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Art thou a pen, whose task shall be
To drown in ink
What writers think?
Oh, wisely write,
That pages white
Be not the worse for ink and thee.
Author: Ethel Lynn Beers (Ethelinda Eliot)
Source: The Gold Nugget
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Whose noble praise
Deserves a quill pluckt from an angel's wing.
Author: Dorothy Berry
Source: Sonnet, prefixed to Diana Primrose's "Chair of Pearls"
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Beneath the rule of men entirely great
The pen is mightier than the sword.
Author: Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron Lytton
Source: Richelieu (act II, sc. 2)
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From this it appears how much more cruel the pen may be than the
sword.
[Lat., Hinc quam sit calamus saevior euse, patet.]
Author: Robert Burton
Source: Anatomy of Melancholy (pt. I, sec. XXI, mem. 4, subsec. 4)
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Oh! nature's noblest gift--my gray-goose quill!
Slave of my thoughts, obedient to my will,
Torn from thy parent-bird to form a pen,
That might instrument of little men!
Author: Lord Byron (George Gordon Noel Byron)
Source: English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (l. 7)
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The pen wherewith thou dost so heavenly sing
Made of a quill from an angel's wing.
Author: Henry Constable
Source: Sonnet, found in Notes to Todd's "Milton", vol. V, p. 454 (ed. 1826)
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For what made that in glory shine so long
But poets' Pens, pluckt from Archangels' wings?
Author: Sir John Davies
Source: Bien Venu
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The pen is mightier than the sword.
Author: Benjamin Franklin
Source: Oration
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Goose [pen] bee [wax] and calf [parchment] govern the world.
[Lat., Anser, apie, vitellus, populus et regna gubernant.]
Author: Benjamin Franklin
Source: Oration
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The pen became a clarion.
Author: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Source: Monte Cassino (st. 13)
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The swifter hand doth the swift words outrun:
Before the tongue hath spoke the hand hath done.
Author: Marcus Valerius Martial
Source: Epigrams (bk. XIV, ep. 208), (translation by Wright), on a shorthand writer
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The sacred Dove a quill did lend
From her high-soaring wing.
Author: Sir Francis Nethersole
Source: prefixed to Giles Fletcher's "Christ's Victorie"
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Men of quality are in the wrong to undervalue, as they often do,
the practise of a fair and quick hand in writing; for it is no
immaterial accomplishment.
[Lat., Non sest aliena res, quae fere ab honestis negligi solet,
cura bene ac velociter scribendi.]
Author: Quintilian (Marcus Fabius Quintilian)
Source: De Institutione Oratoria (I, 5)
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If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest
of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.
[Fr., Qu'on me donne six lignes ecrites de la main du plus
honnete homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.]
Author: Quintilian (Marcus Fabius Quintilian)
Source: De Institutione Oratoria (I, 5)
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So far had the pen, under the king, the superiority over the
sword.
[Fr., Tant la plume a eu sous le roi d'avantage sur l'epee.]
Author: Louis de Rouvroy duc de St. Simon
Source: Memories (vol. III, p. 517 (1702) (ed. 1856))
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Let there be gall enough in thy ink, though thou write with a
goose-pen, no matter.
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: Twelfth Night, or, What You Will (Toby at III, ii)
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You write with ease, to show your breeding,
But easy writing's curst hard reading.
Author: Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Source: Clio's Protest, see Moore's "Life of Sheridan", vol. I, p. 55
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The feather, whence the pen
Was shaped that traced the lives of these good men,
Dropped from an Angel's wing.
Author: William Wordsworth
Source: Ecclesiastical Sonnets (pt. III, V, Walton's Book of Lives)
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