“Therefore, while thou hast me for schoolmaster,
Thou shalt not kick against the pricks.”
Source: Prometheus Bound, lines 322–323 (tr. G. M. Cookson)
The Earthly Paradise (1868-70), The Lady of the Land
Context: A queen I was, what Gods I knew I loved,
And nothing evil was there in my thought,
And yet by love my wretched heart was moved
Until to utter ruin I was brought!
Alas! thou sayest our gods were vain and nought,
Wait, wait, till thou hast heard this tale of mine,
Then shalt thou think them devilish or divine.
“Therefore, while thou hast me for schoolmaster,
Thou shalt not kick against the pricks.”
Source: Prometheus Bound, lines 322–323 (tr. G. M. Cookson)
“Think thou and act; to-morrow thou shalt die”
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882) English poet, illustrator, painter and translator
The Choice
Context: Think thou and act; to-morrow thou shalt die
Outstretch'd in the sun's warmth upon the shore,
Thou say'st: "Man's measur'd path is all gone o'er:
Up all his years, steeply, with strain and sigh,
Man clomb until he touch'd the truth; and I,
Even I, am he whom it was destin'd for."
How should this be? Art thou then so much more
Than they who sow'd, that thou shouldst reap thereby?
Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850–1919) American author and poet
Give
Poetry quotes, New Thought Pastels (1913)
“This truth—to prove, and make thine own:
‘Thou hast been, shalt be, art, alone.”
Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools
"Isolation" (1857)
Marcus Aurelius book Meditations
Variant Translation: Let not thy mind run on what thou lackest as much as on what thou hast already.
VII, 27
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book VII
“Do nothing till thou hast well considered the end of it.”
Matthew Henry (1662–1714) Theologician from Wales
Proverbs 7.
Commentaries
Richard Francis Burton (1821–1890) British explorer, geographer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, cartographer, ethnologist, spy, lin…
As quoted in The New Dictionary of Thoughts : A Cyclopedia of Quotations from the Best Authors of the World, Both Ancient and Modern, Alphabetically Arranged by Subjects (1957) by Tryon Edwards, p. 510
Erik Axel Karlfeldt (1864–1931) Swedish poet
Attributed in Dag Hammarskjöld, Markings, tr. Leif Sjoberg and W. H. Auden (1964), journal entry for (October 1, 1957).