Quote

Can storied urn, or animated bust Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust, Or Flatt'ry soothe the dull cold ear of Death?

Thomas Gray

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Thomas Gray
Age: 54 †
Born: 1716
Born: December 26
Died: 1771
Died: July 30
Literary Critic
Poet
London
England
Back
Breaths
Provoke
Dust
Mansions
Ears
Provoking
Silent
Animated
Cold
Fleeting
Storied
Call
Honour
Soothe
Voice
Dull
Mansion
Death
Breath
Bust

More quotes by Thomas Gray

Image
Alas, regardless of their doom, the little victims play! No sense have they of ills to come nor care beyond today.
Thomas Gray
Image
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.
Thomas Gray
Image
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
Image
Ah, tell them they are men!
Thomas Gray
Image
One principal characteristic of vice in the present age is the contempt of fame.
Thomas Gray
Image
And truth severe, by fairy fiction drest.
Thomas Gray
Image
In buskined measures move Pale Grief and pleasing Pain, With Horror, tyrant of the throbbing breast.
Thomas Gray
Image
The Attic warbler pours her throat, Responsive to the cuckoo's note, The untaught harmony of spring.
Thomas Gray
Image
Where'er the oak's thick branches stretch A broader browner shade Where'er the rude and moss-grown beech O'er-canopies the glade, Beside some water's rushy brink With me the Muse shall sit, and think.
Thomas Gray
Image
Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile The short and simple annals of the poor.
Thomas Gray
Image
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.
Thomas Gray
Image
To each his suff'rings: all are men, / Condemn'd alike to groan, / The tender for another's pain / Th' unfeeling for his own.
Thomas Gray
Image
Now as the Paradisiacal pleasures of the Mahometans consist in playing upon the flute and lying with Houris, be mine to read eternal new romances of Marivaux and Crebillon.
Thomas Gray
Image
Scatter plenty o'er a smiling land.
Thomas Gray
Image
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.
Thomas Gray
Image
I shall be but a shrimp of an author.
Thomas Gray
Image
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.
Thomas Gray
Image
T'was Spring, t'was Summer, all was gay Now Autumn bears a cloud brow The flowers of Spring are swept way And Summer fruits desert the bough
Thomas Gray
Image
When love could teach a monarch to be wise, And gospel-light first dawn'd from Bullen's eyes.
Thomas Gray
Image
Ye towers of Julius, London's lasting shame, With many a foul and midnight murder fed.
Thomas Gray