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Possession: Quotations from Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations
When I behold what pleasure is pursuit, What life, what glorious eagerness it is, Then mark how full possession falls from this, How fairer seems the blossom than the fruit,- I am perplext, and often stricken mute, Wondering which attained the higher bliss, The winged insect, or the chrysalis It thrust aside with unreluctant foot.— T. B. ALDRICH — Sonnet. Pursuit and
Possession. I die, but first I have possess'd, And come what may, I have been bless'd.— BYRON — The Giaour. L. 1,114.
Providence has given to the French the empire of the land, to the English that of the sea, to the Germans that of the air!— CARLYLE — Essays. Richter.
Of a rich man who was mean and niggardly, he said, "That man does not possess his estate, but his estate possesses him."— DIOGENES LAERTIUS — Lives of Eminent
Philosophers. Bion. III. Property has its duties as well as its rights.— THOMAS DRUMMOND — Letter to the
Tipperary Magistrates. May 22, 1838. It may be said of them [the Hollanders], as of the Spaniards, that the sun never sets upon their Dominions.— THOS. GAGE — New Survey of the West
Indies. Epistle Dedicatory. (London, 1648.) The proud daughter of that monarch to whom when it grows dark [elsewhere] the sun never sets.— GUARINI — Pastor Fido (1590). On the
Marriage of the Duke of Savoy with Catherine of Austria. Aspiration sees only one side of every question; possession, many.— LOWELL — Among my Books. New
England Two Centuries Ago. Cleon hath ten thousand acres, - Ne'er a one have I; Cleon dwelleth in a palace, - In a cottage I.— CHARLES MACKAY — Cleon and I.
The sun never sets on the immense empire of Charles V.— SCOTT — Life of Napoleon. Ch. LIX.
That what we have we prize not to the worth Whiles we enjoy it, but being lack'd and lost, Why, then we rack the value, then we find The virtue that possession would not show us While it was ours. S.— Shakespeare — Much Ado About Nothing. Act IV. Sc. 1. L. 220.
I ne'er could any lustre see In eyes that would not look on me; I ne'er saw nectar on a lip But where my own did hope to sip.— R. B. SHERIDAN — Duenna. Air. Act I. Sc. 2.
Why should the brave Spanish soldiers brag, The sunne never sets in the Spanish dominions, but ever shineth on one part or other we have conquered for our king.— CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH — Advertisements
for the Unexperienced, etc. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll. Third Series. Vol. III. P. 49. People may have too much of a good thing: Full as an egg of wisdom thus I sing. C. JOHN WOLCOTT (Peter Pindar)- Subjects for Painters. The Gentleman and his Wife. Lord of himselfe, though not of lands, And having nothing, yet hath all.— SIR HENRY WOTTON — The Character of a Happy Life. St. 6,
Non tibi illud apparere si sumas potest. If you spend a thing you can not have it.— PLAUTUS — Trinummus. II. 4. 12.
Nihil enim æque gratum est adeptis, quam concupiscentibus. An object in possession seldom retains the same charms which it had when it was longed for. PLINY the Younger-Epistolæ. II.
Zu oft ist kurze Lust die Quelle langer Schmerzen! Too oft is transient leasure the source of long woes.— WIELAND — Oberon. II. 52.
Quand on n'a pas ce que l'on aime, Il faut aimer ce que l'on a. When we have not what we love, we must love what we have.— BUSSY-RABUTIN — Lettre à Mme. de
Sevigne, 1667. Un tiens vaut, ce dit-on, mieux que deux tu l'auras. L'un est sûr, l'autre ne l'est pas. It is said, that the thing you possess is worth more than two you may have in the future. The one is sure and the other is not. (A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.)— LA FONTAINE — Fables. V. 3.,
Denn was man schwarz auf weiss besitzt Kann man getrost nach Hause tragen. For what one has in black and white, One can carry home in comfort.— GOETHE — Faust. I. 4. 42.