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We start from the Mother's Arms and we run to the Dustshovel.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: Task (bk. VI, l. 595)
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'Tis Providence alone secures
In every change both mine and yours.
Topic: Providence
Source: A Fable--Moral
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Behind a frowning Providence
He hides a smiling face.
Topic: Providence
Source: Light Shining Out of Darkness
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God made bees, and bees made honey,
God made man, and man made money,
Pride made the devil, and the devil made sin;
So God made a cole-pit to put the devil in.
- transcribed by James Henry Dixon,
Topic: Providence
Source: Light Shining Out of Darkness
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The mind, relaxing into needful sport,
Should turn to writers of an abler sort,
Whose wit well managed, and whose classic style,
Give truth a lustre, and make wisdom smile.
Topic: Reading
Source: Retirement (l. 715)
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But truths on which depends our main concern,
That 'tis our shame and misery not to learn,
Shine by the side of every path we tread
With such a lustre he that runs may read.
Topic: Reading
Source: Tirocinium (l. 77)
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All zeal for a reform, that gives offence
To peace and charity, is mere pretence.
Topic: Reform
Source: Charity (l. 533)
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A mind quite vacant is a mind distressed.
Topic: Rest
Source: None
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Absence from whom we love is worse than death, and frustrates hope severer than despair.
Topic: Romance
Source: None
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Now let us sing, long live the king.
Topic: Royalty
Source: History of John Gilpin
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I am monarch of all I survey,
My right there is none to dispute,
From the centre all round to the sea,
I am lord of the fowl and the brute.
Topic: Royalty
Source: Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk
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Unless a love of virtue light the flame,
Satire is, more than those he brands, to blame;
He hides behind a magisterial air
He own offences, and strips others' bare.
Topic: Satire
Source: Charity (l. 490)
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Assail'd by scandal and the tongue of strife,
His only answer was a blameless life;
And he that forged, and he that threw the dart,
Had each a brother's interest in his heart.
Topic: Scandal
Source: Hope (l. 570)
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A glory gilds the sacred page,
Majestic like the sun,
It gives a light to every age,
It gives, but borrows none.
Topic: Scripture
Source: Olney Hymns (no. 30)
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We are his,
To serve him nobly in the common cause,
True to the death, but not to be his slaves.
Topic: Service
Source: Task (bk. V, l. 340)
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Sin let loose speaks punishment at hand.
Topic: Sin
Source: Expostulation (l. 160)
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I would not have a slave to till my ground,
To carry me, to fan me while I sleep,
And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth
That sinews bought and sold have ever earn'd.
Topic: Slavery
Source: Task (bk. II, l. 29)
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Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs
Receive our air, that moment they are free;
They touch our country, and their shackles fall.
Topic: Slavery
Source: Task (bk. II, l. 40)
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The rout is Folly's circle, which she draws
With magic wand. So potent is the spell,
That none decoy'd into that fatal ring,
Unless by Heaven's peculiar grace, escape.
There we grow early gray, but never wise.
Topic: Society
Source: Task (bk. II, l. 627)
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He stands erect; his slouch becomes a walk;
He steps right onward, martial in his air,
His form and movement.
Topic: Soldiers
Source: Task (bk. IV, l. 638)
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I praise the Frenchman; his remark was shrewd,--
"How sweet, how passing sweet is solitude."
But grant me still a friend in my retreat,
Whom I may whisper--Solitude is sweet.
Topic: Solitude
Source: Retirement (l. 739), quotation is also attributed to Jean de la Bruyere and to Jean Louis Guez de Ba
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Oh, for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade,
Where rumour of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,
Might never reach me more!
Topic: Solitude
Source: Task (bk. II, l. 1)
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O solitude, where are the charms
That sages have seen in thy face?
Better dwell in the midst of alarms,
Than reign in this horrible place.
Topic: Solitude
Source: Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk
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The path of sorrow, and that path alone,
Leads to the lands where sorrow is unknown.
Topic: Sorrow
Source: To an Afflicted Protestant Lady
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Spring hangs her infant blossoms on the trees,
Rock'd in the cradle of the western breeze.
Topic: Spring
Source: Tirocinium (l. 43)
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A story, in which native humour reigns,
Is often useful, always entertains;
A graver fact, enlisted on your side,
May furnish illustration, well applied;
But sedentary weavers of long tales
Give me the fidgets, and my patience fails.
Topic: Story Telling
Source: Conversation (l. 203)
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Me therefore studious of laborious ease.
Topic: Study
Source: Task (bk. III, The Garden)
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Hast thou not learn'd what thou art often told,
A truth still sacred, and believed of old,
That no success attends on spears and swords
Unblest, and that the battle is the Lord's?
Topic: Success
Source: Expostulation (l. 350)
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There is in souls a sympathy with sounds.
Topic: Sympathy
Source: Task (bk. VI, l. 1)
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Words learn'd by rote a parrot may rehearse,
But talking is not always to converse,
Not more distinct from harmony divine
The constant creaking of a country sign.
Topic: Talk
Source: Conversation (l. 7)
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Now stir the fire, and close the shudders fast,
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,
And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups,
That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each,
So let us welcome peaceful evening in.
Topic: Tea
Source: Task (bk. IV, l. 36)
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Seek to delight, that they may mend mankind.
And, while they captivate, inform the mind.
Topic: Teaching
Source: Hope (l. 770)
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The sounding jargon of the schools.
Topic: Teaching
Source: Truth (l. 367)
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And the tear that is wiped with a little address,
May be follow'd perhaps by a smile.
Topic: Tears
Source: The Rose
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Call'd to the temple of impure delight
He that abstains, and he alone, does right.
If a wish wander that way, call it home;
He cannot long be safe whose wishes roam.
Topic: Temperance
Source: Progress of Error (l. 557)
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In indolent vacuity of thought.
Topic: Thought
Source: Task (bk. IV, The Winter Evening, l. 297)
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No tree in all the grove but has its charms,
Though each its hue peculiar.
Topic: Trees
Source: Task (bk. I, l. 307)
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Some boundless contiguity of shade.
Topic: Trees
Source: Task (bk. II)
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We bear our shades about us; self-deprived
Of other screen, the thin umbrella spread,
And range an Indian waste without a tree.
Topic: Umbrellas
Source: Task (bk. I, l. 259)
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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: Variety
Source: Task (bk. I, l. 506)
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Variety's the very spice of life,
That gives it all its flavour.
Topic: Variety
Source: Task (bk. II, l. 506)
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Variety's the very spice of life, that gives it all its flavor.
Topic: Variety
Source: None
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The only amarantine flower on earth
Is virtue.
Topic: Virtue
Source: Task (bk. III, l. 268)
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Ten thousand casks,
Forever dribbling out their base contents,
Touch'd by the Midas finger of the state,
Bleed gold for ministers to sport away.
Drink, and be mad then; 'tis your country bids!
Topic: Wine and Spirits
Source: Task (bk. IV, l. 504)
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O Winter! ruler of the inverted year,
. . . .
I crown thee king of intimate delights,
Fireside enjoyments, home-born happiness,
And all the comforts that the lowly roof
Of undisturb'd Retirement, and the hours
Of long uninterrupted evening, know.
Topic: Winter
Source: Task (bk. IV, l. 120)
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Wisdom and goodness are twin-born, one heart
Must hold both sisters, never seen apart.
Topic: Wisdom
Source: Expostulation (l. 634)
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His wit invites you by his looks to come,
But when you knock, it never is at home.
Topic: Wit
Source: Conversation (l. 303)
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Wit, now and then, struck smartly, shows a spark.
Topic: Wit
Source: Table Talk (l. 665)
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What is there in the vale of life
Half so delightful as a wife,
When friendship, love, and peace combine
To stamp the marriage-bond divine?
Topic: Wives
Source: Love Abused
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God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform; He plants his footsteps in the sea, And rides upon the storm.
Topic: Wonder
Source: None
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