Contents
-BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Owen Meredith
For Art is Nature made by ManTo Man the interpreter of God.
MeanwhileThe sun, in his setting, sent up the last smileOf his power, to baffle the storm. And, behold!O’er the mountains embattled, his armies, all gold,Rose and rested: while far up the dim airy crags,Its artillery silenced, its banners in rags,The rear of the tempest its sullen retreatDrew off slowly, receding in silence, to meetThe powers of the night, which, now gathering afar,Had already sent forward one bright, single star.
No lifeCan be pure in its purpose and strong in its strife,And all life not be purer and stronger thereby.
That caressing and exquisite grace—never bold,Ever present—which just a few women possess.
That old miracle—Love-at-first-sight—Needs no explanations. The heart reads arightIts destiny sometimes.
That’s bestWhich God sends. ’Twas His will: it is mine.
The glittering tresses which, now shaken loose,Shower’d gold.
The man who seeks one thing in life, and but one,May hope to achieve it before life be done;But he who seeks all things, wherever he goes,Only reaps from the hopes which around him he sowsA harvest of barren regrets.
The sylphs and ondinesAnd the sea-kings and queensLong ago, long ago, on the waves built a city,As lovely as seemsTo some bard in his dreams,The soul of his latest love-ditty.
There is war in the skies!Lo! the black-winged legions of tempest ariseO’er those sharp splinter’d rocks that are gleaming belowIn the soft light, so fair and so fatal, as thoughSome seraph burn’d through them, the thunderbolt searchingWhich the black cloud unbosom’d just now.
When time is flown, how it fledIt is better neither to ask nor tell,Leave the dead moments to bury their dead.
You knowThere are moments when silence, prolonged and unbroken,More expressive may be than all words ever spoken.It is when the heart has an instinct of whatIn the heart of another is passing.
Are not great men the models of nations?
Be very sure that no man will learn anything at all unless he first will learn humility.
Genius does what it must; and talent does what it can.
Good-humor is goodness and wisdom combined.
Great sorrow makes sacred the sufferer.
Heaven’s slow but sure redress of human ills.
Life is good, but not life in itself.
Sometimes a dark thought crossed my fancy, like the sullen bat that flies athwart the melancholy moon at eve.
There is a pleasure that is born of pain.
There is nothing certain in man’s life but this, that be must lose it.
There is purpose in pain; otherwise it were devilish.
There was war in the skies!
They only fall that strive to move, or lose that care to keep.
Thought alone is eternal.
’T is more brave to live than to die.
True eyes, too pure and too honest in aught to disguise the sweet soul shining through them.
We are but as the instrument of heaven.
We gain justice, judgment, with years, or else years are in vain.
We stand in our own light wherever we go, and fight our own shadows forever.
Who knows nothing base, fears nothing known.
Words, however, are things.
