“Griefs assured are felt before they come.”

Imagining is in itself the very height and life of poetry, which, by a kind of enthusiasm or extraordinary emotion of the soul, makes it seem to us that we behold those things which the poet paints.

All delays are dangerous in war.

Honor is but an empty bubble.

And write whatever Time shall bring to pass With pens of adamant on plates of brass.

He trudged along unknowing what he sought, And whistled as he went, for want of thought.

Three poets, in three distant ages born, Greece, Italy, and England did adorn. The first in loftiness of thought surpass’d; The next, in majesty; in both the last. The force of Nature could no further go; To make a third, she join’d the former two.

It is a madness to make fortune the mistress of events, because in herself she is nothing, can rule nothing, but is ruled by prudence.

Tis a good thing to laugh at any rate; and if a straw can tickle a man, it is an instrument of happiness.

Riches cannot rescue from the grave, which claims alike the monarch and the slave.

For they can conquer who believe they can.

They say everything in the world is good for something.

Fiction is of the essence of poetry as well as of painting; there is a resemblance in one of human bodies, things, and actions which are not real, and in the other of a true story by fiction.

Sure there is none but fears a future state; And when the most obdurate swear they do not, Their trembling hearts belie their boasting tongues.

Content with poverty, my soul I arm; And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm.

Welcome, thou kind deceiver! Thou best of thieves; who, with an easy key, Dost open life, and, unperceived by us, Even steal us from ourselves.

While I am compassed round With mirth, my soul lies hid in shades of grief, Whence, like the bird of night, with half-shut eyes, She peeps, and sickens at the sight of day.

Safety and the assurance of safety are things of the past.

I came then to a conviction that has never left me: that there is too much for me to attend to in this mortal life without overspeculation on the immortal, that it is not necessary to my peace of mind or to my effort to be a decent and useful person, to have a definite assurance about the affairs of the next world.

Scriptural hope is not wishful thinking. It’s rock-solid assurance!

Clothes have always had a wonderful influence on my physical well-being as well as my self-assurance.

In all thy undertakings, let a reasonable assurance animate thy endeavors if thou despairest of success, thou shalt not succeed.

You can point to these things, and you can have that assurance.

It is not the ship so much as the skillful sailing that assures the prosperous voyage.

I can assure you that my first and foremost interest is my country. This is not a personal matter. We are not people driven by a wish to be in the government since it is for us the least attractive work, even though we are politicians.