Great Throughts Treasury

"Oh for a single hour of that Dundee who on that day the word of onset gave!"

"Oh, be wiser thou! Instructed that true knowledge leads to love."

"On a fair prospect some have looked, and felt, as i have heard them say, as if the moving time had been a thing as steadfast as the scene on which they gazed themselves away."

"One impulse from a vernal wood may teach you more of man, of moral evil and of good, than all the sages can."

"One in whom persuasion and belief had ripened into faith, and faith become a passionate intuition."

"Oh there is blessing in this gentle breeze, a visitant that while it fans my cheek doth seem half-conscious of the joy it brings from the green fields, and from yon azure sky. Whate'er its mission, the soft breeze can come to none more grateful than to me; escaped from the vast city, where I long had pined a discontented sojourner: now free, free as a bird to settle where I will."

"One solace yet remains for us who came into this world in days when story lacked severe research, that in our hearts we know how, for exciting youth's heroic flame, assent is power, belief the soul of fact."

"One great society alone on earth: the noble living and the noble dead."

"One Lesson, Shepherd, let us two divide, taught both by what she shews, and what conceals, never to blend our pleasure or our pride with sorrow of the meanest thing that feels."

"One of those heavenly days that cannot die."

"Once did She hold the gorgeous east in fee; and was the safeguard of the west: the worth of Venice did not fall below her birth, Venice, the eldest Child of Liberty."

"Our meddlesome intellect misshapen the beauteous form of things."

"Our meddling intellect misshapes the beauteous forms of things we murder to dissect."

"Our noisy years seem moments in the being of the eternal silence."

"Pan himself, The simple shepherd's awe-inspiring god!"

"Part of the loveliest of the good human life, are all acts that small, nameless, forgotten, of kindness and love"

"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting. Not in entire forgetfulness, and not in utter nakedness, but trailing clouds of glory do we come."

"Or shipwrecked, kindles on the coast false fires, that others may be lost."

"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The soul that rises with us, our life's star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar. Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory, do we come From God, who is our home: Heaven lies about us in our infancy."

"One with more of soul in his face than words on his tongue."

"One that would peep and botanize Upon his mother's grave."

"Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow for old, unhappy, far-off things, and battles long ago."

"Pictures deface walls more often than they decorate them."

"Plain living and high thinking are no more. The homely beauty of the good old cause is gone; our peace, our fearful innocence, And pure religion breathing household laws."

"Pleased rather with some soft ideal scene, the work of Fancy, or some happy tone of meditation, slipping in between the beauty coming and the beauty gone."

"Pleasures newly found are sweet when they lie about our feet."

"Poetry contains a natural delineation of human passions, human characters, and human incidents."

"Poetry is most just to its divine origin, when it administers the comforts and breathes the thoughts of religion."

"Poetry is the first and last of all knowledge ? it is as immortal as the heart of man."

"Poetry is the image of man and nature."

"Provoke the years to bring the inevitable yoke."

"Rapine, avarice, expense this is idolatry; and these we adore: plain living and high thinking are no more: the homely beauty of the good old cause is gone; our peace, our fearful innocence, and pure religion breathing household laws."

"Rapt into still communion that transcends the imperfect offices of prayer and praise."

"Recognizes ever and anon the breeze of Nature stirring in his soul."

"Rest and be thankful."

"Sad fancies do we then affect, In luxury of disrespect To our own prodigal excess Of too familiar happiness."

"Science appears but what in truth she is, not as our glory and our absolute boast, but as a succedaneum, and a prop to our infirmity."

"Scorn not the sonnet. Critic, you have frowned, Mindless of its just honours; with this key Shakespeare unlocked his heart."

"Sensations sweet, Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart."

"Shalt show us how divine a thing A woman may be made."

"She died, and left to me this heath, this calm and quiet scene, the memory of what has been, and never more will be."

"She dwelt among the untrodden ways beside the springs of Dove, a Maid whom there were none to praise and very few to love: a violet by a mossy stone half hidden from the eye! Fair as a star, when only one is shining in the sky. She lived unknown, and few could know when Lucy ceased to be; but she is in her grave, and, oh, the difference to me!"

"She gave me eyes, she gave me ears; and humble cares, and delicate fears; a heart, the fountain of sweet tears; and love and thought and joy."

"She hath smiles to earth unknown?smiles that with motion of their own do spread, and sink, and rise."

"She lived unknown, and few could know when lucy ceased to be; but she is in her grave, and, oh, the difference to me!"

"She seemed a thing that could not feel the touch of earthly years."

"She Was A Phantom of Delight when first she gleam'd upon my sight; a lovely Apparition, sent to be a moment's ornament: her eyes as stars of twilight fair; like twilight's, too, her dusky hair; but all things else about her drawn from May-time and the cheerful dawn; a dancing shape, an image gay, to haunt, to startle, and waylay. I saw her upon nearer view, a Spirit, yet a Woman too! Her household motions light and free, and steps of virgin liberty; a countenance in which did meet sweet records, promises as sweet; a creature not too bright or good for human nature's daily food, for transient sorrows, simple wiles, praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles. And now I see with eye serene the very pulse of the machine; a being breathing thoughtful breath, a traveler between life and death: the reason firm, the temperate will, endurance, foresight, strength, and skill; a perfect Woman, nobly plann'd to warn, to comfort, and command; and yet a Spirit still, and bright with something of an angel light."

"Since every mortal power of Coleridge Was frozen at its marvellous source, the rapt one, of the godlike forehead, the heaven-eyed creature sleeps in earth: and lamb, the frolic and the gentle, has vanished from his lonely hearth."

"Small circles glittering idly in the moon, until they melted all into one track of sparkling light."

"Small service is true service while it lasts. Of humblest friends, bright creature! Scorn not one: the daisy, by the shadow that it casts, protects the lingering dewdrop from the sun."