Quote

The applause of list'ning senates to command, The threats of pain and ruin to despise, To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, And read their history in a nation's eyes.

Thomas Gray

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Thomas Gray
Age: 54 †
Born: 1716
Born: December 26
Died: 1771
Died: July 30
Literary Critic
Poet
London
England
Eye
Command
Applause
Read
Plenty
Smiling
Pain
Historical
Ruin
History
Threat
Despise
Nation
Senate
Land
List
Ning
Eyes
Ruins
Scatter
Nations
Lists
Threats

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We frolic while 'tis May.
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Any fool may write a most valuable book by chance, if he will only tell us what he heard and saw with veracity.
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Poetry is thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.
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The time will come, when thou shalt lift thine eyes To watch a long-drawn battle in the skies. While aged peasants, too amazed for words, Stare at the flying fleets of wondrous birds.
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I shall be but a shrimp of an author.
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To each his suff'rings: all are men, / Condemn'd alike to groan, / The tender for another's pain / Th' unfeeling for his own.
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Her track, where'er the goddess roves, Glory pursue, and gen'rous shame, Th' unconquerable mind, and freedom's holy flame.
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In buskined measures move Pale Grief and pleasing Pain, With Horror, tyrant of the throbbing breast.
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And truth severe, by fairy fiction drest.
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To contemplation's sober eye, Such is the race of man And they that creep, and they that fly, Shall end where they began, Alike the busy and the gay, But flutter through life's little day.
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One principal characteristic of vice in the present age is the contempt of fame.
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Some bold adventurers disdain The limits of their little reign, And unknown regions date descry.
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Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows, While proudly rising o'er the azure realm In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes, Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm.
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Hands that the rod of empire might have sway'd, Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre.
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The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Awaits alike th' inevitable hour. The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
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Thought would destroy their paradise.
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Sweet is the breath of vernal shower,/ The bee's collected treasure sweet,/ Sweet music's melting fall, but sweeter yet/ The still small voice of gratitude.
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Ah, happy hills! ah, pleasing shade! Ah, fields beloved in vain! Where once my careless childhood stray'd, A stranger yet to pain! I feel the gales that from ye blow A momentary bliss bestow.
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The different steps and degrees of education may be compared to the artificer's operations upon marble it is one thing to dig it out of the quarry, and another to square it, to give it gloss and lustre, call forth every beautiful spot and vein, shape it into a column, or animate it into a statue.
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Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray Along the cool sequester'd vale of life They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.
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