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Thy liquid notes that close the eye of day
First heard before the shallow cuckoo's bill,
Portend success in love.
Topic: Nightingales
Source: Sonnet--To the Nightingale
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The palpable obscure.
Topic: Obscurity
Source: Paradise Lost (bk. II, l. 406)
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The oracles are dumb,
No voice or hideous hum
Runs thro' the arched roof in words deceiving.
Topic: Oracle
Source: Hymn on Christ's Nativity (l. 173)
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Thence to the famous orators repair,
Those ancient, whose resistless eloquence
Wielded at will that fierce democratie,
Shook the Arsenal, and fulmined over Greece,
To Macedon, and Artaxerxes' throne.
Topic: Oratory
Source: Paradise Regained (bk. IV, l. 267)
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Confusion heard his voice, and wild uproar
Stood ruled, stood vast infinitude confined;
Till at his second bidding darkness fled,
Light shone, and order from disorder sprung.
Topic: Order
Source: Paradise Lost (bk. III, l. 710)
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The pansy freaked with jet.
Topic: Pansies
Source: Lycidas (l. 144)
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A limbo large and broad, since call'd
The Paradise of Fools to few unknown.
Topic: Paradise
Source: Paradise Lost (bk. III, l. 495)
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So on he fares, and to the border comes,
Of Eden, where delicious Paradise,
Now nearer, crowns with her enclosure green,
As with a rural mound, the champain head
Of a steep wilderness.
Topic: Paradise
Source: Paradise Lost (bk. IV, l. 131)
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Take heed lest passion sway
Thy judgment to do aught, which else fee will
Would not admit.
Topic: Passion
Source: Paradise Lost (bk. VIII, l. 634)
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Or arm th' obdured breast
With stubborn patience as with triple steel.
Topic: Patience
Source: Paradise Lost (bk. II, l. 568)
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They also serve who only stand and wait.
Topic: Patience
Source: None
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Peace hath her victories No less renown'd than war.
Topic: Peace
Source: None
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Peace hath her victories, no less renowned than War.
Topic: Peace
Source: None
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So Satan, whom repulse upon repulse
Met ever, and to shameful silence brought,
Yet gives not o'er though desperate of success.
Topic: Perseverance
Source: Paradise Regained (bk. IV, l. 21)
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How charming is divine philosophy!
Not harsh, and crabbed, as full fools suppose,
But musical as is Apollo's lute,
And a perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets,
Where no crude surfeit reigns.
Topic: Philosophy
Source: Mask of Comus (l. 476)
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That stone, . . .
Philosophers in vain so long have sought.
Topic: Philosophy
Source: Paradise Lost (bk. III, l. 600)
|
For such kind of borrowing as this, if it be not bettered by the
borrower, among good authors is accounted plagiary.
Topic: Plagiarism
Source: Iconoclastes (XXIII)
|
Copy from one, it's plagiarism; copy from two, it's research.
Topic: Plagiarism
Source: Iconoclastes (XXIII)
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Who overcomesBy force, hath overcome but half his foe.
Topic: Politics / Government
Source: None
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None can love freedom but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license, which never hath more scope than under tyrants.
Topic: Politics / Government
Source: None
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Without his rod revers'd,
And backward mutters of dissevering power.
Topic: Power
Source: Comus (l. 816)
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Power ought to serve as a check to power.
Topic: Power
Source: Comus (l. 816)
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Join voices, all ye living souls: ye birds,
That singing up to heaven-gate ascend,
Bear on your wings and in your notes his praise.
Topic: Praise
Source: Paradise Lost (bk. V, l. 197)
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And touch'd their golden harps, and hymning praised
God and his works.
Topic: Praise
Source: Paradise Lost (bk. VII, l. 258)
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Of whom to be disprais'd were no small praise.
Topic: Praise
Source: Paradise Regained (bk. III, l. 56)
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That in our proper motion we ascend
Up to our native seat; descent and fall
To give us is adverse.
Topic: Progress
Source: Paradise Lost (bk. II, l. 75)
|
No mighty trance, or breathed spell
Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell.
Topic: Prophecy (Prophesy)
Source: Hymn on Christ's Nativity (l. 173)
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Till old experience do attain
To something like prophetic strain.
Topic: Prophecy (Prophesy)
Source: Il Penseroso (l. 173)
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Surer to prosper than prosperity could have assur'd us.
Topic: Prosperity
Source: Paraise Lost (bk. II, l. 39)
|
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise,
(That last infirmity of noble mind)
To scorn delights, and live laborious days;
But the fair guerdon when we hope to find,
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
Comes the blind Fury with th' abhorred shears,
And slits the thin-spun life.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Lycidas (l. 70)
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Who overcomes
By force, hath overcome but half his foe.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Paradise Lost (bk. I, l. 648)
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A crown
Golden in show, is but a wreath of thorns,
Bring dangers, troubles, cares, and sleepless nights
To him who wears the regal diadem.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Paradise Regained (bk. II, l. 458)
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What boots it at one gate to make defence,
And at another to let in the foe?
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Samson Agonistes (l. 560)
|
He gives twice who gives quickly.
[Lat., Bis dat qui cito dat.]
- credited to Publius Syrus Mimus,
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Samson Agonistes (l. 560)
|
Eye me, blest Providence, and square my trial
To my proportion'd strength.
Topic: Providence
Source: Comus (l. 329)
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Truth...never comes into the world but like a Bastard, to the ignominy of him that brought her forth.
Topic: Psychological Subjects
Source: None
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But all was false and hollow; though his tongue
Dropt manna, and could make the worse appear
The better reason, to perplex and dash
Maturest counsels.
Topic: Reason
Source: Paradise Lost (bk. II, l. 112)
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Subdue
By force, who reason for their law refuse,
Right reason for their law.
Topic: Reason
Source: Paradise Lost (bk. VI, l. 40)
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Indu'd
With sanctity of reason.
Topic: Reason
Source: Paradise Lost (bk. VII, l. 507)
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Farewell, remorse: all good to me is lost;
Evil, be thou my good.
Topic: Remorse
Source: Paradise Lost (bk. IV, l. 108)
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When the scourge
Inexorable, and the torturing hour
Calls us to penance.
Topic: Repentance
Source: Paradise Lost (bk. II, l. 90)
|
Which, if not victory, is yet revenge.
Topic: Revenge
Source: Paradise Lost (bk. II, l. 105)
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Revenge, at first though sweet,
Bitter ere long back on itself recoils.
Topic: Revenge
Source: Paradise Lost (bk. IX, l. 171)
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His fair large front and eye sublime declared
Absolute rule; and hyacinthine locks
Round from his parted forelock manly hung
Clustering but not beneath his shoulders broad.
Topic: Royalty
Source: Paradise Lost (bk. IV, l. 300)
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For such a numerous host
Fled not in silence through the frighted deep
With ruin upon ruin, rout on rout,
Confusion worse confounded.
Topic: Ruin
Source: Paradise Lost (bk. II, l. 993)
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So sang they, and the empyrean rung
With Hallelujahs. Thus was Sabbath kept.
Topic: Sabbath
Source: Paradise Lost (bk. VII, l. 632)
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Servant of God, well done, well hast thou fought
The better fight.
Topic: Service
Source: Paradise Lost (bk. VI, l. 29)
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They also serve who only stand and wait.
Topic: Service
Source: Sonnet--On His Blindness
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Then purg'd with euphrasy and rue
The visual nerve, for he had much to see.
Topic: Sight
Source: Paradise Lost (bk. XI, l. 414)
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If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into
you.
Topic: Sight
Source: Paradise Lost (bk. XI, l. 414)
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