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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Mind: Quotations from Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations

I had rather believe all the fables in the Legends and the Talmud and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a mind.— BACON — Essays. Of Atheism.
That last infirmity of noble mind. The Tragedy of SIR JOHN VAN OLDEN BARNEVELT (1622). See also— MILTON — Lycidas. L. 71.
Measure your mind's height by the shade it casts. C.— ROBERT BROWNING — Paracelsus. II.
The march of the human mind is slow.— BURKE — Speech on the Conciliation of
America. Such as take lodgings in a head That's to be let unfurnished.— BUTLER — Hudibras. Pt. I. Canto I. L. 161.
My mind to me a kingdom is; Such perfect joy therein I find, That it excels all other bliss That God or Nature hath assign'd, Though much I want that most would have, Yet still my mind forbids to crave.— WM. BYRD — My Mind to Me a Kingdom
Is. See also SIR EDWARD DYER- My Mind to Me a Kingdom Is (T. H. WARD'S English Poets). The mind, the Music breathing from her face.— BYRON — Bride of Abydos. Canto I. St. 6.
'Tis strange the mind, that very fiery particle, Should let itself be snuff'd out by an article.— BYRON — Don Juan. Canto XI. St. 60.
When Bishop Berkeley said "there was no matter," And proved it, -'Twas no matter what he said.— BYRON — Don Juan. Canto XI. St. 1.
Constant attention wears the active mind, Blots out our pow'rs, and leaves a blank behind.— CHURCHILL — Epistle to Hogarth. L. 647.
How fleet is a glance of the mind! Compared with the speed of its flight, The tempest itself lags behind, And the swift-winged arrows of light.— COWPER — Verses supposed to be written
by ALEXANDER SELKIRK. As that the walls worn thin, permit the mind To look out through, and his Frailty find.— SAMUEL DANIEL — History of the Civil War. Bk. IV. St. 84.
Babylon in all its desolation is a sight not so awful as that of the human mind in ruins.— SCROPE DAVIES — Letter to Thomas
Raikes, May 25, 1835. Each mind has its own method.— EMERSON — Essays. Intellect.
A noble mind disdains to hide his head, And let his foes triumph in his overthrow.— ROBERT GREENE — Alphonso, King of Arragon. Act I.
The mind is like a sheet of white paper in this, that the impressions it receives the oftenest, and retains the longest, are black ones. J. C. and A. W. HARE-Guesses at Truth. A faultless body and a blameless mind.— HOMER — Odyssey. Bk. III. L. 138.
Pope's trans. And bear unmoy'd the wrongs of base mankind, The last, and hardest, conquest of the mind.— HOMER — Odyssey. Bk. XIII. L. 353.
Pope's trans. The glory of a firm capacious mind.— S. HOMEB — Odyssey. Bk. IV. L. 262.
Pope's trans. Whose little body lodged a mighty mind,— HOMER — Iliad. Bk. V. L. 999.
Pope's trans. The true, strong, and sound mind is the mind that can embrace equally great things and small.— SAM'L JOHNSON — Boswell's Life of
Johnson. 1778. What is mind? No matter. Whatis matter? Never mind. u. T. H. KEY (once Head Master of University School)-On the authority of F. J. Furnivall. Nobody, I believe, will deny, that we are to form our judgment of the true nature of the human mind, not from sloth and stupidity of the most degenerate and vilest of men, but from the sentiments and fervent desires of the best and wisest of the species.— ARCHBISHOP LEIGHTON — Theological Lectures. No. 5. Of the Immortality
of the Soul. Stern men with empires in their brains.— LOWELL — The Biglow Papers. Second Series. No. 2.
The conformation of his mind was such, that whatever was little seemed to him great, and whatever was great seemed to him little— MACAULAY — On Horace Walpole.
The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.— MILTON — Paradise Lost. Bk. I. L. 254.
Love, Hope, and Joy, fair pleasure's smiling train, Hate, Fear, and Grief, the family of pain, These mix'd with art, and to due bounds confin'd Make and maintain the balance of the mind.— POPE — Essay on Man. Ep. II. L. 117.
Strength of mind is exercise, not rest. C.— POPE — Essay on Man. Ep. II. L. 104.
Whose cockloft is unfurnished.— RABELAIS — The Author's Prologue to
the Fifth Book. For I do not distinguish them by the eve, but by the mind, which is the proper judge of the man.— SENECA — Of a Happy Life. Ch. I.
(L'Estrange's Abstract.) And when the mind is quicken'd, out of doubt, The organs, though defunct and dead before, Break up their drowsy grave and newly move With casted slough and fresh legerity.— Shakespeare — Henry V. Act IV. Sc. 1. L. 20.
For 'tis the mind that makes the body rich.— Shakespeare — Taming of the Shrew. Act IV. Sc. 3. L. 174.
O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown! The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword!— Shakespeare — Hamlet. Act III. Sc. 1. L. 158.
There's no art To find the mind's construction in the face.— Shakespeare — Macbeth. Act I. Sc. 4. L. 11.
'Tis but a base, ignoble mind That mounts no higher than a bird can soar.— Shakespeare — Henry VI. Pt. II. Act II. Sc. 1. L. 13.
Not body enough to cover his mind decently with; his intellect is improperly exposed.— SYDNEY SMITH — Lady Holland's Memoir. Vol. I. P. 258.
Man's mind a mirror is of heavenly sights, A brief wherein all marvels summèd lie, Of fairest forms and sweetest shapes the store, Most graceful all, yet thought may grace them more.— ROBT. SOUTHWELL — Look Home.
Were I so tall to reach the pole, Or grasp the ocean with my span, I must be measur'd by my soul : The mind's the standard of the man.— WATTS — False Greatness. Horæ Lyrica. Bk. II.
Frons est animi janua. The forehead is the gate of the mind.— CICERO — Oratio De Provinciis
Consularibus. XI. In animo perturbato, sicut in corpore, sanitas esse non potest. In a disturbed mind, as in a body in the same state, health can not exist.— CICERO — Tusculanarum Disputationum.
III. 4. Morbi perniciores pluresque animi quam corporis. The diseases of the mind are more and more destructive than those of the body.— CICERO — Tusculanarum Disputationum.
III. 3. Acclinis falsis animus meliora recusat. A mind that is charmed by false appearances refuses better things.— HORACE — Satiræ. II. 2. 6.
Quæ lædunt oculum festinas demere; si quid Est animum, differs curandi tempus in annum. If anything affects your eye, you hasten to have it removed; if anything affects your mind, you postpone the cure for a year.— HORACE — Epistolæ. I. 238.
Cum corpore ut una Crescere sentimus pariterque senescere mentem. We plainly perceive that the mind strengthens and decays with the body.— LUCRETIUS — De Rerum Natura. III.
446. Rationi nulla resistunt. Claustra nec immensæ moles, ceduntque recessus: Omnia succumbunt, ipsum est penetrabile cœlum. No barriers, no masses of matter, however enormous, can withstand the powers of the mind; the remotest corners yield to them; all things succumb, the very heaven itself is laid open.— MANILIUS — Astronomica. I. 541.
Corpore sed mens est ægro magis ægra; malique In circumspectu stat sine fine sui. The mind is sicker than the sick body; in contemplation of its sufferings it becomes hopeless.— OVID — Tristium. IV. 6. 43.
La gravité est un mystère du corps inventé pour cacher les défauts de l'esprit. Gravity is a mystery of the body invented to conceal the defects of the mind.— LA ROCHEFOUCAULD — Maximes. 257.
Un corps débile affoiblit l'âme. A feeble body weakens the mind.— ROUSSEAU — Émile. I.
Wer fertig ist, dem ist nichts recht zu machen, Ein Werdender wird immer dankbar sein. A mind, once formed, is never suited after, One yet in growth will ever grateful be.— GOETHE — Faust. Vorspiel auf dem Theater. L. 150
La pluma es lengua del alma. The pen is the tongue of the mind.— CERVANTES — Don Quixote. V. 16.
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