Robert Burton book The Anatomy of Melancholy
The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Democritus Junior to the Reader
Song Drake's Drum (NB: the odd spelling reflects the Devon dialect).
Robert Burton book The Anatomy of Melancholy
The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Democritus Junior to the Reader
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow The Courtship of Miles Standish
Pt. III, The Lover's Errand.
The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858)
“There comes a time that the drum major instinct can become destructive.”
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
1960s, The Drum Major Instinct (1968)
Context: There comes a time that the drum major instinct can become destructive. And that's where I want to move now. I want to move to the point of saying that if this instinct is not harnessed, it becomes a very dangerous, pernicious instinct. For instance, if it isn’t harnessed, it causes one's personality to become distorted. I guess that's the most damaging aspect of it: what it does to the personality. If it isn't harnessed, you will end up day in and day out trying to deal with your ego problem by boasting. Have you ever heard people that—you know, and I'm sure you've met them—that really become sickening because they just sit up all the time talking about themselves. And they just boast and boast and boast, and that's the person who has not harnessed the drum major instinct. And then it does other things to the personality. It causes you to lie about who you know sometimes. There are some people who are influence peddlers. And in their attempt to deal with the drum major instinct, they have to try to identify with the so-called big-name people. And if you're not careful, they will make you think they know somebody that they don't really know. They know them well, they sip tea with them, and they this-and-that. That happens to people.
“Sound the trumpets; beat the drums…
Now give the hautboys breath; he comes, he comes.”
John Dryden (1631–1700) English poet and playwright of the XVIIth century
Source: Alexander’s Feast http://www.bartleby.com/40/265.html (1697), l. 50–51.
“Gazzy: Captain, like the captain of a ship. And then Terror, you know, T-E-R-O-R.”
James Patterson (1947) American author
Source: School's Out—Forever
Eamon (singer) (1984) American singer
Lyrics, I Don't Want You Back (2004)
“O death, why art thou so long in coming?”
Robert-François Damiens (1715–1757) French domestic servant and attempted assassin
Attributed last words
Source: Frederic Rowland (1900). The Last Words (Real and Traditional) of Distinguished Men and Women. Troy, New York: C. A. Brewster & Co.
Edwin Markham (1852–1940) American poet
The Man with the Hoe and Other Poems (1899), The Man With the Hoe (1898)
Context: Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground,
The emptiness of ages in his face,
And on his back the burden of the world.
Who made him dead to rapture and despair,
A thing that grieves not and that never hopes.
Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox?
Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw?
Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow?
Whose breath blew out the light within this brain?