.”
Source: The Task (1785), Book II, The Timepiece, Line 231.
“United yet divided, twain at once:
So sit two kings of Brentford on one throne.”
Source: The Task (1785), Book I, The Sofa, Line 77.
“And the tear that is wiped with a little address,
May be follow'd perhaps by a smile.”
The Rose.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Source: Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk (1782), Line 9.
The Iliad of Homer: translated into English blank verse (1791), Book VIII, line 643.
“Thus neither the praise nor the blame is our own.”
"From a Letter to the Rev. Mr. Newton", line 21. (1782).
“Absence from whom we love is worse than death,
And frustrate hope severer than despair.”
"Hope, like the short-lived ray that gleams awhile", line 35.
Letter to the Rev. John Johnson, (29 September1793).
“Absence of occupation is not rest,
A mind quite vacant is a mind distressed.”
Source: Retirement (1782), Line 623.
Source: The Task (1785), Book III, The Garden, Line 624.
“I shall not ask Jean Jacques Rousseau
If birds confabulate or no.”
Pairing Time Anticipated.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
No. 1, "Walking With God".
Olney Hymns (1779)