The Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations

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.

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Disappointment: Quotations from Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations

The dignity of truth is lost With much protesting.— BEN JONSON — Catiline. Act III. Sc. 2.
*** With grave Aspect he rose, and in his rising seem'd A pillar of state; deep on his front engraven Deliberation sat, and public care; And princely counsel in his face yet shone Majestic, though in ruin: sage he stood, With Atlantéan shoulders, fit to bear The weight of mightiest monarchies; his look Drew audience and attention still as night Or summer's noontide air.— MILTON — Paradise Lost. Bk. II. L. 300.
Virtue, I grant you, is an empty boast; But shall the dignity of vice be lost?— POPE — Epilogue to Satires. Dialogue I.
We have exchanged the Washingtonian dignity for the Jeffersonian simplicity, which was in truth only another name for the Jeffersonian vulgarity.— BISHOP HENRY C. POTTER — Address at
the Washington Centennial Service. New York, April 30, 1889. But clay and clay differs in dignity, Whose dust is both alike. S.— Shakespeare — Cymbeline. Act IV. Sc. 2. L. 6.
Let none presume To wear an undeserved dignity.— Shakespeare — Merchant of Venice. Act II. Sc. 9. L. 39.
A thousand years a poor man watched Before the gate of Paradise: But while one little nap he snatched, It oped and shut. Ah! was he wise?— WM. R. ALGER — Oriental Poetry.
Swift Opportunity. The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men, Gang aft a-gley, And leave us nought but grief and pain, For promised joy.— BURNS — To a Mouse. St. 7.
Like to the apples on the Dead Sea's shore, All ashes to the taste.— BYRON — Childe Harold. III. 34.
Defend me, therefore, common sense, say I, From reveries so airy, from the toil Of dropping buckets into empty wells, And growing old in drawing nothing up.— COWPER — Task. Bk. III. L. 187.
As distant prospects please us, but when near We find but desert rocks and fleeting air. C.— SIR SAM'L GARTH — The Dispensary. Canto III. L. 27.
Lightly I sped when hope was high And youth beguiled the chase, - I follow, follow still: But I Shall never see her face.— FRED'K LOCKER — The Unrealized Ideal.
But O! as to embrace me she inclin'd, I wak'd, she fled, and day brought back my night.— MILTON — On His Deceased Wife.
Oh! ever thus, from childhood's hour, I've seen my fondest hopes decay; I never loved a tree or flower, But 'twas the first to fade away. I never nursed a dear gazelle, To glad me with its soft black eye, But when it came to know me well, And love me, it was sure to die!— MOORE — Lalla Rookh. The Fire Worshippers. L. 278.
Oh! that a dream so sweet, so long enjoy'd, Should be so sadly, cruelly destroy'd!— MOORE — Lalla Rookh. Veiled Prophet of Khorassan. St. 62.
All is but toys; renown and grace is dead; The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees Is left this vault to brag of.— Shakespeare — Macbeth. Act II. Sc. 3. L. 99.
Full little knowest thou that hast not tried, What hell it is in suing long to bide: To loose good dayes, that might be better spent; To waste long nights in pensive discontent; To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow; To feed on hope, to pine with feare and sorrow.— SPENSER — Mother Hubberd's Tale. L. 895.
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