“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)
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William Cowper 174
(1731–1800) English poet and hymnodist 1731–1800Related quotes
Quicktime excerpt http://www.harappa.com/nehrumov.html
A Tryst With Destiny (1947)
Context: The ambition of the greatest men of our generation has been to wipe every tear from every eye. That may be beyond us, but so long as there are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over.
And so we have to labour and to work, and work hard, to give reality to our dreams. Those dreams are for India, but they are also for the world, for all the nations and peoples are too closely knit together today for any one of them to imagine that it can live apart. Peace has been said to be indivisible; so is freedom, so is prosperity now, and so also is disaster in this One World that can no longer be split into isolated fragments.
If You Trap the Moment
1790s, Poems from Blake's Notebook (c. 1791-1792)
“Say "no more!" No more! No more! Wipe your tears away!”
Rattle and Hum (1987)
Context: Let me tell you something. I've had enough of Irish Americans who haven't been back to their country in twenty or thirty years come up to me and talk about the resistance, the revolution back home; and the glory of the revolution, and the glory of dying for the revolution. Fuck the revolution! They don't talk about the glory of killing for the revolution. What's the glory of taking a man from his bed and gunning him down in front of his wife and his children? Where's the glory in that? Where's the glory of bombing a Remembrance Day parade of old-age-pensioners, their medals taken out and polished up for the day? Where's the glory in that? To leave them dying, or crippled for life, or dead, under the rubble of the revolution that the majority of the people in my country don't want. No more! Sing No more! <!-- Variant transcription: Now let me tell you something, I've had enough of Irish Americans who haven't been back to their country, in 20 or 30 odd years, come up to me and talk about the Resistance, the Revolution back home, and the glory of the Revolution, and the glory of dying for the Revolution. Fuck the Revolution! They don't talk about the glory of killing for the Revolution. What's the glory, in taking a man from his bed and gunning him down in front of his wife and his children? Where's the glory in that? Where's the glory, in bombing a Remembrance Day parade of old age pensioners, the medals taken out and polished up for the day, where's the glory in that? To leave them dying, or crippled for life, or dead, under the rubble of the Revolution — that the majority of the people in my country, don't want! Say "no more!" No more! No more! Wipe your tears away!
“The social smile, the sympathetic tear.”
Education and Government; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Jésus a pleuré, Voltaire a souri; c’est de cette larme divine et de ce sourire humain qu’est faite la douceur de la civilisation actuelle.
Speech, "Le centenaire de Voltaire" http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Actes_et_paroles_-_Depuis_l%E2%80%99exil_-_1878#II_LE_CENTENAIRE_DE_VOLTAIRE, on the 100th anniversary of the death of Voltaire, Théâtre de la Gaîté, Paris (30 May 1878); published in Actes et paroles - Depuis l'exil (1878)
Source: The Name of the Wind (2007), Chapter 62, “Leaves” (p. 464)