Thomas Gray Quotes - 4
More Thomas Gray Quotes - 4
What female heart can gold despise? What cat's averse to fish?
Thomas Gray— 1747 Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes, l.23-4.
A favourite has no friend!
Thomas Gray— 1747 Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes, l.36.
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea, The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me. Now fades the glimmering landscapes on the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds, Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds.
Thomas Gray— 1751Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, l.1-8.
Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap, Each in his narrow cell for ever laid, The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. The breezy call of incense-breathing Morn, The swallow twitt'ring from the straw-built shed, The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn, No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.
Thomas Gray— 1751Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, l.13-20.
Their name, their years, spelt by the unlettered muse, The place of fame and elegy supply: And many a holy text around she strews, That teach the rustic moralist to die.
Thomas Gray— 1751Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, l.81-4.
I shall be but a shrimp of an author.
Thomas Gray— 1768 Letter to Horace Walpole, 25 Feb.
Any fool may writea most valuablebook bychance, if he will only tell us what he heard and saw with veracity.
Thomas Gray— 1768 Letter to Horace Walpole, 25 Feb.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
Thomas Gray— Thomas Gray, Elegy in a Country Churchyard, Stanza 9
Now my weary lips I close; Leave me, leave me to repose!
Thomas Gray— Descent of Odin, Line 71 (1761).
When love could teach a monarch to be wise, And gospel-light first dawn'd from Bullen's eyes.
Thomas Gray— Education and Government; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Now as the Paradisiacal pleasures of the Mahometans consist in playing upon the flute and lying with Houris, be mine to read eternal new romances of Marivaux and Crebillon.
Thomas Gray— To Mr. West, Letter iv, Third Series; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Far from the sun and summer-gale, In thy green lap was Nature's Darling laid.
Thomas Gray— III. 1, Line 1.
Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears.
Thomas Gray— III. 1, Line 12.
He passed the flaming bounds of place and time: The living throne, the sapphire-blaze, Where angels tremble, while they gaze, He saw; but blasted with excess of light, Closed his eyes in endless night.
Thomas Gray— III. 2, Line 4.
And moody madness laughing wild Amid severest woe.
Thomas Gray— St. 8. (Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College (1742))
'Twas on a lofty vase's side, Where China's gayest art had dyed The azure flowers, that blow; Demurest of the tabby kind, The pensive Selima reclined, Gazed on the lake below.
Thomas Gray— St. 1. (On the Death of a Favourite Cat (1747))
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Await alike the inevitable hour: The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
Thomas Gray— St. 9. (Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (1750))
And many a holy text around she strews, That teach the rustic moralist to die.
Thomas Gray— St. 21. (Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (1750))
For who to dumb Forgetfulness a prey, This pleasing anxious being e'er resigned, Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, Nor cast one longing ling'ring look behind?
Thomas Gray— St. 22. (Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (1750))
Loose his beard, and hoary hair Stream'd like a meteor to the troubled air.
Thomas Gray— I, 2, line 5.
To high-born Hoel's harp, or soft Llewellyn's lay.
Thomas Gray— I, 2, line 14.
Some bold adventurers disdain The limits of their little reign, And unknown regions dare descry.
Thomas Gray— Thomas Gray, Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College.
Hands, that the rod of empire might have swayed, Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre.
Thomas Gray— Thomas Gray, Elegy in a Country Churchyard, Stanza 12.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
Thomas Gray— Thomas Gray, Elegy in a Country Churchyard, Stanza 9
Tho' he inherit Nor the pride, nor ample pinion, That the Theban eagle bear, Sailing with supreme dominion Thro' the azure deep of air.
Thomas Gray— Thomas Gray, Progress of Poesy.
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Await alike th' inevitable hour,
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
— Elegy in a Country Churchyard, Stanza 9, Lines 33-36.
E'en from the tomb the voice of nature cries, E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires.
Thomas Gray— Elegy in a Country Churchyard, 23. Gray says it was suggested by Petrarch, Sonnet, 169. Same phrase in Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra (1600s), Act V, scene 2.
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire.
Thomas Gray— Thomas Gray, Elegy, 46.
Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows.
Thomas Gray— Thomas Gray, The Bard, I, 2, line 9.
To warm their little loves the birds complain.
Thomas Gray— Sonnet on the Death of Richard West.
