Quotes from work
Festus


Philip James Bailey photo

“Poets are all who love, who feel great truths,
And tell them; and the truth of truths is love.”

Scene XVI, The Hesperian Sphere
Festus (1839)

Philip James Bailey photo

“Men might be better if we better deemed
Of them. The worst way to improve the world
Is to condemn it.”

Scene IV, A Mountain; Sunrise. Compare: "The surest plan to make a man / Is to think him so", J. R. Lowell, Biglow Papers, II, ii. St. 9
Festus (1839)

Philip James Bailey photo

“Art is man's nature; nature is God's art.”

Proem
Festus (1839)

Philip James Bailey photo

“They who forgive most shall be most forgiven.”

Festus (1839)

Philip James Bailey photo

“Prayer is the spirit speaking truth to Truth.”

Festus (1839)

Philip James Bailey photo

“Envy's a coal comes hissing hot from hell.”

Festus (1839)

Philip James Bailey photo
Philip James Bailey photo

“The worst men often give the best advice.”

Festus (1839)

Philip James Bailey photo

“America thou half-brother of the world!
With something good and bad of every land.”

Scene X, Earth's Surface
Festus (1839)

Philip James Bailey photo
Philip James Bailey photo
Philip James Bailey photo
Philip James Bailey photo

“Respect is what we owe; love what we give.”

Festus (1839)

Philip James Bailey photo

“Who never doubted never half believed
Where doubt there truth is—'t is her shadow.”

Scene V, A Country Town; comparable to Alfred, Lord Tennyson "There lives more faith in honest doubt / Believe me, than in half the creeds."
Festus (1839)

Philip James Bailey photo

“Evil and good are God's right hand and left.”

Proem
Festus (1839)

Philip James Bailey photo

“Music tells no truths.”

Scene XI, A Village Feast
Festus (1839)

Philip James Bailey photo

“We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.”

Scene V, A Country Town
Festus (1839)
Context: We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.
We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives
Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.
Life's but a means unto an end; that end
Beginning, mean, and end to all things, — God.
The dead have all the glory of the world.

Philip James Bailey photo

“I cannot be content with less than heaven;
Living, and comprehensive of all life.”

Festus (1839)
Context: I cannot be content with less than heaven;
Living, and comprehensive of all life.
Thee, universal heaven, celestial all;
Thee, sacred seat of intellective time;
Field of the soul's best wisdom: home of truth,
Star-throned.

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