Every quotation a nineteenth-century speaker or writer might want, grouped under its subject, with the author, the date and the source given as exactly as Hoyt could manage.
A great mind is a good sailor, as a great heart is.— filed under Action
England. Chap. II. The manly part is to do with might and main what you can do.— filed under Action
We do not count a man's years, until he has nothing else to count.— filed under Affliction
The silence that accepts merit as the most natural thing in the world, is the highest applause.— filed under Applause
The conscious utterance of thought, by speech or action, to any end, is art.— filed under Art
The hand that rounded Peter's dome, And groined the aisles of Christian Rome, Wrought in a sad sincerity; Himself from God he could not free; He builded better than he knew ;- The conscious stone to beauty grew.— filed under Art
If eyes were made for seeing, Then beauty is its own excuse for being.— filed under Beauty
The beautiful rests on the foundations of the necessary.— filed under Beauty
Who gave thee, O Beauty, The keys of this breast, - Too credulous lover Of blest and unblest? Say, when in lapsed ages Thee knew I of old? Or what was the service For which I was sold?— filed under Beauty
Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; unbelief, in denying them.— filed under Belief
Books are the best things, well used: abused, among the worst.— filed under Books
In every man's memory, with the hours when life culminated are usually associated certain books which met his views.— filed under Books
Quotation and Originality. There are many virtues in books, but the essential value is the adding of knowledge to our stock by the record of new facts, and, better, by the record of intuitions which distribute facts, and are the formulas which supersede all histories.— filed under Books
Persian Poetry. We prize books, and they prize them most who are themselves wise.— filed under Books
Character is higher than intellect. *** A great soul will be strong to live, as well as to think.— filed under Character
No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character.— filed under Character
God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose.— filed under Choice
The eye is the first circle; the horizon which it forms is the second; and throughout nature this primary figure is repeated without end. It is the highest emblem in the cipher of the world.— filed under Circles
Boston. The sea returning day by day Restores the world-wide mart. So let each dweller on the Bay Fold Boston in his heart Till these echoes be choked with snows Or over the town blue ocean flows.— filed under Cities-Delft
Div. 18. Yonge's trans. Right is more beautiful than private affection; and love is compatible with universal wisdom.— filed under Vii
For what are they all in their high conceit, When man in the bush with God may meet?— filed under Conceit
Self-trust is the essence of heroism.— filed under Boiste
The hearing ear is always found close to the speaking tongue; and no genius can long or often utter anything which is not invited and gladly entertained by men around him.— filed under Boiste
Tush! tush! my lassie, such thoughts resigne, Comparisons are cruele : Fine pictures suit in frames as fine, Consistencie's a jewell. For thee and me coarse cloathes are best, Rude folks in homelye raiment drest, Wife Joan and goodman Robin. Jolly Robyn-Roughhead. Author unknown. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.— filed under Consistency
With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. * * * Speak what you think to-day in words as hard as cannon balls, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict everything you said to-day.— filed under Consistency
Conversation is a game of circles.— filed under Conversation
Conversation is the laboratory and work shop of the student.— filed under Conversation
The charm of the best courages is that they are inventions, inspirations, flashes of genius.— filed under Courage
Life is not so short but that there is always time enough for courtesy.— filed under Courtesy
Good-bye, proud world! I'm going home: Thou art not my friend, and I'm not thine.— filed under Death
Wilt thou seal up the avenues of ill? Pay every debt as if God wrote the bill!— filed under Debt
Speech is better than silence; silence is better than speech.— filed under Demosthenes
He only is a well-made man who has a good determination.— filed under Decision
Go put your creed into your deed, Nor speak with double tongue.— filed under Deeds
,-will make Art and power will go on as they have day out of night, time out of space, and done space out of time.— filed under Destiny
Go put your creed into your deed Nor speak with double tongue.— filed under Doctrine
So nigh is grandeur to our dust, So near is God to man. When Duty whispers low, Thou must, The youth replies, I can.— filed under Duty
Echo waits with art and care And will the faults of song repair.— filed under Echo
Cupid is a casuist, a mystic, and a cabalist,- Can your lurking thought surprise, And interpret your device, * * * * * * All things wait for and divine him,- How shall I dare to malign him?— filed under Bias
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.— filed under Envy
Only so much do I know, as I have lived.— filed under Experience
An eye can threaten like a loaded and levelled gun, or can insult like hissing or kicking; or, in its altered mood, by beams of kindness, it can make the heart dance with joy.— filed under Eyes
Eyes are bold as lions,-roving, running, leaping, here and there, far and near. They speak all languages. They wait for no introduction; they are no Englishmen; ask no leave of age or rank; they respect neither poverty nor riches, neither learning nor power, nor virtue, nor sex, but intrude, and come again, and go through and through you in a moment of time. What inundation of life and thought is discharged from one soul into another through them!— filed under Eyes
Here once the embattl'd farmers stood And fired the shot heard round the world.— filed under Fame
Fear always springs from ignorance.— filed under Fear
Aster. Aster. Chide me not, laborious band! For the idle flowers I brought; Every aster in my hand Goes home loaded with a thought.— filed under Flowers-Azalea
Rhodora. Rhodora. In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes, I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods, Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook, To please the desert and the sluggish brook. The purple petals, fallen in the pool, Made the black water with their beauty gay; Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool, And court the flower that cheapens his array. Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why This charm is wasted on the earth and sky, Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing, Then Beauty is its own excuse for being: Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose! I never thought to ask, I never knew; But, in my simple ignorance, suppose The self-same power that brought me there brought you.— filed under Flowers-Primrose
His heart was as great as the world, but there was no room in it to hold the memory of a wrong.— filed under Fortune
My angel,-his name is Freedom, - Choose him to be your king; He shall cut pathways east and west. And fend you with his wing.— filed under Freedom
We grant no dukedoms to the few, We hold like rights and shall; Equal on Sunday in the pew, On Monday in the mall. For what avail the plough or sail, Or land, or life, if freedom fail?— filed under Freedom
A day for toil, an hour for sport, But for a friend is life too short.— filed under Friends
Our friends early appear to us as represenof certain ideas, which they never pass or tatives of certain ideas, which they never pass exceed. They stand on the brink of the ocean of thought and power, but they never take a single step that would bring them there.— filed under Friends
The only way to have a friend is to be one.— filed under Friends
Friendship should be surrounded with ceremonies and respects, and not crushed into corners. Friendship requires more time than poor, busy men can usually command.— filed under Friendship
I hate the prostitution of the name of friendship to signify modish and worldly alliances.— filed under Friendship
The condition which high friendship demands is ability to do without it.— filed under Friendship
The highest compact we can make with our fellow is,-Let there be truth between us two forevermore. *** It is sublime to feel and say of another, I need never meet, or speak, or write to him; we need not reinforce ourselves or send tokens of remembrance; I rely on him as on myself; if he did thus or thus, I know it was right.— filed under Friendship
There can never be deep peace between two spirits, never mutual respect, until, in their dialogue, each stands for the whole world.— filed under Friendship
Essay V. My garden is a forest ledge Which older forests bound; The banks slope down to the blue lake-edge, Then plunge to depths profound!— filed under Garden
The gift, to be true, must be the flowing of the giver unto me, correspondent to my flowing unto him.— filed under Gifts
God enters by a private door into every individual.— filed under God
When the Master of the universe has points to carry in his government he impresses his will in the structure of minds.— filed under God
He is great who is what he is from Nature, and who never reminds us of others.— filed under Greatness
Uses of Great Men. Nature never sends a great man into the planet, without confiding the secret to another soul.— filed under Greatness
De Minimis Maxima. He builded better than he knew ;- The conscious stone to beauty grew.— filed under Growth
Each man is a hero and an oracle to somebody, and to that person whatever he says has an enhanced value.— filed under Heroes
Quotation and Originality. The hero is not fed on sweets, Daily his own heart he eats; Chambers of the great are jails, And head-winds right for royal sails.— filed under Heroes
Extremes meet, and there is no better example than the haughtiness of humility.— filed under Humility
Invisible. Nor knowest thou what argument Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent, All are needed by each one; Nothing is fair or good alone. S.— filed under Influence
The alleged power to charm down insanity, or ferocity in beasts, is a power behind the eye.— filed under Insanity
(Ed. 1891). Burly, dozing humblebee, Where thou art is clime for me. Let them sail for Porto Rique, Far-off heats through seas to seek. I will follow thee alone, Thou animated torrid-zone!— filed under Insects-Bee
Seeing only what is fair, Sipping only what is sweet, * * * * * * Leave the chaff, and take the wheat.— filed under Insects-Bee
Longfellow's trans. The growth of the intellect is spontaneous in every expansion. The mind that grows could not predict the times, the means, the mode of that spontaneity. God enters by a private door into every individual.— filed under Intellect
'Tis good-will makes intelligence.— filed under Intellect
Works of the intellect are great only by comparison with each other.— filed under Intellect
Only an inventor knows how to borrow, and every man is or should be an inventor.— filed under Invention
Whoever fights, whoever falls, Justice conquers evermore.— filed under Justice
Chap. V. Knowledge is the antidote to fear, - Knowledge, Use and Reason, with its higher aids.— filed under Knowledge
Courage. Our knowledge is the amassed thought and experience of innumerable minds.— filed under Knowledge
Quotation and Originality. There is no knowledge that is not power.— filed under Knowledge
Language is a city to the building of which every human being brought a stone. и.— filed under Language
Quotation and Originality. Language is fossil poetry.— filed under Language
Sooner or later that which is now life shall be poetry, and every fair and manly trait shall add a richer strain to the song.— filed under Life
Poetry and Imagination. When life is true to the poles of nature, the streams of truth will roll through us in song.— filed under Life
Light is the first of painters. There is no object so foul that intense light will not make it beautiful.— filed under Light
A ruddy drop of manly blood The surging sea outweighs; The world uncertain comes and goes, The lover rooted stays.— filed under Love
Epigraph to Friendship. Love, which is the essence of God, is not for levity, but for the total worth of man.— filed under Love
The solid, solid universe Is pervious to Love; With bandaged eyes he never errs, Around, below, above. His blinding light He flingeth white On God's and Satan's brood, And reconciles By mystic wiles The evil and the good.— filed under Love
Venus, when her son was lost, Cried him up and down the coast, In hamlets, palaces, and parks, And told the truant by his marks, - Golden curls, and quiver, and bow.— filed under Love
X. A man is the whole encyclopedia of facts. The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn, and Egypt, Greece, Rome, Gaul, Britain, America, lie folded already in the first man.— filed under Bright Of Disraeli
Fine manners need the support of fine manners in others.— filed under Martyrdom
Behavior. Good manners are made up of petty sacrifices.— filed under Martyrdom
Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the beginning of the world, that such as are in the institution wish to get out, and such as are out wish to get in.— filed under Matrimony
Raikes, May 25, 1835. Each mind has its own method.— filed under Mind
Winds are Still. The April winds are magical, And thrill our tuneful frames; The garden-walks are passional To bachelors and dames.— filed under Months-April
A good intention clothes itself with sudden power.— filed under Motive
The silent organ loudest chants The master's requiem.— filed under Music
By fate, not option, frugal Nature gave One scent to hyson and to wall-flower, One sound to pine-groves and to water-falls, One aspect to the desert and the lake. It was her stern necessity: all things Are of one pattern made; bird, beast, and flower, Song, picture, form, space, thought, and character Deceive us, seeming to be many things, And are but one.— filed under Nature
Nature is a mutable cloud which is always and never the same.— filed under Nature
The first farmer was the first man, and all historic nobility rests on possession and use of land.— filed under Occupations-Acting
Earth proudly wears the Parthenon As the best gem upon her zone.— filed under Occupations-Alchemy
The Gothic cathedral is a blossoming in stone subdued by the insatiable demand of harmony in man. The mountain of granite blooms into an eternal flower, with the lightness and delicate finish, as well as the ærial proportions and perspective of vegetable beauty.— filed under Occupations-Alchemy
The hand that rounded Peter's dome And groined the aisles of Christian Rome, Wrought in a sad sincerity: Himself from God he could not free; He builded better than he knew; The conscious stone to beauty grew.— filed under Occupations-Alchemy
Borgia. All writing comes by the grace of God, and all doing and having.— filed under Occupations-Alchemy
For no man can write anything who does not think that what he writes is, for the time, the history of the world.— filed under Occupations-Alchemy
The writer, like a priest, must be exempted from secular labor. His work needs a frolic health; he must be at the top of his condition.— filed under Occupations-Alchemy
Every day brings a ship, Every ship brings a word; Well for those who have no fear, Looking seaward well assured That the word the vessel brings Is the word they wish to hear.— filed under Occupations-Painting
Alas for the unhappy man that is called to stand in the pulpit, and not give the bread of life.— filed under Occupations-Preaching
In sculpture did ever anybody call the Apollo a fancy piece? Or say of the Laocoön how it might be made different? A masterpiece of art has in the mind a fixed place in the chain of being, as much as a plant or a crystal.— filed under Occupations-Shoemaking
The shoemaker makes a good shoe because he makes nothing else.— filed under Occupations-Shoemaking
There is no teaching until the pupil is brought into the same state or principle in which you are; a transfusion takes place; he is you, and you are he; there is a teaching; and by no unfriendly chance or bad company can he ever quite lose the benefit.— filed under Occupations-Tailoring
Behold the Sea, The opaline, the plentiful and strong, Yet beautiful as is the rose in June, Fresh as the trickling rainbow of July; Sea full of food, the nourisher of kinds, Purger of earth, and medicine of men; Creating a sweet climate by my breath, Washing out harms and griefs from memory, And, in my mathematic ebb and flow, Giving a hint of that which changes not.— filed under Ocean
Rufus Choate. There is no true orator who is not a hero.— filed under Oratory
For the world was built in order And the atoms march in tune; Rhyme the pipe, and Time the warder, The sun obeys them, and the moon.— filed under Order
Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.— filed under Peace
Literature. Professors of Plagiarism and Obscurity. It has come to be practically a sort of rule in literature, that a man, having once shown himself capable of original writing, is entitled thenceforth to steal from the writings of others at discretion.— filed under Plagiarism
For it is not metres, but a metre-making argument that makes a poem.— filed under Poetry
It does not need that a poem should be long. Every word was once a poem.— filed under Poetry
The finest poetry was first experience. S. EMERSON Shakespeare. The true poem is the poet's mind.— filed under Poetry
C. Poets should be law-givers; that is, the boldest lyric inspiration should not chide and insult, but should announce and lead the civil code, and the day's work.— filed under Poets
A Poet's Prayer. Though I am weak, yet God, when prayed, Cannot withhold his conquering aid.— filed under Prayer
Subsec. I. Where McGregor sits, there is the head of the table. cc.— filed under Alexander Severus
A great man quotes bravely, and will not draw on his invention when his memory serves him with a word as good.— filed under Quotation
Quotation and Originality. By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we quote. We quote not only books and proverbs, but arts, sciences, religion, customs, and laws; nay, we quote temples and houses, tables and chairs by imitation.— filed under Quotation
Quotation and Originality. Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it.— filed under Quotation
Quotation and Originality. We are as much informed of a writer's genius by what he selects as by what he originates.— filed under Quotation
If we encountered a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he read.— filed under Reading
Quotation and Originality. I like to be beholden to the great metropolitan English speech, the sea which receives tributaries from every region under heaven. I should as soon think of swimming across the Charles river when I wish to go to Boston, as of reading all my books in originals, when I have them rendered for me in my mother tongue.— filed under Reading
Our high respect for a well-read man is praise enough of literature.— filed under Reading
I do not find that the age or country makes the least difference; no, nor the language the actors spoke, nor the religion which they professed, whether Arab in the desert or Frenchman in the Academy, I see that sensible men and conscientious men all over the world were of one religion.— filed under Religion
Out from the heart of nature rolled The burdens of the Bible old.— filed under Scripture
The word unto the prophet spoken Was writ on tablets yet unbroken; The word by seers or sibyls told, In groves of oak or fanes of gold, Still floats upon the morning wind, Still whispers to the willing mind.— filed under Scripture
540 SEASONS (THE)-SPRING. Daughter of heaven and earth, coy Spring, With sudden passion languishing, Teaching barren moors to smile, Painting pictures mile on mile, Holds a cup of cowslip wreaths Whence a smokeless incense breathes.— filed under Sculpture
When I have attempted to join myself to others by services, it proved an intellectual trick,-no more. They eat your service like apples, and leave you out. But love them, and they feel you, and delight in you all the time.— filed under Service
Nor sequent centuries could hit Orbit and sum of Shakespeare's wit.— filed under Shakespeare
The passages of Shakespeare that we most prize were never quoted until within this century.— filed under Shakespeare
Quotation and Originality. What point of morals, of manners, of economy, of philosophy, of religion, of taste, of the conduct of life, has he not settled? What mystery has he not signified his knowledge of? What office, or function, or district of man's work, has he not remembered? What king has he not taught state, as Talma taught Napoleon? What maiden has not found him finer than her delicacy? What lover has he not outloved? What sage has he not outseen? What gentleman has he not instructed in the rudeness of his behavior?— filed under Shakespeare
Shakespeare. When Shakespeare is charged with debts to his authors, Landor replies, "Yet he was more original than his originals. He breathed upon dead bodies and brought them into life."— filed under Shakespeare
The true ship is the ship builder.— filed under Ships
Nothing is more simple than greatness; indeed, to be simple is to be great.— filed under Simplicity
Olympian bards who sung Divine ideas below, Which always find us young And always keep us so.— filed under Singers
Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields, Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven, And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end. The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed In a tumultuous privacy of storm.— filed under Snow
Come, see the north-wind's masonry. Out of an unseen quarry evermore Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer Curves his white bastions with projected roof Round every windward stake, or tree, or door. Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work So fanciful, so savage, naught cares he For number or proportion.— filed under Snow
The one thing in the world, of value, is the active soul.— filed under Sorrow
The studious class are their own victims; they are thin and pale, their feet are cold, their heads are hot, the night is without sleep, the day a fear of interruption, -pallor, squalor, hunger, and egotism. If you come near them and see what conceits they entertain-they are abstractionists, and spend their days and nights in dreaming some dream; in expecting the homage of society to some precious scheme built on a truth, but destitute of proportion in its presentment, of justness in its application, and of all energy of will in the schemer to embody and vitalize it.— filed under Students
Born for success, he seemed With grace to win, with heart to hold, With shining gifts that took all eyes.— filed under Success
One thing is forever good; That one thing is Success.— filed under Success
The secrets of life are not shown except to sympathy and likeness.— filed under Sympathy
Every thought which genius and piety throw into the world, alters the world.— filed under Thought
Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force, that thoughts rule the world.— filed under Thought
Progress of Culture. Not from a vain or shallow thought His awful Jove young Phidias brought.— filed under Thought
The revelation of thought takes men out of servitude into freedom.— filed under Thought
Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. No man has learned anything rightly, until he knows that every day is Doomsday.— filed under Time
TREES AND PLANTS-PINE. 617 As sunbeams stream through liberal space And nothing jostle or displace, So waved the pine-tree through my thought And fanned the dreams it never brought.— filed under Trees And Plants-Palm
Confidence in Heaven. Trust men, and they will be true to you; treat them greatly, and they will show themselves great.— filed under Trust
The nobler the truth or sentiment, the less imports the question of authorship.— filed under Truth
Quotation and Originality. Though love repine and reason chafe, There came a voice without reply, "Tis man's perdition to be safe, When for the truth he ought to die."— filed under Truth
There is always safety in valor.— filed under Valor
Valor consists in the power of self-recovery.— filed under Valor
The only reward of virtue is virtue.— filed under Virtue
The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.— filed under Virtue
By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April's breeze unfurl'd; Here once the embattl'd farmers stood, And fired the shot heard round the world.— filed under War
Opinions of Eminent Philosophers. Diogenes. VI. Yonge's trans. Bring me wine, but wine which never grew In the belly of the grape, Or grew on vine whose tap-roots, reaching through Under the Andes to the Cape, Suffered no savor of the earth to escape.— filed under Wine And Spirits
Too busy with the crowded hour to fear to live or die.— filed under Work
And what greater calamity can fall upon a nation than the loss of worship.— filed under Worship
Olympian bards who sung Divine ideas below, Which always find us young, And always keep us so.— filed under Wrongs