YourDictionary

vale quotes

  • The signal-elm, that looks on Ilsley downs, The Vale, the three lone weirs, the youthful Thames. 33

    - Matthew Arnold
      New Poems,'Thyrsis', l.14^15. The poem is an elegy for his friend  Arthur Hugh Clough, who drowned in1861.

  • Dios so  lo nos tiene aqu | prestados, en este valle de la  grimas no estamos ma  s que de paso. Si llegara alg u n d|a a pensar que ha perdido a su hija para el mundo de los hombres, la habra   ganado para el de los a  ngeles. God has us here only on loan, we are transitory in this vale of tears. If you ever come to think that you have lost your daughter to the world of men, think also that you have given her to that of the angels.

    - Rosario Ferre 
      La Bella Durmiente ('Sleeping Beauty').

  • Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife Their sober wishes never learned to stray; Along the cool sequestered vale of life They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

    -Thomas Gray
    Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, l.73^6. Thomas Hardy popularized the phrase as the title of his novel Far From the Madding Crowd (1874).

  •    Call the world if you please 'The vale of soul-making'.

    -John Keats
      Letter to George and Georgiana Keats,14 Feb.

  • Deep in the shady sadness of a vale Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn, Far from the fiery noon and eve's one star, Sat gray-haired Saturn, quiet as a stone, Still as the silence round about his lair.

    -John Keats
      Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St.  Agnes and Other Poems, 'Hyperion', bk.1, l.1^5.

  • Proudly the note of the trumpet is sounding, Loudly the war-cries arise on the gale, Fleetly the steed by Loc Suilig is bounding To join the thick squadrons in Saimear's green vale. On, every mountaineer, Strangers to flight and fear: Rush to the standard of dauntless Red Hugh! Bonnought and gallowglass, Throng from each mountain-pass! On for old ErinO'Donnell abu!

    - M(ichael) J(oseph) McCann
      The Spirit of the Nation,'O'Donnell  Abu'.

  • If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl.

    - H(enry) L(ouis) Mencken
      In The Smart Set, Dec.

  • Sweet Echo, sweetest nymph, that liv'st unseen Within thy airy shell By slow meander's margent green, And in the violet-embroidered vale.

    -John Milton
      Comus,  A Mask, l.230^3.

  •    Forthwith upright he rears from off the pool His mighty stature; on each hand the flames Driv'n backward slope their pointing spires, and rolled In billows, leave i'th'midst a horrid vale.

    -John Milton
      Of Satan. Paradise Lost (published1667), bk.1, l.221.

  • There is not in the wide world a valley so sweet As that vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet; Oh! the last rays of feeling and life must depart Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from my heart.

    -Thomas Moore
      Irish Melodies,'The Meeting of the Waters'.

  • There was a rocky valley between Buxton and Bakewell†divine as the vale of Tempe; you might have seen the gods there morning and eveningApollo and the sweet Muses of the Light† You enterprised a railroad†you blasted its rocks away† And, now, every fool in Buxton can be at Bakewell in half-an-hour, and every fool in Bakewell at Buxton.

    -John Ruskin
    ^8  Praeterita, vol.3, pt.4,'Joanna's Cave', note.

  • The Lord's my shepherd, I'll not want. He makes me down to lie In pastures green: he leadeth me the quiet waters by. My soul he doth restore again: and me to walk doth make Within the paths of righteousness, ev'n for his own name's sake. Yea, though I walk in death's dark vale, yet will I fear no ill: For thou art with me; and thy rod and staff me comfort still.

    -Scottish Metrical Psalms
      Translation of Psalm 23:1^4.

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.

Learn more about vale

link/cite print suggestion box