And with his arms outstretch'd, as he would fly, And farewell goes out sighing. O let not virtue seek For beauty, wit, High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service, To envious and calumniating Time. One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,— More laud than gilt o'erdusted. The present eye praises the present object : Then marvel not, thou great and complete man, Troilus and Cressida, Act III. ON A GIRDLE. THAT which her slender waist confined A narrow compass! and yet there SLANDER. WALLER. In all cases of slander currency, whenever the forger of the lie is not to be found, the injured parties should have a right to come on any of the indorsers. SHERIDAN. School for Scandal. THE worthiest people are the most injured by slander, as we usually find that to be the best fruit which the birds have been pecking at. No, 'tis slander; Whose edge is sharper than the sword; whose tongue All corners of the world: kings, queens, and states, FOR slander lives upon succession: * Cymbeline, Act III. For ever housed, where it once gets possession. FORTUNE. INDUSTRY is fortune's right hand, and frugality her left. THE power of fortune is confessed only by the miserable; for the happy impute all their success to prudence and merit. AH me! what perils do environ SWIFT. * For though dame Fortune seem to smile * Found in few minutes, to his cost, Hudibras, Part I., Chap. 3. MAN is supreme lord and master * Men's evil manners live in brass: their virtues The evil that men do lives after them: Henry VIII. Julius Cæsar. For all his care and providence To render it secure and certain BUTLER. Miscellaneous Thoughts. HE is not dead that sometime had a fall! The sun returns, that hid was under cloud, For I have seen a ship in haven fall, After the storm had broke both mast and shroud. MERCY. Portia. THE quality of mercy is not strain'd; Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings; It is an attribute to God himself; And earthly power doth then show likest God's, Merchant of Venice, Act IV. FOR laws that are inanimate, That have no passion of their own, To grant a pardon than condemn. Hudibras to his Lady. WHEN Tom, an' please your honour, got to the shop, there was nobody in it but a poor negro girl, with a bunch of white feathers, slightly tied to the end of a long cane, flapping away flies, not killing them. 'Tis a pretty picture, said my Uncle Toby; she had suffered persecution, Trim, and had learned mercy." STERNE. Tristram Shandy. JUSTICE. JUSTICE gives sentence many times Hudibras, Part II., Canto 2. THERE, in a winding close retreat SIR W. BLACKSTONE. The Lawyer's Farewell to his Muse. HYPOCRISY. HYPOCRISY is a homage which vice renders to virtue.† ROCHEFOUCAULD. *Pity best taught by fellowship of woe. COLERIDGE. + Hypocrisy itself does great honour, or rather justice, to religion, and tacitly acknowledges it to be an ornament to human nature. The hypocrite would not be at so much pains to put on the appearance of virtue if he did not know it was the most proper and effectual means to gain the love and esteem of mankind. ADDISON. F PURITANICAL HYPOCRISY. O, BUT to such whose faces are all zeal,* And, (with the words of Hercules) invade Cut shorter than their eyebrows! when the conscience More wretches than the counters. BEN JONSON. Every Man out of his Humour. WHY didst thou chuse that cursed sin, Because it is the thriving'st calling, And awe the greatest that stand out; Is taught so tenderly against. Hudibras, Part III., Canto 1. NOTHING is more unjust, however common, than to charge with hypocrisy him that expresses zeal for those virtues which he neglects to practise; since he may be sincerely convinced of the advantages of conquering his passions, without having yet obtained the victory, as a man may be confident of the advantages of a voyage or a journey, without having courage or industry to undertake it, and may honestly recommend to others those attempts which he neglects himself. JOE hates a hypocrite, and shows JOHNSON. * Especially that have the grace Hudibras. |