Grocott & Ward, comps. Grocott’s Familiar Quotations, 6th ed. 189-?.
Nature
And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth, and it was so.
Genesis, Chap. i. Verse 11.
Nature the vicar of the Almighty Lord.
Chaucer.—Assembly of Fools, Line 379.
Knowing that nature never did betray
The heart that loved her.
Wordsworth, Tintern Abbey.
All of these, and all I see,
Should be sung, and sung by me:
They speak their Maker as they can,
But want, and ask, the tongue of man.
Parnell.—Hymn to Contentment, Line 71.
Nothing in nature, much less conscious being,
Was e’er created solely for itself.
Dr. Young.—Night IX. Line 706.
For whatsoever she produces (I am not speaking only of animals, but even of those things which have sprung from the earth in such a manner as to rest on their own roots,) she designed it to be perfect in its respective kind.
Yonge’s Cicero.—Tusculan Disp. Book V. Div. 13.
Wise nature by variety does please,
Clothes differing passions in a differing dress.
Dryden.—Translation of Boileau’s Poetry, Canto III. Tragedy.
Where order in variety we see,
And where, though all things differ, all agree.
Pope.—Windsor Forest, Line 15.
Heaven to mankind impartial we confess,
If all are equal in their happiness;
But mutual wants this happiness increase,
All nature’s difference keeps all nature’s peace.
Pope.—Essay on Man, Epi. IV. Line 53.
Extremes in nature equal ends produce.
Pope.—Epi. II. Line 205.
Extremes in nature equal good produce,
Extremes in man concur to general use.
Pope.—Moral Essays, Epi. III. Line 161.
Eye nature’s walks, shoot folly as it flies,
And catch the manners living as they rise.
Pope.—Essay on Man, Epi. I. Line 13.
Look nature through ’tis neat gradation all.
Dr. Young.—Night VI. Part I. Line 714.
Nature and Wisdom never are at strife.
Juvenal.—Sat. XIV. Line 321. (Gifford.)
No blank, no trifle, nature made, or meant.
Dr. Young.—Night II. Line 81.
Read nature; nature is a friend to truth.
Dr. Young.—Night IV. Line 702.
Who can paint
Like Nature? can imagination boast,
Amid its gay creation, hues like hers?
Or can it mix them with that matchless skill,
And lose them in each other, as appears
In every bud that blows?
Thomson’s Seasons.—Spring.
Nature hath fram’d strange fellows in her time.
Shakespeare.—Merchant of Venice, Act I. Scene 1.
To read and write comes by nature.
Shakespeare.—Much Ado About Nothing, Act III. Scene 3. (Dogberry to second Watchman.)
Garters and stockings come by nature.
Beaumont and Fletcher.—Cupid’s Revenge, Act I. Scene 4.
Nature, through all her works, in great degree,
Borrows a blessing from variety.
Churchill.—Apology.
Not without art, but yet to nature true.
Churchill.—The Rosciad, Line 699.
Breathing nature lives in every line:
Chaste and subdued.
Collins.—Epi. to Sir Thos. Hanmer, Line 112.
All things are artificial, for
Nature is the art of God.
Sir Thos. Browne.—Religio Medici.
The course of nature is the art of God.
Dr. Young.—Night IX. Line 1269.
I have thought some of nature’s journeymen had made men and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.
Shakespeare.—Hamlet, Act III. Scene 2.