toy quotes

But war's a game, which, were their subjects wise, Kings should not play at. Nations would do well To extort their truncheons from the puny hands Of heroes, whose infirm and baby minds Are gratified with mischief, and who spoil, Because men suffer it, their toy the world.

-William Cowper
  The Task, bk.5,'The Winter Morning Walk', l.187^92.

   The little sardine men crammed in a monster toy Who tilt their aggregate beast against our crumbling Troy.

- (Frederick) Louis MacNeice
  Poems,'Turf-stacks'.

I count religion but a childish toy, And hold there is no sin but ignorance.

- Christopher Marlowe
c.1589  The Jew of Malta (published1633),'Prologue to the Stage, At the Cock-pit'.

   Gentleness, docility, and a spaniel-like affection are, on this ground, consistently recommended as the cardinal virtues of the sex; and, disregarding the arbitrary economy of nature, one writer has declared that it is masculine for a woman to be melancholy. She was created to be the toy of man, his rattle, and it must jingle in his ears, whenever, dismissing reason, he chooses to be amused.

- Mary also known as Mrs Godwin Wollstonecraft
  AVindication of the Rights ofWoman, pt.1, ch.2.