Reflections; Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims

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Page 11 - Love ! no habitant of earth thou art — An unseen seraph, we believe in thee, A faith whose martyrs are the broken heart, But never yet hath seen, nor e'er shall see The naked eye, thy form, as it should be ; The mind hath made thee, as it peopled heaven, Even with its own desiring phantasy, And to a thought such shape and image given, As haunts the unquench'd soul — parch'd — wearied — wrung — and riven.
Page 64 - I believe them true: They argue no corrupted mind In him; the fault is in mankind. This maxim more than all the rest Is thought too base for human breast: ' In all distresses of our friends, We first consult our private ends; While nature, kindly bent to ease us, Points out some circumstance to please us.
Page 1 - Perhaps prosperity becalm'd his breast ; Perhaps the wind just shifted from the east : Not therefore humble he who seeks retreat ; Pride guides his steps, and bids him shun the great : Who combats bravely is not therefore brave ; He dreads a death-bed like the meanest slave . Who reasons wisely is not therefore wise ; His pride in reasoning, not in acting, lies.
Page 16 - Wholly unacquainted with the world in which they are so fond of meddling and inexperienced in all its affairs, on which they pronounce with so much confidence, they have nothing of politics but the passions they excite.
Page 10 - Sardanapalli. monstro quod ipse tibi possis dare; semita certe tranquillae per virtutem patet unica vitae. nullum numen habes, si sit prudentia: nos te, nos facimus, Fortuna, deam caeloque locamus.
Page 33 - ... twas a taught trick, to gain credit of the world for more sense and knowledge than a man was worth...
Page 48 - Let us consider you, then, as arrived at the summit of worldly greatness ; let us suppose that all your plans of avarice and ambition are accomplished, and your most sanguine wishes gratified in the fear as well as the hatred of the people. Can age itself forget that you are now in the last act of life ? Can grey hairs make folly venerable ? and is there no period to be reserved for meditation and retirement...
Page 19 - Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer, Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike ; Just hint a fault and hesitate dislike...
Page 32 - He saw a cottage with a double coach-house, A cottage of gentility; And the Devil did grin, for his darling sin Is pride that apes humility.
Page 66 - American idea; he is taught that "rank is but the guinea's stamp, a man's a man for a

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