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I was a stricken deer that left the herd
Long since.
Topic: Misfortune
Source: Task (bk. III, l. 108)
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Stamps God's own name upon a lie just made,
To turn a penny in the way of trade.
Topic: Money
Source: Table Talk (l. 421)
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I'm living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to
be living apart.
Topic: Money
Source: Table Talk (l. 421)
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The sinews of affairs are cut.
Topic: Money
Source: Table Talk (l. 421)
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A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon it's real money.
Topic: Money
Source: Table Talk (l. 421)
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Mountains interposed
Make enemies of nations, who had else
Like kindred drops been mingled into one.
Topic: Mountains
Source: Task (bk. II, l. 17)
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Some to the fascination of a name,
Surrender judgment hoodwinked.
Topic: Names
Source: Task (bk. VI, l. 101)
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Nature, exerting an unwearied power,
Forms, opens, and gives scent to every flower;
Spreads the fresh verdure of the field, and leads
The dancing Naiads through the dewy meads.
Topic: Nature
Source: Table Talk (l. 690)
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Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds,
Exhilarate the spirit, and restore
The tone of languid Nature.
Topic: Nature
Source: Task (bk. I, The Sofa, l. 181)
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Nature is a good name for an effect whose cause is God.
Topic: Nature
Source: None
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Nature is a good name for an effect whose cause is God.
Topic: Nature
Source: None
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The earth was made so various, that the mind of desultory man, studious of change, and pleased with novelty, might be indulged.
Topic: Novelty
Source: None
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'Twere better to be born a stone
Of ruder shape, and feeling none,
Than with a tenderness like mine
And sensibilities so fine!
Ah, hapless wretch! condemn'd to dwell
Forever in my native shell,
Ordained to move when others please,
Not for my own content or ease;
But toss'd and buffeted about,
Now in the water and now out.
Topic: Oysters
Source: The Poet, the Oyster and Sensitive Plant
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O for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade;
Where rumor of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,
Might never reach me more.
Topic: Peace
Source: Task (bk. II, l. 1)
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Though peace be made, yet it's interest that keep peace.
Topic: Peace
Source: Task (bk. II, l. 1)
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Absence of occupation is not rest; A mind quite vacant is a mind distressed.
Topic: Perspective
Source: None
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That, though on pleasure she was bent,
She had a frugal mind.
Topic: Pleasure
Source: History of John Gilpin (st. 8)
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Pleasure admitted in undue degree
Enslaves the will, nor leaves the judgment free.
Topic: Pleasure
Source: Progress of Error (l. 267)
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Made poetry a mere mechanic art.
Topic: Poetry
Source: Table Talk (l. 654)
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And spare the poet for his subject's sake.
Topic: Poets
Source: Charity (last line)
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Ages elapsed ere Homer's lamp appeared,
And ages ere the Mantuan Swan was heard;
To carry nature lengths unknown before,
To give a Milton birth, asked ages more.
Topic: Poets
Source: Table Talk
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There is a pleasure in poetic pains,
Which only poets know.
Topic: Poets
Source: Task (bk. II, l. 285)
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They best can judge a poet's worth,
Who oft themselves have known
The pangs of a poetic birth
By labours of their own.
Topic: Poets
Source: To Dr. Darwin (st. 2)
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Greece, sound, thy Homer's, Rome thy Virgil's name,
But England's Milton equals both in fame.
Topic: Poets
Source: To John Milton
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How much a dunce that has been sent to roam, excels a dunce that has been kept at home.
Topic: Politics / Government
Source: None
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He whistles as he goes, light-hearted wretch,
Cold and yet cheerful; messenger of grief
Perhaps to thousands, and of joy to some.
Topic: Post
Source: Winter Evening (bk. IV, l. 12), of the postman
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The beggarly last doit.
Topic: Poverty
Source: Task (bk. V, The Winter Morning Walk, l. 126)
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Praise enough
To fill the ambition of a private man,
That Chatham's language was his mother-tongue.
Topic: Praise
Source: Task (bk. II, l. 235)
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And Satan trembles when he sees
The weakest saint upon his knees.
Topic: Prayer
Source: Hymns--Exhortation to Prayer
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There goes the parson, oh illustrious spark!
And there, scarce less illustrious, goes the clerk.
Topic: Preaching
Source: On Observing Some Names of Little Note
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I venerate the man whose heart is warm,
Whose hands are pure, whose doctrine and whose life,
Coincident, exhibit lucid proof
That he is honest in the sacred cause.
Topic: Preaching
Source: Task (bk. II, l. 372)
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Would I describe a preacher,
. . . .
I would express him simple, grave, sincere;
In doctrine uncorrupt; in language plain,
And plain in manner; decent, solemn, chaste,
And natural in gesture; much impress'd
Himself, as conscious of his awful charge,
And anxious mainly that the flock he feeds
May feel it too; affectionate in look,
And tender in address, as well becomes
A messenger of grace to guilty men.
Topic: Preaching
Source: Task (bk. II, l. 394)
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He that negotiates between God and man,
As God's ambassador, the grand concerns
Of judgment and of mercy, should beware
Of lightness in his speech.
Topic: Preaching
Source: Task (bk. II, l. 463)
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The things that mount the rostrum with a skip,
And then skip down again, pronounce a text,
Cry hem; and reading what they never wrote
Just fifteen minutes, huddle up their work,
And with a well-bred whisper close the scene!
Topic: Preaching
Source: Task (bk. II, l. 463)
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A kick that scarce would move a horse,
May kill a sound divine.
Topic: Preaching
Source: Yearly Distress (st. 16)
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The priest he merry is, and blithe
Three-quarters of a year,
But oh! it cuts him like a scythe
When tithing time draws near.
Topic: Preaching
Source: Yearly Distress (st. 2)
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Transforms old print
To zigzag manuscript, and cheats the eyes
Of gallery critics by a thousand arts.
Topic: Printing
Source: Task (bk. II, The Timepiece, l. 363)
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Prison'd in a parlour snug and small,
Like bottled wasps upon a southern wall.
Topic: Prison
Source: Retirement (l. 493)
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It chills my blood to hear the blest Supreme Rudely appealed to on each trifling theme.
Topic: Profanity
Source: None
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Beware of desperate steps. The darkest day,
Live till to-morrow, will have pass'd away.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Needless Alarm (l. 132)
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The man that hails you Tom or Jack,
And proves by thumps upon your back
How he esteems your merit,
Is such a friend, that one had need
Be very much his friend indeed
To pardon or to bear it.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: On Friendship (169)
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How much a dunce that has been sent to roam
Excels a dunce that has been kept at home.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Progress of Error (l. 410)
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God made the country, and man made the town.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Task (bk. I, l. 749)
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Variety's the very spice of life,
That gives it all its flavour.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Task (bk. II, l. 506)
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Dress drains our cellar dry,
And keeps our larder lean; puts out our fires
And introduces hunger, frost, and woe,
Where peace and hospitality might reign.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Task (bk. II, l. 614)
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Mercy to him that shows it, is the rule.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Task (bk. VI, l. 595)
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In idle wishes fools supinely stay;
Be there a will,--and wisdom finds a way.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Task (bk. VI, l. 595)
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Like lips like lettuce (i.e. like has met its like).
(Lat., Similem habent labra lactucam.]
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Task (bk. VI, l. 595)
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The faults of our neighbours with freedom we blame,
But tax not ourselves, though we practise the same.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Task (bk. VI, l. 595)
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He assigned it to regions more than tropical.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Task (bk. VI, l. 595)
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