Quotes about sweets
page 2

“O tender yearning, sweet hoping!
The golden time of first love!
The eye sees the open heaven,
The heart is intoxicated with bliss;
O that the beautiful time of young love
Could remain green forever.”

Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright

The Song of the Bell (1799)

Love, Beauty, Hope, Time

“Joy, thou spark from Heav'n immortal,
Daughter of Elysium!
Drunk with fire, toward Heaven advancing
Goddess, to thy shrine we come.
Thy sweet magic brings together
What stern Custom spreads afar;
All men become brothers
Where thy happy wing-beats are.”

Friedrich Schiller Ode to Joy

Stanza 1
An die Freude (Ode to Joy; or Hymn to Joy) (1785)

Men, Happiness, Joy, Daughters

“The sensual and spiritual are linked together by a mysterious bond, of which our hearts are distinctly conscious, though it remains hidden from our eyes. To this double nature of the visible and invisible world — to the deep-implanted longing for the latter, coupled with the feeling of the sweet necessity of the former, we owe all sound and logical systems of philosophy, truly based on the immutable principles of our nature, just as to the same source we are able to trace the most visionary and incoherent reveries. A constant endeavour to unite these two elements, so that each may rob as little as possible from the other, has always seemed to me the true end of wisdom.”

Wilhelm Von Humboldt (1767–1835) German (Prussian) philosopher, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the University of Berlin

Source: The Limits of State Action (1792), Ch. 8

Wisdom, World, Feeling, Nature

“There He taught me the science full of sweetness.
And there I gave to Him
Myself without reserve;
There I promised to be His bride. ~ 27”

John of the Cross (1542–1591) Spanish mystic and Roman Catholic saint

Spiritual Canticle of The Soul and The Bridegroom

Science

“Each of these moments brings back bitter sweet memories as they represent the different stages of my life, a life that has been kept afloat by my intense determination to triumph in my chosen vocation”

Milkha Singh (1935) Indian track and field athlete

The Race of My Life: An Autobiography Milkha Singh (2013)

Life, Memory

“Moreover, humour is itself but a superficial view of that which is in truth both tragic and terrible—the contrast between human pretence and cosmic mechanical reality. Humour is but the faint terrestrial echo of the hideous laughter of the blind mad gods that squat leeringly and sardonically in caverns beyond the Milky Way. It is a hollow thing, sweet on the outside, but filled with the pathos of fruitless aspiration. All great humorists are sad—Mark Twain was a cynic and agnostic, and wrote "The Mysterious Stranger" and "What Is Man?" When I was younger I wrote humorous matter—satire and light verse—and was known to many as a jester and parodist. … But I cannot help seeing beyond the tinsel of humour, and recognising the pitiful basis of jest—the world is indeed comic, but the joke is on mankind.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

"The Defence Remains Open!" (April 1921), published in Collected Essays, Volume 5: Philosophy edited by S. T. Joshi, p. 54
Non-Fiction

God, Truth, World, Sadness

“Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile.”

Kurt Vonnegut book Mother Night

Mother Night (1961)

Faith

“The bride has entered
The pleasant and desirable garden,
And there reposes to her heart’s content;
Her neck reclining
On the sweet arms of the Beloved. ~ 22”

John of the Cross (1542–1591) Spanish mystic and Roman Catholic saint

Spiritual Canticle of The Soul and The Bridegroom

Heart

“I am so submerged in the sweet fire of love I see without eyes, and I hear without ears. I feel without feeling and taste without tasting. I know neither form nor measure; for without seeing I yet behold an operation so divine that I cannot grasp anything except the whole of love, which melts all the marrow of my soul and body.”

Catherine of Genoa (1447–1510) Italian author and nurse

Love, Feeling, Soul

“That's why I spit it in my songs so sweet
Like a photo of your granny's picture
Now that you're gone it hit us
Super hard on Thankgiving and Christmas, this can't be right”

Kanye West (1977) American rapper, singer and songwriter

Family Business
Lyrics, The College Dropout (2004)

Photo, Christmas

“Riches, honors and pleasure are the sweets which destroy the mind’s appetite for heavenly food; poverty, disgrace and pain are the bitters which restore it.”

George Horne (1730–1792) English churchman, writer and university administrator

Source: The Works of the Right Reverend George Horne, 1809, p. 310

Pain, Pleasure, Food

“The gospel freely admitted makes a man happy. It gives him peace with God, and makes him happy in God. It gives to industry a noble, contented look which selfish drudgery never wore; and from the moment that a man begins to do his work for his Saviour's sake, he feels that the most ordinary employments are full of sweetness and dignity, and that the most difficult are not impossible. And if any of you, my friends, is weary with his work, if dissatisfaction with yourself or sorrow of any kind disheartens you, if at any time you feel the dull paralysis of conscious sin, or the depressing influence of vexing thoughts, look to Jesus, and be happy. Be happy, and your joyful work will prosper well.”

William Wilberforce (1759–1833) English politician

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 368.

God, Happiness, Peace, Feeling

“God grant you, friends, a helping hand—
In cares of state and private plights,
In rowdy feasts of friendship's band,
In passion's sweet and secret rites!
God grant you, friends, a helping hand—
In daily woes and days of strife,
On vacant sa, in distant land,
In every black abyss of life!”

Aleksandr Pushkin (1799–1837) Russian poet

Pushkin, 19 October 1827.
as quoted in Pushkin, Alexander (2009). Selected Lyric Poetry. Northwestern University Press, p. 121.

Life, God, Friendship, Secret

“So he ignored the heat now and wondered about what he should do next. If he was going to show what he could do and really did it this time instead of saying he did when he didn't, he remembered that Bobo Kelton hung around the Rec Center a lot, every day, showing off as usual, laughing and sly, as usual. Jason looked at the clock. Ten minutes before three. Hot afternoon. He knew that Bobo would be at the Center. All he had to do was go there and wait. Across the street. A beautiful feeling of sweetness came over him. He lifted his head, let the feeling carry him for a while, like a fresh breeze in his heart. Then he went into the kitchen and took the butcher knife out of the drawer.”

Robert Cormier book The Rag and Bone Shop

Source: The Rag and Bone Shop (2000), p. 154

Beauty, Feeling, Time, Waiting

“We must bear our cross…not because it is sweet to suffer, but because the pain and suffering are as nothing compared with the greatness of the issues involved.”

Mahadev Govind Ranade (1842–1901) Indian scholar, social reformer and author

Speaking on issues of two duties of the two ideals of conduct and the two forms of duty quoted in page=488.

Pain, Suffering

“An act of goodness is of itself an act of happiness. No reward coming after the event can compare with the sweet reward that went with it.”

Maurice Maeterlinck (1862–1949) Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist

As quoted in The New Dictionary of Thoughts: A Cyclopedia of Quotations (1960) by Tryon Edwards and C. N. Catrevas, p. 259

Happiness

“Who does not know that without women we can feel no content or satisfaction throughout this life of ours, which but for them would be rude and devoid of all sweetness and more savage than that of wild beasts? Who does not know that women alone banish from our hearts all vile and base thoughts, vexations, miseries, and those turbid melancholies that so often are their fellows?”

Baldassarre Castiglione (1478–1529) Italian Renaissance author (1478-1529)

Chi non sa che senza le donne sentir non si po contento o satisfazione alcuna in tutta questa nostra vita, la quale senza esse saria rustica e priva d'ogni dolcezza e piú aspera che quella dell'alpestre fiere? Chi non sa che le donne sole levano de' nostri cori tutti li vili e bassi pensieri, gli affanni, le miserie e quelle turbide tristezze che cosí spesso loro sono compagne?
Bk. 3, ch. 51; p. 216.
Souced, Il Libro del Cortegiano (1528)

Life, Women, Feeling, Heart

“Listen to learned men, but do so only with one ear!… Let the other be always ready to receive the sweet accents of the voice of your heavenly Friend!”

André-Marie Ampère (1775–1836) French physicist and mathematician

Écoute les savants, mais ne les écoute que d'une oreille!... Que l'autre soit toujours prête à recevoir les doux accents de la voix de ton ami céleste!
Ampère's Meditation, September 1805

Men, Learning

“Tired nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep!”

Edward Young Night-Thoughts

Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night I, Line 1.

Nature, Sleep

“The company of good men is like enjoying sweet honey. The company of evil men is like the stinking stuff in the sewer.”

Sarvajna Kannada poet, pragmatist and philosopher

Tripadis

Men, Evil

“Tho' lost to sight, to memory dear
Thou ever wilt remain;
One only hope my heart can cheer,—
The hope to meet again.

Oh, fondly on the past I dwell,
And oft recall those hours
When, wandering down the shady dell,
We gathered the wild-flowers.

Yes, life then seemed one pure delight,
Tho' now each spot looks drear;
Yet tho' thy smile be lost to sight,
To memory thou art dear.

Oft in the tranquil hour of night,
When stars illume the sky,
I gaze upon each orb of light,
And wish that thou wert by.

I think upon that happy time,
That time so fondly loved,
When last we heard the sweet bells chime,
As thro' the fields we roved.”

George Linley (1798–1865) British writer

Song, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). This song was written and composed by Linley for Mr. Augustus Braham, and sung by him. It is not known when it was written,—probably about 1830. Another song, entitled "Though lost to Sight, to Memory dear," was published in London in 1880, purporting to have been written by Ruthven Jenkyns in 1703 and published in the "Magazine for Mariners". That magazine, however, never existed, and the composer of the music acknowledged, in a private letter, that he copied the words from an American newspaper. The reputed author, Ruthven Jenkyns, was living, under another name, in California in 1882.

Love, Life, Happiness, Smile

“But now the seeds are planted and the gates are opened wide
The old ways are forgotten there is no place left to hide
And the legacy I'm leaving you is not very hard to find
You'll see it all around you at this crossroads of time
In the sweet soil its a growing at the crossroads of time”

Gordon Lightfoot (1938) Canadian singer-songwriter

Crossroads, Track 4, United Artists
The Way I Feel (1967)

Way, Time

“Now present here, the future takes its time.
The brittle insect scrapes at the dry loam;
All is burnt up, used up, drawn up in air
To some ineffably rarefied solution...
Life is enlarged, drunk with annihilation,
And bitterness is sweet, and the spirit clear.”

Paul Valéry (1871–1945) French poet, essayist, and philosopher

Ici venu, l'avenir est paresse.
L'insecte net gratte la sécheresse;
Tout est brûlé, défait, reçu dans l'air
A je ne sais quelle sévère essence . . .
La vie est vaste, étant ivre d'absence,
Et l'amertume est douce, et l'esprit clair.
As translated by by C. Day Lewis
Charmes ou poèmes (1922)

Life, Time, Future

“My sole occupation is love.
All my occupation now is the practice of the love of God, all the powers of soul and body, memory, understanding, and will, interior and exterior senses, the desires of spirit and of sense, all work in and by love. All I do is done in love; all I suffer, I suffer in the sweetness of love.”

John of the Cross (1542–1591) Spanish mystic and Roman Catholic saint

Explanation of Stanza 28 part 8
Spiritual Canticle of The Soul and The Bridegroom, Notes to the Stanzas

Love, God, Soul, Understanding

“So we pulled up to this diner, where people told us that we could get some good pie. And I like pie. Do you like pie too? So, we go in there, and we say, "Oh, what kind of pie you got?' And they didn't have sweet potato pie, they didn't have pumpkin pie. They had some cream pies mostly, which is OK with me. So, I got some coconut cream pie. And Governor Strickland, he got lemon meringue pie.
So while we're waiting for our pie, the staff come and they want to take a picture with me because they say, you know, the owner of this dinner is a staunch die-hard Republican, so we want to kind of tease him a little bit by getting this picture with you. So we're taking this picture and suddenly the owner comes out with the pie. And he looks at me and I say, "Sir, I understand that you are a die-hard Republican." He says, "That's right." I said, "How's business?" He said, "Not so good." He said, "My customer, they can't afford to eat out anymore." I said, "Who's been in charge of the economy for the last eight years?" He said, "Republicans." I said, "You know, if you kept on hitting your head against a wall over and over again and it started to hurt, at some point would you stop hitting your head against the wall?"”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

He said, "You've got a point." At a rally in Londonberry, New Hampshire (16 October 2008) http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0810/16/cnr.04.html 2008

People, Understanding, Business, Waiting

“Even the most insensitive hit song enthusiast cannot always escape the feeling that the child with a sweet tooth comes to know in the candy store.”

Theodor W. Adorno (1903–1969) German sociologist, philosopher and musicologist known for his critical theory of society

Source: On the Fetish Character in Music and the Regression of Listening (1938), p. 290

Feeling

“With eyes up-raised, as one inspired,
Pale Melancholy sate retired,
And from her wild sequestered seat,
In notes by distance made more sweet,
Poured thro' the mellow horn her pensive soul.”

William Collins (1721–1759) English poet, born 1721

Source: The Passions, an Ode for Music (1747), Line 57. Compare: "Sweetest melodies / Are those that are by distance made more sweet", William Wordsworth, Personal Talk, stanza 2.

Soul

“They sang their mysterious duo, sang of their nameless hope, their death-in-love, their union unending, lost forever in the embrace of night’s magic kingdom. O sweet night, everlasting night of love! Land of blessedness whose frontiers are infinite!”

Thomas Mann book Tristan

Source: Tristan (1902), Ch. 8

Love, Death, Hope, Night

“Last night we owned, with looks forlorn,
"Too well the scholar knows
There is no rose without a thorn" —
But peace is made! We sing, this morn,
"No thorn without a rose!"
Our Latin lesson is complete:
We've learned that Love is Bitter-Sweet!”

Lewis Carroll Three Sunsets and Other Poems

A Lesson in Latin (1888), st. 3
Three Sunsets and Other Poems (1898)

Love, Peace, Learning, Singing

“Yes, Heaven is thine; but this
Is a world of sweets and sours;
Our flowers are merely—flowers.”

Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) American author, poet, editor and literary critic

"Israfel", st. 7 (1831).

World, Flowers

“You are sweet, O Love, dear Love,
You are soft as the nesting dove.
Come to my heart and bring it rest
As the bird flies home to its welcome nest.”

Paul Laurence Dunbar Invitation to Love

Invitation to Love, in the 1913 collection of his work, The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar.

Love, Home, Bird, Heart

“Teach us that wealth is not elegance; that profusion is not magnificence; and that splendour is not beauty. Teach us that taste is a talisman which can do greater wonders than the millions of the loanmonger. Teach us that to vie is not to rival, and to imitate not to invent. Teach us that pretension is a bore. Teach us that wit is excessively good-natured, and, like champagne, not only sparkles, but is sweet. Teach us the vulgarity of malignity. Teach us that envy spoils our complexions, and that anxiety destroys our figure.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Source: Books, Coningsby (1844), The Young Duke (1831), Chapter 10.

Beauty, Nature, Envy, Wealth

“The old Romans all wished to have a king over them because they had not yet tasted the sweetness of freedom.”

Livy (-59–17 BC) Roman historian

Book I, sec. 17
History of Rome

Freedom

“When she [Philosophy] saw that the Muses of poetry were present by my couch giving words to my lamenting, she was stirred a while; her eyes flashed fiercely, and said she, "Who has suffered these seducing mummers to approach this sick man? Never do they support those in sorrow by any healing remedies, but rather do ever foster the sorrow by poisonous sweets. These are they who stifle the fruit-bearing harvest of reason with the barren briars of the passions: they free not the minds of men from disease, but accustom them thereto."”
Quae ubi poeticas Musas uidit nostro assistentes toro fletibusque meis uerba dictantes, commota paulisper ac toruis inflammata luminibus: Quis, inquit, has scenicas meretriculas ad hunc aegrum permisit accedere, quae dolores eius non modo nullis remediis fouerent, uerum dulcibus insuper alerent uenenis? Hae sunt enim quae infructuosis affectuum spinis uberem fructibus rationis segetem necant hominumque mentes assuefaciunt morbo, non liberant.

Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (480) philosopher of the early 6th century

Prose I, lines 7-9; translation by W.V. Cooper
The Consolation of Philosophy · De Consolatione Philosophiae, Book I

Men, Disease, Support, Suffering

“I created an environment for myself and a way of living for myself that on the outside seemed incredibly gregarious and vivacious and it was just… I don't believe I have any chemical pre-disposition towards depression but let's just call it, I was suffering from a spiritual malady I suppose, for years, and I just indulged that and it was sweet. Because at times to be in pain, if it's self-perpetuated, at times, can be sweet. You can feel very alive when you're in pain. And I also know that from another perspective when somebody who I love in my life has passed away, there is something incredibly internally vivacious about feeling pain and mourning and even if it's as egocentric and self-indulgent as mourning for yourself or pitying for yourself and that sort of stuff. So I'm glad I'm out of that cycle of my life, and I'm very lucky that way.”

Colin Farrell (1976) Irish actor

2008-10-11, Friday Night with Jonathan Ross

Love, Life, Pain, Way

“Jesus’ “mysterious” affection for the sinners, which is closely related to his ever-ready militancy against the scribes and pharisees, against every kind of social respectability … contains a kind of awareness that the great transformation of life, the radical change in outlook he demands of man (in Christian parlance it is called “rebirth”) is more accessible to the sinner than to the “just.” … Jesus is deeply skeptical toward all those who can feign the good man’s blissful existence through the simple lack of strong instincts and vitality. But all this does not suffice to explain this mysterious affection. In it there is something which can scarcely be expressed and must be felt. When the noblest men are in the company of the “good”—even of the truly “good,” not only of the pharisees—they are often overcome by a sudden impetuous yearning to go to the sinners, to suffer and struggle at their side and to share their grievous, gloomy lives. This is truly no temptation by the pleasures of sin, nor a demoniacal love for its “sweetness,” nor the attraction of the forbidden or the lure of novel experiences. It is an outburst of tempestuous love and tempestuous compassion for all men who are felt as one, indeed for the universe as a whole; a love which makes it seem frightful that only some should be “good,” while the others are “bad” and reprobate. In such moments, love and a deep sense of solidarity are repelled by the thought that we alone should be “good,” together with some others. This fills us with a kind of loathing for those who can accept this privilege, and we have an urge to move away from them.”

Max Scheler (1874–1928) German philosopher

Source: Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (1912), L. Coser, trans. (1961), pp. 100-101

Love, Life, Men, Pleasure

“Ooo remember, baby, how you made me feel just like a king?
Ah, I've been waiting
I'm ready for you to start doin' the things
So I'll know you're mine.
You're so fine, so petite, oh candy sweet.
Ah, I've been waiting.
Come here, baby, get to this.”

Marvin Gaye (1939–1984) American singer-songwriter and musician

Come Get to This.
Song lyrics, Let's Get It On (1973)

Feeling, Waiting, Baby

“My sweet, I do not mean to upset you in writing this, but I want to tell you that within us, as within the nature of every person's soul there is an emptiness and we constantly seek to find that and those in order to escape from being alone. This always has been so, and always the weight of loneliness is with us, and for this reason we think of this thing or that so as not to be left alone.”

Arshile Gorky (1904–1948) Armenian-American painter

Source: 1930 - 1941, from 'Arshile Gorky, – Goats on the roof' (2009), p. 132: in a letter to his sister Vartush Mooradian, after Mai 1938

Soul, Nature, Thinking, Personality

“Admittedly there is a risk in any course we follow other than this [surrender], but every lesson in history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face — that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight and surrender. If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand — the ultimatum. And what then? When Nikita Khrushchev has told his people he knows what our answer will be? He has told them that we are retreating under the pressure of the Cold War, and someday when the time comes to deliver the final ultimatum, our surrender will be voluntary because by that time we will have weakened from within spiritually, morally, and economically. He believes this because from our side he has heard voices pleading for "peace at any price" or "better Red than dead," or as one commentator put it, he would rather "live on his knees than die on his feet." And therein lies the road to war, because those voices don't speak for the rest of us. You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin — just in the face of this enemy?”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

1960s, A Time for Choosing (1964)

Life, War, People, Peace

“The condition of mankind is, and always has been, so miserable and depraved that, if anyone were to say to the poet: "For God's sake stop singing and do something useful like putting on the kettle or fetching bandages," what just reason could he give for refusing? But nobody says this. The self-appointed unqualified nurse says: "You are to sing the patient a song which will make him believe that I, and I alone, can cure him. If you can't or won't, I shall confiscate your passport and send you to the mines." And the poor patient in his delirium cries: "Please sing me a song which will give me sweet dreams instead of nightmares. If you succeed, I will give you a penthouse in New York or a ranch in Arizona."”

W. H. Auden book The Dyer's Hand

"Writing", p. 27
The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)

God, Dreams, Singing

“Two sensuous lovers are not two friends. Much rather are they two enemies, closely attached to each other. I know it, I know it! There are perfect couples, no doubt — perfection always exists somewhere — but I mean us others, all of us, the ordinary people! I know! — the human being's real quality, the delicate lights and shadows of human dreams, the sweet and complicated mystery of personalities, sensuous lovers deride them, both of them! They are two egoists, falling fiercely on each other. Together they sacrifice themselves, utterly in a flash of pleasure.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

Light (1919), Ch. XXIII - Face To Face

People, Pleasure, Dreams, Lovers

“Most modern calendars mar the sweet simplicity of our lives by reminding us that each day that passes is the anniversary of some perfectly uninteresting event.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

"A New Calendar," The Pall Mall Gazette http://www.online-literature.com/wilde/1307/ (February 17, 1887)

“The sweet simplicity of the three per cents.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Source: Books, Coningsby (1844), Endymion (1880), Ch. 96. Compare: "The elegant simplicity of the three per cents", Lord Stowell, in Lives of the Lord Chancellors (Campbell), Vol. x, Chap. 212.

“With astonishment Aschenbach noticed that the boy was entirely beautiful. His countenance, pale and gracefully reserved, was surrounded by ringlets of honey-colored hair, and with its straight nose, its enchanting mouth, its expression of sweet and divine gravity, it recalled Greek sculpture of the noblest period.”

Thomas Mann book Death in Venice

Source: Death in Venice (1912), Ch. 3, as translated by David Luke

Beauty, Color, Boy

“Jesus, give the weary
Calm and sweet repose.
With Thy tend'rest blessing
May our eyelids close.”

Sabine Baring-Gould (1834–1924) English hagiographer, antiquarian, novelist and eclectic scholar

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 614.

“I'm the man of the hour, the man with the power, too sweet to be sour.”

Billy Graham (wrestler) (1943–2023) American professional wrestler, american football player, bodybuilder

Billy Graham, Tangled Ropes: Superstar Billy Graham (2006)

“The name of freedom regained is sweet to hear.”

Livy (-59–17 BC) Roman historian

Book XXIV, sec. 21
History of Rome

Freedom

“O great and wonderful Lord our God, thou only light of the eyes, open, I implore thee, the eyes of my heart, and of others my fellow-creatures, that we may truly understand and contemplate thy wondrous works. And the more thoroughly we comprehend them, the more may our minds be affected in the contemplation with pious reverence and profound devotion. Who is not struck with awe in beholding thy all-powerful will completely efficacious throughout every part of the creation? It is by this same sovereign and irresistible will, that whom and when thou pleasest thou bringest low and liftest up, killest and makest alive. How intense and how unbounded is thy love to me, O Lord! whereas my love, how feeble and remiss! my gratitude, how cold and inconstant! Far be it from thee that thy love should even resemble mine; for in every kind of excellence thou art consummate. O thou who fillest heaven and earth, why fillest thou not this narrow heart? O human soul, low, abject, and miserable, whoever thou art, if thou be not fully replenished with the love of so great a good, why dost thou not open all thy doors, expand all thy folds, extend all thy capacity, that, by the sweetness of love so great, thou mayest be wholly occupied, satiated, and ravished; especially since, little as thou art, thou canst not be satisfied with the love of any good inferior to the One supreme? Speak the word, that thou mayest become my God and most enviable in mine eyes, and it shall instantly be so, without the possibility of failure. What can be more efficacious to engage the affection than preventing love? Most gracious Lord, by thy love thou hast prevented me, wretch that I am, who had no love for thee, but was at enmity with my Maker and Redeemer. I see, Lord, that it is easy to say and to write these things, but very difficult to execute them. Do thou, therefore, to whom nothing is difficult, grant that I may more easily practise these things with my heart than utter them with my lips. Open thy liberal hand, that nothing may be easier, sweeter, or more delightful to me, than to be employed in these things. Thou, who preventest thy servants with thy gracious love, whom dost thou not elevate with the hope of finding thee?”

Thomas Bradwardine (1300–1349) Theologian; Archbishop of Canterbury

Sample of Bradwardine devotional writing quoted by James Burnes, The Church of England Magazine under the superintendence of clergymen of the United Church of England and Ireland Vol. IV (January to June 1838)

Love, God, Hope, Art

“Go, lovely rose!
Tell her that wastes her time and me
That now she knows,
When I resemble her to thee,
How sweet and fair she seems to be.”

Edmund Waller (1606–1687) English poet and politician

Go, Lovely Rose (1664), st. 1.
Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham (1857)

Love, Time

“He put his hands on the young woman's shoulders, and looked at her, in readiness for his eager embrace.
They held each other close, staggering. They said the same word at the same time, "At last!" That was all they said, but they said it over and over again in a low voice, chanting it together. Their eyes uttered the same sweet cry. Their breasts communicated it to each other. It seemed to be tying them together and making them merge into one. At last! Their long separation was over. Their love was victor. At last they were together. And I saw her quiver from head to foot. I saw her whole body welcome him while her eyes opened and then closed on him again. They made a great effort to speak to each other. The few shreds of conversation held them back a moment.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

The Inferno (1917), Ch. XV

Love, Communication, Effort, Time

“Sweet hymns shall be my chant and woven songs,
For Thou art all for which my spirit longs--
To be within the shadow of Thy hand
And all Thy mystery to understand.
The while Thy glory is upon my tongue,
My inmost heart with love of thee is wrung,
So though Thy mighty marvels I proclaim,
'Tis songs of love wherewith I greet Thy name.”

Yehuda he-Hasid (1140–1217) German philosopher

Shir Hakovod, trans. from the Hebrew by Israel Zangwill

Love, Art, Understanding, Heart

“The breathing of the air,
The song of the sweet nightingale,
The grove and its beauty
In the serene night,
With the flame that consumes, and gives no pains. ~ 39”

John of the Cross (1542–1591) Spanish mystic and Roman Catholic saint

Spiritual Canticle of The Soul and The Bridegroom

Pain, Beauty, Night

“Alone am I, and alone I wish to be;
Alone my sweet love has left me.
Alone am I, without friend or mate,
Alone am I, mournful and angry.”

Christine de Pizan (1365–1430) Italian French late medieval author

Seulete suy et seulete vueil estre,
Seulete m'a mon doulz ami laissiée,
Seulete suy, sanz compaignon ne maistre,
Seulette suy, dolente et courrouciée.
Cent Balades, no. 11, line 1; Maurice Roy (ed.) Œuvres Poétiques de Christine de Pisan (1886) vol. 1, p. 12. Translation from Aliki Barnstone & Willis Barnstone (eds.) A Book of Women Poets from Antiquity to Now (1980) p. 203.

Love

“I am content to follow to its source
Every event in action or in thought;
Measure the lot; forgive myself the lot!
When such as I cast out remorse
So great a sweetness flows into the breast
We must laugh and we must sing,
We are blest by everything,
Everything we look upon is blest.”

W.B. Yeats book The Winding Stair and Other Poems

II, st. 4 The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933), A Dialogue of Self and Soul http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1397/

Forgiveness, Singing

“If you ever change your mind
About leaving, leaving me behind
Baby, bring it to me, bring your sweet lovin'
Bring it on home to me
Yeah (yeah) yeah (yeah) yeah”

Sam Cooke (1931–1964) American singer-songwriter and entrepreneur

yeah
Bring It On Home to Me (1962)
Song lyrics, Singles

Home, Change, Baby

“Come back, true love! Sweet youth, return!—
But time goes on, and will, unheeding,
Though hands will reach, and eyes will yearn,
And the wild days set true hearts bleeding.”

Conrad Aiken (1889–1973) American novelist and poet

All Lovely Things (1916)

Love, Youth, Time, Heart

“The style of this letter is unexceptionable, for Faraday could not write otherwise than as a gentleman; but the letter shows that had he willed it he could have hit hard. We have heard much of Faraday's gentleness and sweetness and tenderness. It is all true, but it is very incomplete.”

John Tyndall (1820–1893) British scientist

"Points of Character", p. 37.
Faraday as a Discoverer (1868)
Context: A point highly illustrative of the character of Faraday now comes into view. He gave an account of his discovery of Magneto-electricity in a letter to his friend M. Hachette, of Paris, who communicated the letter to the Academy of Sciences. The letter was translated and published; and immediately afterwards two distinguished Italian philosophers took up the subject, made numerous experiments, and published their results before the complete memoirs of Faraday had met the public eye. This evidently irritated him. He reprinted the paper of the learned Italians in the Philosophical Magazine accompanied by sharp critical notes from himself. He also wrote a letter dated Dec. 1,1832, to Gay Lussac, who was then one of the editors of the Annales de Chimie in which he analysed the results of the Italian philosophers, pointing out their errors, and' defending himself from what he regarded as imputations on his character. The style of this letter is unexceptionable, for Faraday could not write otherwise than as a gentleman; but the letter shows that had he willed it he could have hit hard. We have heard much of Faraday's gentleness and sweetness and tenderness. It is all true, but it is very incomplete. You cannot resolve a powerful nature into these elements, and Faraday's character would have been less admirable than it was had it not embraced forces and tendencies to which the silky adjectives "gentle" and "tender" would by no means apply. Underneath his sweetness and gentleness was the heat of a volcano. He was a man of excitable and fiery nature; but through high self-discipline he had converted the fire into a central glow and motive power of life, instead of permitting it to waste itself in useless passion. "He that is slow to anger" saith the sage, "is greater than the mighty, and he that ruleth his own spirit than he that taketh a city." Faraday was not slow to anger, but he completely ruled his own spirit, and thus, though he took no cities, he captivated all hearts.

“Crying amid the glittering sea,
Naming it with the ecstatic breath,
Because it had such dignity,
By the sweet name of Death.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

His Dream http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1509/ The Green Helmet and Other Poems (1910) Context: I swayed upon the gaudy stern The butt-end of a steering-oar, And saw wherever I could turn A crowd upon a shore. And though I would have hushed the crowd, There was no mother's son but said, 'What is the figure in a shroud Upon a gaudy bed?' And after running at the brim Cried out upon that thing beneath --It had such dignity of a limb-- By the sweet name of Death. Though I'd my finger on my lip, What could I but take up the song? And running crowd and gaudy ship Cried out the whole night long, Crying amid the glittering sea, Naming it with the ecstatic breath, Because it had such dignity, By the sweet name of Death.

Death, Cry, Sea

“It's sort of like a mockery in a way of reality because they think everything is smiles and sweetness and flowers when there is something bitter to taste. And to pretend there isn't is foolish.”

Edie Sedgwick (1943–1971) Socialite, actress, model

On the 60's flower children
Edie : Girl On Fire (2006)
Context: It's sort of like a mockery in a way of reality because they think everything is smiles and sweetness and flowers when there is something bitter to taste. And to pretend there isn't is foolish. I mean the ones that wonder around and know, at the same time, and yet wear flowers, and they deserve to wear flowers. And they've earned their smile... you can tell by people's eyes.

Smile, Way, Flowers, Thinking

“All hatred driven hence,
The soul recovers radical innocence
And learns at last that it is self-delighting,
Self-appeasing, self-affrighting,
And that its own sweet will is Heaven’s will;”

W.B. Yeats book Michael Robartes and the Dancer

St. 9 Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1921), A Prayer For My Daughter http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1421/ Context: All hatred driven hence, The soul recovers radical innocence And learns at last that it is self-delighting, Self-appeasing, self-affrighting, And that its own sweet will is Heaven’s will; She can, though every face should scowl And every windy quarter howl Or every bellows burst, be happy still.

Soul, Learning

“From the sweet thoughts of home
And from all hope I was forever hurled.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

Guilt and Sorrow, st. 41 (1791-1794) Section XL
Context: From the sweet thoughts of home
And from all hope I was forever hurled.
For me—farthest from earthly port to roam
Was best, could I but shun the spot where man might come.

Hope, Home

“The grace described in one of my favorite hymnals -- the one we all know: Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I’m found; was blind but now I see. According to the Christian tradition, grace is not earned. Grace is not merited. It’s not something we deserve. Rather, grace is the free and benevolent favor of God as manifested in the salvation of sinners and the bestowal of blessings.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2015, Eulogy for the Honorable Reverend Clementa Pinckney (June 2015)
Context: This whole week, I’ve been reflecting on this idea of grace. The grace of the families who lost loved ones. The grace that Reverend Pinckney would preach about in his sermons. The grace described in one of my favorite hymnals -- the one we all know: Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I’m found; was blind but now I see. According to the Christian tradition, grace is not earned. Grace is not merited. It’s not something we deserve. Rather, grace is the free and benevolent favor of God as manifested in the salvation of sinners and the bestowal of blessings.

God

“War is sweet to those who have no experience of it,
but the experienced man trembles exceedingly at heart on its approach.”

Pindar (-517–-437 BC) Ancient Greek poet

γλυκύ δ᾽ἀπείρῳ πόλεμος.
πεπειραμένων δέ τις ταρβεῖ προσιόντα νιν καρδία περισσῶς.
Fragment 110; page 377.
Variant translations: This phrase is the origin of the Latin proverb "Dulce bellum inexpertis" which is sometimes misattributed to Desiderius Erasmus‎.
War is sweet to them that know it not.
War is sweet to those not acquainted with it
War is sweet to those who do not know it.
War is sweet to those that never have experienced it.
War is delightful to those who have had no experience of it.

War, Heart

“Here the old Bacchic piety endures,
Here the sweet legends of the world remain.”

Vita Sackville-West (1892–1962) English writer and gardener

"Tuscany" in The Best Poems of 1923 (1924) edited by Thomas Moult
Context: The dusk is heavy with the wine's warm load;
Here the long sense of classic measure cures
The spirit weary of its difficult pain;
Here the old Bacchic piety endures,
Here the sweet legends of the world remain.

World

“What makes bitter things sweet? Hunger.”

Alcuin (735–804) English scholar and abbot

in R Lacey and D Danziger, The Year 1000, Little, Brown and Co,GB, 1999, p. 57

Hunger

“Have you found your life distasteful?
My life did and does smack sweet.”

Robert Browning (1812–1889) English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era

"At the 'Mermaid'"(1876) 
Context: Have you found your life distasteful?
My life did and does smack sweet.
Was your youth of pleasure wasteful?
Mine I save and hold complete.
Do your joys with age diminish?
When mine fail me, I'll complain.
Must in death your daylight finish?
My sun sets to rise again.

Life

“Look at him, just like a god,
that man sitting across from you,
whoever he is,
listening to your
close, sweet voice,
your irresistible laughter
And O yes,
it sets my heart racing—
one glance at you
and I can't get any words out,
my voice cracks,
a thin flame runs under my skin,
my eyes go blind,
my ears ring,
a cold sweat pours down my body,
I tremble all over,
turn paler than grass.”

Sappho (-630–-570 BC) ancient Greek lyric poet

Stanley Lombardo translations, Frag. 20

God, Laughter, Grass, Heart

“All that sternness amid charm,
All that sweetness amid strength?”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

Peace http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1564/ The Green Helmet and Other Poems (1910) Context: Ah, that Time could touch a form That could show what Homer's age Bred to be a hero's wage. 'Were not all her life but a storm, Would not painters pain a form Of such noble lines,' I said, 'Such a delicate high head, All that sternness amid charm, All that sweetness amid strength? Ah, but peace that comes at length, Came when Time had touched her form.

“Culture looks beyond machinery, culture hates hatred; culture has one great passion, the passion for sweetness and light.”

Matthew Arnold book Culture and Anarchy

Source: Culture and Anarchy (1869), Ch. I, Sweetness and Light
Context: The pursuit of perfection, then, is the pursuit of sweetness and light. He who works for sweetness and light, works to make reason and the will of God prevail. He who works for machinery, he who works for hatred, works only for confusion. Culture looks beyond machinery, culture hates hatred; culture has one great passion, the passion for sweetness and light.

Hate, Light, Passion

“O dream on your black wings
you come when I am sleeping.

Sweet is the god but still I am
in agony and far from my strength.

for I had hope (none now) to share
something of the blessed gods,

nor was I so foolish
as to scorn pleasant toys.

Now may I have
all these things.”

Sappho (-630–-570 BC) ancient Greek lyric poet

Fragment 63 Voigt
The Willis Barnstone translations, Dream

God, Dreams, Hope, Sleep

“A melancholy can be sweet. It's not a mean thing, but it's something that happens in life — like autumn.”

Bill Murray (1950) American actor and comedian

Interview with Thomas Chau http://www.cinecon.com/news.php?id=0412221 Context: Melancholic and lovable is the trick, right? You've got to be able to show that you have these feelings. In the game of life, you get these feelings and how you deal with those feelings. What you do when you are trying to deal with a melancholy. A melancholy can be sweet. It's not a mean thing, but it's something that happens in life — like autumn.

Life, Autumn

“The reflection on the days of difficulty and danger which are past is rendered the more sweet, from a consciousness that they are succeeded by days of uncommon prosperity and security. If we have wisdom to make the best use of the advantages with which we are now favored, we cannot fail, under the just administration of a good Government, to become a great and happy people.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

1790s, To the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, 18 August 1790

Wisdom, Happiness, People, Making love

“I am so submerged in the sweet fire of love that I cannot grasp anything except the whole of love, which melts all the marrow of my soul and body.”

Catherine of Genoa (1447–1510) Italian author and nurse

Love, Making love, Soul

“The sweet spot is acknowledging that we have pressure on our infrastructure. And I think, actually, that is common ground between all parties that will form this government because there is undoubtedly strain based on the fact that we have had a government that’s entire growth agenda has been based on population growth rather than focusing on making sure that we move to a productive economy. Our view is that it is about the settings. It is about making sure that we are meeting the skills gaps that we have – and we do have them in New Zealand – meeting those skills gaps by making sure that we are undertaking those work tests, by making sure that our export education industry isn’t exploiting people, and by making sure that people on temporary work visas aren’t exploited either. That’s the area we’re focused on, and there’s agreement there.”

Jacinda Ardern (1980) Prime Minister of New Zealand

On her immigration policy.
Interview with Lisa Owen at Newshub Nation, 21 October 2017

People, Education, Making love, Thinking

“If what the eye sees does not rankle in the heart
Sweet is the flow of life in travel spent.”

Ghalib (1797–1869) Urdu-Persian poet

Ghalib (M. Mujeeb), p. 15
Poetry, Couplets

Life, Travel, Heart

“Whether at Naishapur or Babylon,
Whether the Cup with sweet or bitter run,
The Wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop,
The Leaves of Life keep falling one by one.”

Omar Khayyám (1048–1131) Persian poet, philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer

Source: The Rubaiyat (1120)

Life, Wine

“When I hear a certain song playing in the background, I think of you and a vision of your face, pervades my soul. When the second song plays, your sweet fragrance fills the air around me. The third song and her gentle hand caresses my face and tingles my body that is covered with goosebumps. At the fourth song, I gently glide to the radio and turn it off. There is no sense roaming in the darkened marred past. And I have adjusted to living without her.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

2009

Soul, Thinking, Sense, Past

“It seems that the majority of men are suggestible, half-awake children, willing to surrender their will to anyone who speaks with a voice that is threatening or sweet enough to sway them. Indeed, he who has a conviction strong enough to withstand the opposition of the crowd is the exception rather than the rule, an exception often admired centuries later, mostly laughed at by his contemporaries.”

Erich Fromm (1900–1980) German social psychologist and psychoanalyst

Source: The Heart of Man: Its Genius for Good and Evil.

“War is sweet to them that know it not.”

Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536) Dutch Renaissance humanist, Catholic priest, and theologian

Dulce bellum inexpertis.
Though Erasmus quoted this proverb in Latin at the start of his essay Bellum [War], and it is sometimes attributed to him, it originates with the Greek poet Pindar ("γλυκύ δ᾽ἀπείρῳ πόλεμος [War is sweet to them that know it not.]").
Variant translations:
War is sweet to those not acquainted with it.
War is sweet to those who do not know it.
War is sweet to those that never have experienced it.
War is delightful to those who have had no experience of it.
Misattributed

War

“Sweet is the god but still I am
in agony and far from my strength.”

Sappho (-630–-570 BC) ancient Greek lyric poet

The Willis Barnstone translations, Dream

God

“Look at the grace and sweetness of men and women in the street...”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

Women, Men

“For Christ is Joy and Sweetness to a broken heart. Christ is a Lover of poor sinners, and such a Lover that He gave Himself for us. Now if this is true, and it is true, then are we never justified by our own righteousness.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Source: Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (1535), Chapter 3, verse 20

Lovers, Heart, Joy, Christ

“Friendship, 'tis said, is love without his wings,
And friendship, sir, is sweet enough for me.”

Alfred Austin (1835–1913) British writer and poet

Source: Savonarola (1881), Candida to Valori in Act I, sc. ii; p. 35.

Love, Friendship

“There's nothing in this world so sweet as love, and next to love the sweetest thing is hate.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet

Love, Hate, World

“I spoke it soft, but close enough to brush against her lips. I spoke it quiet, but near enough so that the sound of it went twining through her hair. I spoke it hard and firm and dark and sweet.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Wise Man's Fear

Source: The Wise Man's Fear

“The sweetness of love is short-lived, but the pain endures.”

Thomas Malory (1405–1471) English writer, author of ''Le Morte d'Arthur''

Love, Pain

“It was such a spring day as breathes into a man an ineffable yearning, a painful sweetness, a longing that makes him stand motionless, looking at the leaves or grass, and fling out his arms to embrace he knows not what.”

John Galsworthy book The Forsyte Saga

Source: The Forsyte Saga

Pain, Spring, Grass

“Sourness and bitterness come from the interfering and unappreciative mind. Life itself, when understood and utilized for what it is, is sweet. That is the message of The Vinegar Tasters.”

Benjamin Hoff book The Tao of Pooh

Source: The Tao of Pooh

Life

“Good grief, Molly. He doesn't scare you?"
"Of course not."
"But he's…"
"He's sweet," Molly insisted.
Dare snorted. "He's still listening.”

Lori Foster (1958) American writer

Source: When You Dare

“Vengeance is sweet. Vengeance taken when the vengee isn't sure who the venger is, is sweeter still.”

Gary D. Schmidt book The Wednesday Wars

Source: The Wednesday Wars

“Ill show you a Sweet dream”

Matsuri Hino Japanese manga artist

Dreams

“I wonder if anyone but me realizes what goes on in that head back of your deceptively sweet face.”

Margaret Mitchell book Vom Winde verweht (1937 German edition)

Source: Gone with the Wind

“Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.”

Thomas Gray (1716–1771) English poet, historian

St. 14 Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=elcc (written 1750, publ. 1751) Source: An Elegy Written In A Country Churchyard

Flowers

“Roses! I swear you men have all your romance from the same worn book. Flowers are a good thing, a sweet thing to give a lady. But it is always roses, always red, and always perfect hothouse blooms when they can come by them.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

Source: The Name of the Wind

Men, Books, Flowers, Perfection