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  • All things bright and beautiful, All creatures great and small, All things wise and wonderful, The Lord God made them all.

    - Cecil Frances Alexander
      'All Things Bright and Beautiful'.

  • It would be unsound fancy and self-contradictory to expect that things which have never yet been done can be done except by means which have never yet been tried.

    - Francis,Viscount St Albans Bacon
      Novum Organum.

  • In things that are tender and unpleasing, it isgood to break the ice by some whose words are of less weight, and to reserve the more weighty voice to come in as by chance.

    - Francis,Viscount St Albans Bacon
      Essays, no.22,'Of Cunning'.

  • The essence of Toryism is enjoyment†but as far as communicating and establishing your creed are concernedtrya little pleasure. The way to keep up old customs is, to enjoy old customs; the way to be satisfied with the present state of things is, to enjoy that state of things.

    -Walter Bagehot
      Essay on Macaulay.

  •    What things have we seen, Done at the Mermaid! heard words that have been So nimble, and so full of subtil flame, As if that every one from whence they came, Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest, And had resolv'd to live a fool, the rest Of his dull life.

    - Francis Beaumont
      Letter to Ben Jonson, verses prefacing  Jonson's Volpone.

  • The secret things belong unto the L our God; but those things which are revealed belong unto us and our children forever, that we maydoall the words of this law.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    ORDDeuteronomy 29:29.

  • Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that gettethunderstanding.For themerchandise of it isbetter than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies: and all the thingsthoucanst desirearenottobe compared untoher. Length of days is in her right hand; and in her left hand riches and honour. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her: and happy is every one that retaineth her.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Proverbs 3:13^18.

  • For theearof jealousyhearethallthings: and thenoiseof murmurings is not hid.

    -Bible (Apocrypha)
    Wisdom of Solomon1:10.

  • Be not curious in unnecessary matters: for more things are shewed unto thee than men understand.

    -Bible (Apocrypha)
    Ecclesiasticus 3:23.

  • A labouring manthat isgivento drunkennessshall not be rich: and he that contemneth small things shall fall by little and little.

    -Bible (Apocrypha)
    Ecclesiasticus19:1.

  • And we know that all things work together for good to 120 them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    Romans 8:28.

  • Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate.Benot wise inyourown conceits.Recompenseto no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men. If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written,Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    Romans12:16^19.

  •    All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    Corinthians10:23.

  •   Let all things be done decentlyand in order.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    Corinthians14:40.

  • Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    Corinthians 5:17.

  • Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, thinkon these things.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    Philippians 4:8.

  • I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    Philippians 4:13.

  • Cast their crowns before the throne, saying,Thou art worthy,O Lord, to receive gloryand honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    Revelation 4:10^11.

  • Very God of very God,Begotten, not made,Being of one substance with the Father, By whom all things were made: Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven.

    -Book of Common Prayer
    Holy Communion, Nicene Creed.

  • We have a habit in this country of correcting things just as they are about to correct themselves.

    - Nicholas F(rederick) Brady
      In the NewYork Times,1 Feb.

  • All things are artificial, for nature is the art of God.

    - SirThomas Browne
    ^5  Religio Medici (published1643), pt.1, section16.

  • All things began in order, so shall they end, and so shall they begin again; according to the ordainer of order and mystical mathematics of the city of heaven.

    - SirThomas Browne
      The Garden of Cyrus, ch.5.

  •    If a poet is anybody, he is somebody to whom things made matter very littlesomebody who is obsessed by Making.

    - e e pen name of  Edward Estlin Cummings cummings
      is 5, foreword.

  • In science, we must be interested in things, not in persons.

    - Marie originally Marya Sklodowska Curie
    Quoted in Eve Curie Madame Curie (1937), ch.16 (translated by Vincent Sheean,1943).

  • Little things affect little minds.

    - Benjamin, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield Disraeli
      Sybil, bk.3, ch.2.

  • It was not the matter of the work, but the mind that went into, that countedand the manwho was not content to do small things well would leave great things undone.

    - Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
      The Voice of the People, bk.2, ch.4.

  • Things that are seen but not looked at.

    -Jasper Johns
      Defining the subject of his art. Quoted by Deborah Solomon in'The Unflagging  Artistry of  Jasper Johns', in the New York Times,19  Jun.

  • Iamnot yet so lost inlexicographyastoforgetthat words arethe daughters of earth, and thatthings arethesons of heaven. Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but thesigns of ideas: Iwish, however, that the instrument might be less apt to decay, and that signs might be permanent, like the things which they denote.

    - Samuel known as Dr Johnson Johnson
      A Dictionary of the English Language, preface.

  • Things in book's clothing.

    - Charles Lamb
      Last Essays of Elia,'Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading'.

  •    Give me the outside of all things, I am a fanatic for the externality of things.

    -Jose Lezama Lima
      Blasting and Bombardiering, ch.1.

  • These FoolishThings Remind Me of You.

    - Holt originally Eric Maschwitz Marvell
       Title of song.

  • The worker becomes poorer the more wealth he produces and the more his production increases in powerand extent.The worker becomes anevercheaper commodity the more good he creates. The devaluation of the human world increases in direct relation with the increase in value of the world of things. Labour does not only create goods; it also produces itself and the worker as a commodity, and indeed in the same proportion as it produces goods.

    - Karl Heinrich Marx
      Collected in T B Bottomore (trans and ed) Early Writings (1964), p.121.

  • The great joy of the artist is to become aware of a higher order of things, to recognize by the compulsive and spontaneous manipulation of his own impulses the resemblance between human creation and what is called 'divine'creation.

    - Henry Valentine Miller
      Sexus, ch.9.

  • If we are always arriving and departing, it is also true that we are eternallyanchored.One's destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things.

    - Henry Valentine Miller
      Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymous Bosch,'The Oranges of the Millennium'.

  •    God, giveusgracetoaccept with serenity thethingsthat cannot be changed, courage to change the things that should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.

    - Reinhold Niebuhr
    In Richard Wightman Fox Reinhold Neibuhr (1985), ch.12. Attributed to Neibuhr, but more probably18c German.

  • Four be the things I'd been better without: Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt.

    - Dorothy ne  e Rothschild Parker
      Not So Deep as AWell,'Inventory'.

  •    Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies for instance.

    -John Ruskin
    ^3  The Stones ofVenice, vol.i, ch.2.

  •    All things are literally better, lovelier, more beloved for the imperfections which have been divinelyappointed.

    -John Ruskin
    ^3  The Stones ofVenice, vol.ii, ch.6.

  • All violent feelings†produce in us a falseness in all our impressions of external things, which I would generally characterize as the'Pathetic Fallacy'.

    -John Ruskin
      Modern Painters, vol.3, pt.4, ch.12.

  • Not only is there but one way of doing things rightly, but there is only one way of seeing them, and that is, seeing the whole of them.

    -John Ruskin
      TheTwo Paths, lecture 2.

  • Political economy (the economyof a State, orofcitizens) consists simply in the production, preservation, and distribution, at fittest time and place, of useful or pleasurable things.

    -John Ruskin
      Unto this Last, essay 2.

  • Thesorts ofthingsthat Icanfind out about myselfarethe same as thesorts of things that I canfind out about other people and the methods of finding them out are much the same.

    - Gilbert Ryle
      The Concept of Mind.

  •    Alle anderen Dinge mu«  ssen; der Mensch ist das Wesen, welches will. All other things must; man is the being who wills.

    - Friedrich Schiller
    « 1794  Uber das Erhabene.

  • The things people had once held against her† unconventional beauty†un-American elegance, the taste for French clothes and French foodwere suddenly no longer liabilities but assets.

    - Arthur M(eier),Jr Schlesinger
      OnJacqueline Kennedy's post-election image. AThousand Days.

  • When I was a young man, I wanted to be three things: I wanted to be the world's greatest horseman, the world's greatest economist, and the world's greatest lover. Unfortunately I never became the world's greatest horseman.

    -Joseph Alois Schumpeter
    s  Attributed, Harvard oral tradition.

  • Do you think that the things people make fools of themselves about are any less real and true than the things they behave sensibly about? Theyare more true: theyare the only things that are true.

    - George Bernard Shaw
      Marchbanks to Morell. Candida, act1.

  • The fountains mingle with the river, And the rivers with the ocean; The winds of heaven mix for ever With a sweet emotion; Nothing in the world is single; All things, bya law divine, In one spirit meet and mingle. Why not I with thine?

    - Percy Bysshe Shelley
      'Love and Philosophy'.

  • I cannot remember things I once read A few friends, but theyare in cities. Drinking cold snow-water from a tin cup Looking down for miles Through high still air.

    - Gary Sherman Snyder
      Riprap,'Mid-August at Sourdough Mountain Lookout'.

  • Many things are formidable, and none more formidable than man.

    -Sophocles
    Antigone, 332^3 (translated by H Lloyd-Jones,1994).

  • One must obey the man whom the city sets up in power in small things and in justice and in its opposite.

    -Sophocles
    Creon speaking. Antigone, 666^7 (translated by H Lloyd-Jones, 1994).

  • It is best to live anyhow, as one may; do not be afraid of marriage with your mother! Many have lain with their mothers in dreams too. It is he to whom such things are nothing who puts up with life best.

    -Sophocles
    Jocasta to Oedipus, her son and husband, before they both discover the truth of the prophecy. OedipusTyrannus, 979^83 (translated by H Lloyd-Jones,1994).

  • When you see millions of the mouthless dead Across your dreams in pale battalions go, Say not soft things as other men have said, That you'll remember. For you need not so. Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know It is not curses heaped on each gashed head?

    - Charles Hamilton Sorley
    Marlborough and Other Poems,'A Sonnet' (published1916).

  • The poet shares with other artists the faculty of seeing things as though for the first time.

    - Sir Stephen Harold Spender
      Life and the Poet.

  • What man that sees the ever-whirling wheel Of Change, the which all mortal things doth sway, But that thereby doth find, and plainly feel, How mutability in them doth play Her cruel sports, to many men's decay?

    - Edmund Spenser
      The Faerie Queen,'Mutability', canto 6, stanza1.

  • In rerum natura nullum datur contingens; sed omnia ex necessitate divinae naturae determinata sunt ad certo modo existandum et operandum. In the nature of things nothing contingent isgranted, but all things are determined by the necessity of divine nature for existing and working in a certain way.

    - Baruch also known as Benedict de Spinoza Spinoza
      Ethics, bk.1, prop.29.

  • There's three things you can do in a baseball game^you can win, you can lose, or it can rain.

    - Casey (Charles Dillon) Stengel
    Quoted in ColinJarmanThe Guinness Dictionary of Sports Quotations (1990).

  • This sad vicissitude of things.

    - Laurence Sterne
      Sermons,'The Character of Shimei', no.16.

  • The fairest things have fleetest end, Their scent survives their close: But the rose's scent is bitterness To him that loved the rose.

    - Francis Thompson
    'Daisy' (published1890).

  • DieWelt ist die Gesamtheit derTatsachen, nicht der Dinge. The world is the totality of facts, not of things.

    - LudwigJosef Johann Wittgenstein
    Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, prop.1.1 (translated by Pears and McGuinness).

  • Things have dropped from me. I have outlived certain desires; I have lost friends, some by death Percivalothers through sheer inability to cross the street.

    - (Adeline) Virginia ne  e Stephen Woolf
    TheWaves.

  • My whole life have I lived in pleasant thought, As if life's business were a summer mood; As if all needful things would come unsought To genial faith, still rich in genial good.

    -William Wordsworth
      'Resolution and Independence', stanza 6 (published1807).

  • Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. SeeAchebe 2:18.

    -W(illiam) B(utler) Yeats
      'The Second Coming', l.1^8. Collected in Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1921).

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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