Oft have I mused, but now at length I find, Why those that die, men say they do depart.
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My true-love hath my heart, and I have his, By just exchange, one for the other given: I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss, There never was a better bargain driven.
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O eloquent, just, and mighty Death! whom none could advise, thou hast persuaded; what none hath dared, thou hast done; and whom all the world ...
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What is our life? a play of passion; Our mirth the music of division;...
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And bigamy, sir, is a crime.'
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Above all things, be not made an ass to carry the burdens of other men if any friend desire thee to be his surety, give him a part of what thou has to spare if he presses thee further, he is not thy friend at all.
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Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife! To all the sensual world proclaim, One crowded hour of glorious life Is worth an age without a name.
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Remember, that if thou marry for beauty, thou bindest thyself all thy life for that which perchance will neither last nor please thee one year; and when thou hast it, it will be to thee of no price at all; for the desire dieth when it is attained, and the affection perisheth when it is satisfied.
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PASSIONS are liken'd best to floods and streams: The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb; So, when affection yields discourse, it seems The bottom is but shallow whence they come. They that are rich in words, in words discover That they are poor in that which makes a lover.
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All, or the greatest part of men that have aspired to riches or power, have attained thereunto either by force or fraud, and what they have by craft or cruelty gained, to cover the foulness of their fact, they call purchase, as a name more honest. Howsoever, he that for want of will or wit useth not those means, must rest in servitude and poverty.
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His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way who he might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to me to be such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it. You appear to be astonished, he said, smiling at my expression of surprise. Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it. To forget it! You see, he explained, I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones. But the Solar System! I protested. What the deuce is it to me? he interrupted impatiently: you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work.
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The sun may set and rise: But we contrariwise Sleep after our short light One everlasting night.
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Too much rest is rust.
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Hatreds are the cinders of affection.
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O many a shaft, at random sent, Finds mark the archer little meant And many a word, at random spoken, May soothe or wound a heart that's broken
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Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.
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But true love is a durable fire In the mind ever burning Never sick, never old, never dead From itself never turning.
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Historians desiring to write the actions of men, ought to set down the simple truth, and not say anything for love or hatred; also to choose such an opportunity for writing as it may be lawful to think what they will, and write what they think, which is a rare happiness of the time.
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But with morning cool repentance came.
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No one is wise or safe, but they that are honest.
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War begets quiet, quiet idleness, idleness disorder, disorder ruin; likewise ruin order, order virtue, virtue glory, and good fortune.
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'Tis a sharp medicine, but it will cure all that ails you. -- last words before his beheadding
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For my part, I consider that it will be found much better by all parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history myself.
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Use your youth so that you may have comfort to remember it when it has forsaken you, and not sigh and grieve at the account thereof.
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But it is hard to know them from friends, they are so obsequious and full of protestations; for a wolf resembles a dog, so doth a flatterer a friend.
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Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry.
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A man said to the universe 'Sir, I exist' 'However,' replied the universe. 'The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation.'
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All men are evil and will declare themselves to be so when occasion is offered.
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It is the nature of men having escaped one extreme, which by force they were constrained long to endure, to run headlong into the other extreme, forgetting that virtue doth always consist in the mean.
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I am certainly not one of those who need to be prodded. In fact, if anything, I am the prod.
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