Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Bliss
To bliss unknown my lofty soul aspires,
My lot unequal to my vast desires.
J. Arbuthnot—Gnothi Seaton. L. 3.
Thin partitions do divide
The bounds where good and ill reside;
That nought is perfect here below;
But bliss still bordering upon woe.
Weekly Magazine, Edinburgh, Vol. XXII. P. 50 (1770).
The hues of bliss more brightly glow,
Chastis’d by sabler tints of woe.
Gray—Ode on the Pleasure arising from Vicissitude. L. 45.
Alas! by some degree of woe
We every bliss must gain;
The heart can ne’er a transport know,
That never feels a pain.
Lord Lyttleton—Song.
And my heart rocked its babe of bliss,
And soothed its child of air,
With something ’twixt a song and kiss,
To keep it nestling there.
Gerald Massey—On a Wedding Day. St. 3.
But such a sacred and home-felt delight,
Such sober certainty of waking bliss,
I never heard till now.
Milton—Comus. L. 262.
The sum of earthly bliss.
Milton—Paradise Lost. Bk. VIII. L. 522.
Bliss in possession will not last;
Remember’d joys are never past;
At once the fountain, stream, and sea,
They were,—they are,—they yet shall be.
Montgomery—
The Little Cloud.
Some place the bliss in action, some in ease,
Those call it pleasure, and contentment these.
Pope—Essay on Man. Ep. IV. L. 21.
Condition, circumstance, is not the thing;
Bliss is the same in subject or in king.
Pope—Essay on Man. Ep. IV. L. 57.
The way to bliss lies not on beds of down,
And he that had no cross deserves no crown.
Quarles—Esther.
I know I am—that simplest bliss
The millions of my brothers miss.
I know the fortune to be born,
Even to the meanest wretch they scorn.
Bayard Taylor—Prince Deukalion. Act IV.
We thinke no greater blisse than such
To be as be we would,
When blessed none but such as be
The same as be they should.
William Warner—Albion’s England. Bk. X. Ch. LIX. St. 68.
The spider’s most attenuated thread
Is cord, is cable, to man’s tender tie
On earthly bliss; it breaks at every breeze.
Young—Night Thoughts. Night 1. L. 178.