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delight quotes

  • Give methemanwho will surrender the whole world for a moss or a caterpillar, and impracticable visions for a simple human delight.

    -Bruce Frederick Cummings
      Enjoying Life and Other Literary Remains,'Crying for the Moon'.

  • Watch against inordinate sensual delight in even the

    - Richard Baxter
    US  businessman,  passenger  on  the  hijacked  United  Airlines Flight 93 on11 September 2001.

  • Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.But his delight is in the law of the L; and in his law doth he meditate dayand night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in hisseason; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. The ungodlyare not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    ORDPsalms1:1^4.

  • Delightthyself also inthe L, and heshall givetheethe desires of thine heart.Commit thy way unto the L; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    ORDORDPsalms 37:4^5.

  • But the meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Psalms 37:11.

  • Energy is Eternal Delight.

    -William Blake
      The Marriage of Heaven and Hell,'The Voice of the Devil'.

  • Love seeketh only self to please, To bind another to its delight, Joys in another's loss of ease And builds a hell in heaven's despite.

    -William Blake
      Songs of Experience,'The Clod and the Pebble'.

  • My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods. Time will changeit,I'mwellaware, aswinterchangesthetrees. My Love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneatha source of little visible delight but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff.

    - EmilyJane Bronte« 
      Wuthering Heights, ch.9.

  • Look thy last on all things lovely, Every hour. Let no night Seal thy sense in deathly slumber Till to delight Thou have paid thy utmost blessing.

    -Walter de la Mare
      'Fare Well'.

  • Tell all theTruth but tell it slant Success in Circuit lies Too bright for our infirm Delight TheTruth's superb surprise.

    - Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
    c.1868  Complete Poems, no.1129 (first published1945).

  • He that would be a painter must have a natural turn thereto.Love and delight are better teachers of the Art of Painting than compulsion is.

    - Albrecht Du« r er
    c.1512  On Painting. Quoted in William Martin Conway Literary Remains of  Albrecht Du«  rer (1889).

  • Than these November skies Is no sky lovelier. The clouds are deep; Into their grey the subtle spies Of colour creep, Changing their high austerity to delight, Till ev'n the leaden interfolds are bright.

    -John Freeman
      'November Skies'.

  • Omne tulit punctum, qui miscuit utile dulci. The man who has mixed profit with pleasure wins everyone's approval.

    -Horace full name  Quintus Horatius Flaccus   65
    Ars Poetica, l.343.

  • Teach us delight in simple things And mirth that has no bitter springs; Forgiveness free of evil done, And love to all men 'neath the sun!

    - (Joseph) Rudyard Kipling
      Puck of Pook's Hill,'Children's Song'.

  • Suave, mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis, E terra magnum alterius spectare laborem; Non quia vexari quemquamst iucunda voluptas, Sed quibus ipse malis careas quia cernere suave est. Suave etiam belli certamina magna tueri Per campos instructa tua sine parte pericli. Sed nil dulcius est, bene quam munita tenere Edita doctrina sapientum templa serena, Despicere unde queas alios passimque videre Errare atque viam palantis quaerere vitae, Certare ingenio, contendere nobilitate, Noctes atque dies niti praestante labore Ad summas emergere opes rerumque potiri. What joy it is, whenout at seathestormwindsare lashing the waters, to gaze from the shore at the heavy stress some other man is enduring. Not that anyone's afflictions are in themselves a source of delight; but to realize from what troubles you yourself are free is joy indeed.What joy, again, to watch opposing hosts marshalled on the field of battle when you have yourself no part in their peril! But this is the greatest joy of all: to possess a quiet sanctuary, stoutly fortified by the teaching of the wise, and to gaze down from that elevation on others wandering aimlessly in search of a way of life, pitting their wits one against another, disputing for precedence, struggling night and day with unstinted effort to scale the pinnacles of wealth and power.

    -Lucretius full name Titus Lucretius Carus
    De Rerum Natura, bk.2, lines1^13 (translated by R. E. Latham).

  •    A heat full of coldness, a sweet full of bitterness, a pain full of pleasantness, which maketh thoughts have eyes and hearts ears, bred by desire, nursed by delight, weaned by jealousy, killed by dissembling, buried by ingratitude, and this is love. Fair lady, will you any?

    -John Lyly
      Gallathea, act1, sc.2. The passage gently satirizes the conventions of love sonnets, and is characterized by the yoked opposites called Euphuisms, after Lyly's earlier work, a style later used by the metaphysical poets.

  •    To be weak is miserable Doing or suffering, but of this be sure, To do aught good never will be our task, But ever to do ill our sole delight.

    -John Milton
      Paradise Lost (published1667), bk.1, l.157^60.

  • My fairest, my espoused, my latest found, Heav'n's last best gift, my ever new delight.

    -John Milton
       Adam to Eve. Paradise Lost (published1667), bk.5, l.18^19.

  •    Among unequals what society Can sort, what harmony or true delight?

    -John Milton
       Adam. Paradise Lost (published1667), bk.8, l.383^4.

  • O loss of sight, of thee I most complain! Blind among enemies,O worse than chains, Dungeon, or beggary, or decrepit age! Light the prime work of God to me is extinct, And all her various objects of delight Annull'd, which might in part my grief have eas'd, Inferior to the vilest now become Of man or worm; the vilest here excel me, They creep, yet see, I dark in light expos'd To daily fraud, contempt, abuse and wrong, 586 Within doors, or without, still as a fool, In power of others, never in my own; Scarce half I seem to live, dead more than half.

    -John Milton
    Samson  Agonistes, l.67^79.

  • Strange to say what delight we married people have to see these poor fools decoyed into our condition.

    - Samuel Pepys
      Diary entry, 25 Dec.

  • Here lies a lady of beauty and high degree. Of chills and fever she died, of fever and chills, The delight of her husband, her aunts, an infant of three, And of medicos marvelling sweetly on her ills.

    -John Crowe Ransom
      Chills and Fever,'Here Lies a Lady'.

  • 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 in poetry.

    - Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
      Mysticism and Logic.

  • Everyone suddenly burst out singing; And I was filled with such delight As prisoned birds must find in freedom,

    - Siegfried Louvain Sassoon
      'Everyone Sang'.

  •    He has out-soared the shadow of our night; Envyand calumnyand hate and pain, And that unrest which men miscall delight, Can touch him not and torture not again; From the contagion of the world's slow stain He is secure, and now can never mourn A heart grown cold, a head grown grey in vain.

    - Percy Bysshe Shelley
    Adonais, stanza 40.

  • Poetry therefore, is an art of imitation† A speaking picture, with this end: to teach and delight.

    - Sir Philip Sidney
      The Defence of Poetry.

  • Lo, thro' her works gay nature grieves How brief she is and frail, As ever o'er the falling leaves Autumnal winds prevail. Yet still the philosophic mind Consolatory food can find, And hope her anchorage maintain: We never are deserted quite; 'Tis by succession of delight That love supports his reign.

    - Christopher Smart
      Ode to the Earl of Northumberland, with Some Other Pieces, 'On a Bed of Guernsey Lilies: written in September1763', stanza 2.

  • What worlds delight, or joy of living speech Can heart, so plunged in sea of sorrows deep, And heape'  d with so huge misfortunes, reach? The careful cold beginneth for to creep, And in my heart his iron arrow steep, Soon as I think upon my bitter bale.

    - Edmund Spenser
      The Faerie Queen, bk.1, canto 7, stanza 39.

  •    'Tis not the meat; but 'tis the appetite Makes eating a delight.

    - SirJohn Suckling
    c.1638  Sonnet no.2.

  • O happy dames, that may embrace The fruit of your delight, Help to bewail the woeful case And eke the heavy plight Of me, that wonted to rejoice The fortune of my pleasant choice. Good ladies, help to fill my mourning voice.

    - Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey
      'O happy dames'.

  • Away we goand what care we For treasons, tumults, and for wars? We are as calm in our delight As is the crescent moon so bright Among the scattered stars.

    -William Wordsworth
      'Peter Bell', prologue, stanza 5 (published1819).

  •    The moving accident is not my trade; To freeze the blood I have no ready arts: 'Tis my delight, alone in summer shade, To pipe a simple song for thinking hearts.

    -William Wordsworth
      'Hart-LeapWell', part 2, l.97^100.

  • She was a Phantom of delight When first she gleamed upon my sight; A lovelyapparition sent To be a moment's ornament.

    -William Wordsworth
      'She was a Phantom of delight', l.1^4 (published1807).

  • On Man, on Nature, and on Human Life, Musing in solitude, I oft perceive Fair trains of images before me rise, Accompanied by feelings of delight Pure, or with no unpleasing sadness mixed.

    -William Wordsworth
      'The Excursion', preface, l.1^5.

Webster's New World Dictionary of Quotations Copyright © 2010 by Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. Published by Wiley, Hoboken, NJ. Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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