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Observation: Quotations from Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations

Oh, wad some power the giftie gie us To see oursel's as ithers see us! It wad frae monie a blunder free us, And foolish notion.— BURNS — To a Louse.

Let Observation, with extensive view, Survey mankind from China to Peru.— SAM'L JOHNSON — The Vanity of Human

Wishes. And in his brain, Which is as dry as the remainder biscuit After a voyage, he hath strange places cramm'd With observation, the which he vents In mangled forms.— Shakespeare — As You Like It. Act II. Sc. 7. L. 38.

And sure the Eternal Master found The single talent well employ'd.— SAM'L JOHNSON — On the Death of Robert Levet. St. 7.

The hand of little employment hath the daintier sense.— Shakespeare — Hamlet. Act V. Sc. 1. L. 77.

Thus Nero went up and down Greece and challenged the fiddlers at their trade. Æropus, a Macedonian king, made lanterns; Harcatius, the king of Parthia, was a molecatcher; and Biantes, the Lydian, filed needles.— JEREMY TAYLOR — Holy Living. Ch. I. Sec. 1. Rules for Employing Our Time.

I think I love and reverence all arts equally, only putting my own just above the others; because in it I recognize the union and culmination of my own. To me it seems as if when God conceived the world, that was Poetry; He formed it, and that was Sculpture; He colored it, and that was Painting; He peopled it with living beings, and that was the grand, divine, eternal Drama.— CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN

See, how these rascals use me! They will not let my play run; and yet they steal my thunder.— JOHN DENNIS — See Biographia Britannica. Vol. V. P. 103.

Like hungry guests, a sitting audience looks: Plays are like suppers; poets are the cooks. The founder's you: the table is this place : The carvers we: the prologue is the grace. Each act, a course, each scene, a different dish, Though we're in Lent, I doubt you're still for flesh. Satire's the sauce, high-season'd, sharp and rough. Kind masks and beaux, I hope you're pepperproof? Wit is the wine; but 'tis so scarce the true Poets, like vintners, balderdash and brew. Your surly scenes, where rant and bloodshed join, Are butcher's meat, a battle's a sirloin : Your scenes of love, so flowing, soft and chaste, Are water-gruel without salt or taste.— GEORGE FARQUHAR — The Inconstant;

or, The Way to Win Him. Prologue. Prologues like compliments are loss of time; 'Tis penning bows and making legs in rhyme.— DAVID GARRICK — Prologue to Crisp's

Tragedy of Virginia. Prologues precede the piece in mournful verse, As undertakers walk before the hearse.— DAVID GARRICK — Apprentice.

Prologue. On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting, 'Twas only that when he was off, he was acting.— GOLDSMITH — Retaliation. L. 101.

Everybody has his own theatre, in which he is manager, actor, prompter, playwright, sceneshifter, boxkeeper, doorkeeper, all in one, and audience into the bargain. J. C. AND A. W. HARE-Guesses at Truth. The world's a theatre, the earth a stage, Which God and Nature do with actors fill.— THOMAS HEYWOOD — An Apology for

Actors. The Author to His Booke. It's very hard! Oh, Dick, my boy, It's very hard one can't enjoy A little private spouting; But sure as Lear or Hamlet lives, Up comes our master, Bounce! and gives The tragic Muse a routing.— HOOD — The Stage-Struck Hero.

And Tragedy should blush as much to stoop To the low mimic follies of a farce, As a grave matron would to dance with girls.— HORACE — Of the Art of Poetry. L. 272.

Wentworth Dillon's trans. The drama's laws, the drama's patrons give. For we that live to please, must please to live.— SAM'L JOHNSON — Prologue Spoken by

Mr. Garrick on Opening Drury Lane Theatre. 1747. L.