literature

"A strong memory is commonly coupled with infirm judgment."

"I am much obliged by the kind present you have made us of your edition of Vattel. It came to us in good season, when the circumstances of a rising state make it necessary frequently to consult The Law…"

"Can sweetening our tea, &c. with sugar, be a circumstance of such absolute necessity? Can the petty pleasure thence arising to the taste, compensate for so much misery produced among our fellow creatu…"

"We’re more of the blood, love and rhetoric school. Well, I’ll leave the choice to you, if there is anything to choose between them. They’re hardly divisible, sir—well, I can do you blood and love with…"

"It was insane, I wish I had filmed it. It was like bringing an audience to the Mona Lisa and asking, 'Do you know why she is smiling?' 'Sorry Leonardo, you'll have to make some changes.' At least the …"

"Helen, thy beauty is to meLike those Nicean barks of yore,That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,The weary, wayworn wanderer boreTo his own native shore.On desperate seas long wont to roam,Thy hyacinth hair…"

"Years of love have been forgotIn the hatred of a minute."

"         Of all the floures in the mede, Than love I most these floures whyte and rede, Swiche that men callen daysies in our toun."

"Sin I fro Love escaped am so fat, I never thenk to ben in his prison lene; Sin I am free, I counte him not a bene."

"What needs my Shakespeare for his honoured bones,The labor of an age in pilèd stones,Or that his hallowed relics should be hidUnder a star-y-pointing pyramid?Dear son of memory, great heir of fame,Wha…"

"They suppose that Woman's Love is Sin; in consequence all the Loves & Graces with them are Sin."

"My silks and fine array,My smiles and languished air,By love are driv'n away;And mournful lean DespairBrings me yew to deck my grave:Such end true lovers have."

"How sweet I roamed from field to field,And tasted all the summer's pride,Till I the prince of love beheld,Who in the sunny beams did glide!"

"It is impossible for a man who secretly violates the terms of the agreement not to harm or be harmed to feel confident that he will remain undiscovered, even if he has already escaped ten thousand tim…"

"#* A very free translation, as quoted in Contemporary Literature in Translation (1976), p. 21"

"Of all books extant in all kinds, Homer is the first and best."

"Men grow tired of sleep, love, singing and dancing, sooner than of war."

"My true love hath my heart, and I have his,By just exchange, one for the other given."

"... Sophocles, the poet loved and feared,Whose mighty voice once called out of her lairThe Dorian muse severe, with braided hair,Who loved the thyrsus and wild dances weird."

"I love to write and I assure you I write regularly... But I write for myself, for my own pleasure. And I want to be left alone to do it."