Now is the winter of our discontent Made glorious summer by this sun of York, And all the clouds that loured upon our house In the deep bosom of the ocean buried. Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths, Our bruised arms hung up for monuments, Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings, Our dreadful marches to delightful measures. Grim-visaged war hath smoothed his wrinkled front And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds To fright the souls of fearful adversaries, He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber To the lascivious pleasing of a lute. But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks, Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass I, that am rudely stamped, and want love's majesty To strut before a wanton ambling nymph I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion, Cheated of feature by dissembling nature, Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time Into this breathing world, scarce half made up, And that so lamely and unfashionable That dogs bark at me as I halt by them,-- Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace, Have no delight to pass away the time, Unless to spy my shadow in the sun.
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We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.
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Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs. We are, and must be, one and all, burdened with faults in this world: but the time will soon come when, I trust, we shall put them off in putting off our corruptible bodies; when debasement and sin will fall from us with this cumbrous frame of flesh, and only the spark of the spirit will remain, - the impalpable principle of light and thought, pure as when it left the Creator to inspire the creature: whence it came it will return; perhaps again to be communicated to some being higher than man - perhaps to pass through gradations of glory, from the pale human soul to brighten to the seraph! Surely it will never, on the contrary, be suffered to degenerate from man to fiend? No; I cannot believe that: I hold another creed: which no one ever taught me, and which I seldom mention; but in which I delight, and to which I cling: for it extends hope to all: it makes Eternity a rest - a mighty home, not a terror and an abyss. Besides, with this creed, I can so clearly distinguish between the criminal and his crime; I can so sincerely forgive the first while I abhor the last: with this creed revenge never worries my heart, degradation never too deeply disgusts me, injustice never crushes me too low: I live in calm, looking to the end.
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Many are our joysIn youth, but oh! what happiness to liveWhen every hour brings palpable accessOf knowledge, when all knowledge is delight,And sorrow is not there!
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The adventitious beauty of poetry may be felt in the greater delight with a verse given in a happy quotation than in the poem.
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To look almost pretty, is an acquisition of higher delight to a girl who has been looking plain the first fifteen years of her life, than a be...
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As high as we have mounted in delight,In our dejection do we sink as low.
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Under the general name of Commodity, I rank all those advantages which our senses owe to nature. This, of course, is a benefit which is temporary and mediate, not ultimate, like its service to the soul. Yet although low, it is perfect in its kind, and is the only use of nature which all men apprehend. The misery of man appears like childish petulance, when we explore the steady and prodigal provision that has been made for his support and delight on this green ball which floats him through the heavens. What angels invented these splendid ornaments, these rich conveniences, this ocean of air above, this ocean of water beneath, this firmament of earth between? this zodiac of lights, this tent of dropping clouds, this striped coat of climates, this fourfold year? Beasts, fire, water, stones, and corn serve him. The field is at once his floor, his work-yard, his play-ground, his garden, and his bed.
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Let me enjoy the earth no less because the all-enacting light that fashioned forth its loveliness had other aims than my delight.
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Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.
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Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.
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Since the printing press came into being, poetry has ceased to be the delight of the whole community of man; it has become the amusement and delight of the few.
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I have cultivated my hysteria with delight and terror. Now I suffer continually from vertigo, and today, 23rd of January, 1862, I have received a singular warning, I have felt the wind of the wing of madness pass over me.
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I suddenly discovered the delight of rebellion.
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The figure a poem makes. It begins in delight and ends in wisdom... in a clarification of life - not necessarily a great clarification, such as sects and cults are founded on, but in a momentary stay against confusion.
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We’ll drink the wine till the cup is dry, and kiss the girls so they’ll not cry, and toss the dice until we fly to dance with Jak o’ the Shadows. We’ll dance all night while the moon runs free, and dandle the lasses upon our knee, and then you’ll ride along with me, to dance with Jak o’ the Shadows. We’ll sing all night, and drink all day, and on the girls we’ll spend our pay, and when it’s gone, then we’ll away, to dance with Jak o’ the Shadows. There’re some delight in ale and wine, and some in girls with ankles fine but my delight, yes, always mine, is to dance with Jak o’ the Shadows. We’ll toss the dice however they fall, and snuggle the girls be they short or tall, then follow young Mat whenever he calls, to dance with Jak o’ the Shadows.
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It skims in through the eye, and by means of the utterly delicate retina hurls shadows like insect legs inward for translation. Then an immense space opens up in silence and an endlessly fecund sub-universe the writer descends, and asks the reader to descend after him, not merely to gain instructions but also to experience delight, the delight of mind freed from matter and exultant in the strength it has stolen from matter.
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Who said, 'All Time's delight Hath she for narrow bed; Life's troubled bubble broken'?— That's what I said.
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I hold a creed, which no one ever taught me, and which I seldon mention, but in which I delight, and to which I cling, for it extends hope to all; it makes eternity a rest - a mighty home - not a terror and an abyss. With this creed, I can so clearly distinguish between the criminal and his crime, I can so sincerly forgive the first while I abhor the last; with this creed, revenge never worries my heart, degredation never too deeply disgusts me, injustice bever crushes me too low; I live in calm, looking to the end.
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And the serial continues: Pain, expiation, delight, more pain,...
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Man is distinguished, not only by his reason; but also by this singular passion from other animals... which is a lust of the mind, that by a perseverance of delight in the continual and indefatigable generation of knowledge, exceeds the short vehemence of any carnal pleasure.
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Digressions, objections, delight in mockery, carefree mistrust are signs of health everything unconditional belongs in pathology.
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You teach your daughters the diameters of the planets and wonder when you are done that they do not delight in your company.
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The great men among the ancients understood very well how to reconcile manual labour with affairs of state, and thought it no lessening to their dignity to make the one the recreation to the other. That indeed which seems most generally to have employed and diverted their spare hours, was agriculture. Gideon among the Jews was taken from threshing, as well as Cincinnatus amongst the Romans from the plough, to command the armies of their countries...and, as I remember, Cyrus thought gardening so little beneath the dignity and grandeur of a throne, that he showed Xenophon a large field of fruit trees all of his own planting . . . Delving, planting, inoculating, or any the like profitable employments would be no less a diversion than any of the idle sports in fashion, if men could be brought to delight in them.
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That the use of animal food disposes man to cruel and ferocious action is a fact to which the experience of ages gives ample testimony . . . The barbarous and unfeeling 'sports' (as they are called) of the English - their horse-racing, hunting, shooting, bull and bear baiting, cock-fighting, prize fighting, and the like, all proceed from their immoderate addiction to animal food. Their natural temper is thereby corrupted, and they are in the habitual and hourly commission of crimes against nature, justice, and humanity, from which a feeling and reflective mind, unaccustomed to such a diet, would revolt, but in which they profess to take delight.
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The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as poetry.
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She was a phantom of delight When first she gleam'd upon my sight A lovely apparition, sent To be a moment's ornament.
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Desire to know why, and how - curiosity, which is a lust of the mind, that a perseverance of delight in the continued and indefatigable generation of knowledge - exceedeth the short vehemence of any carnal pleasure.
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I hate, despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an everflowing stream.
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In particular I may mention Sophocles the poet, who was once asked in my presence, How do you feel about love, Sophocles? are you still capable of it? to which he replied, Hush! if you please: to my great delight I have escaped from it, and feel as if I had escaped from a frantic and savage master. I thought then, as I do now, that he spoke wisely. For unquestionably old age brings us profound repose and freedom from this and other passions.
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