Read Ebook: Familiar Quotations A Collection of Passages Phrases and Proverbs Traced to Their Sources in Ancient and Modern Literature by Bartlett John Compiler

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Ebook has 11070 lines and 984128 words, and 222 pages

Ther n' is no werkman whatever he be, That may both werken wel and hastily. This wol be done at leisure parfitly.

Yet in our ashen cold is fire yreken.

The gretest clerkes ben not the wisest men.

So was hire joly whistle wel ywette.

In his owen grese I made him frie.

And for to see, and eek for to be seie.

I hold a mouses wit not worth a leke, That hath but on hole for to sterten to.

Loke who that is most vertuous alway, Prive and apert, and most entendeth ay To do the gentil dedes that he can, And take him for the gretest gentilman.

That he is gentil that doth gentil dedis.

This flour of wifly patience.

They demen gladly to the badder end.

Therefore behoveth him a ful long spone, That shall eat with a fend.

Fie on possession, But if a man be vertuous withal.

Truth is the highest thing that man may keep.

Full wise is he that can himselven knowe.

Mordre wol out, that see we day by day.

But all thing which that shineth as the gold Ne is no gold, as I have herd it told.

The firste vertue, sone, if thou wilt lere, Is to restreine and kepen wel thy tonge.

The proverbe saith that many a smale maketh a grate.

Of harmes two the lesse is for to cheese.

Right as an aspen lefe she gan to quake.

For of fortunes sharpe adversite, The worst kind of infortune is this,-- A man that hath been in prosperite, And it remember whan it passed is.

He helde about him alway, out of drede, A world of folke.

One eare it heard, at the other out it went.

Eke wonder last but nine deies never in toun.

I am right sorry for your heavinesse.

Go, little booke! go, my little tragedie!

Your duty is, as ferre as I can gesse.

The lyfe so short, the craft so long to lerne, Th' assay so hard, so sharpe the conquering.

For out of the old fieldes, as men saithe, Cometh al this new corne fro yere to yere; And out of old bookes, in good faithe, Cometh al this new science that men lere.

Nature, the vicar of the Almightie Lord.

O little booke, thou art so unconning, How darst thou put thy-self in prees for drede?

Of all the floures in the mede, Than love I most these floures white and rede, Soch that men callen daisies in our toun.

That well by reason men it call may The daisie, or els the eye of the day, The emprise, and floure of floures all.

For iii may keep a counsel if twain be away.

FOOTNOTES:

In allusion to the proverb, "Every honest miller has a golden thumb."

The mouse that always trusts to one poor hole Can never be a mouse of any soul.

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man.

Murder, though it have no tongue, will speak With most miraculous organ.

THOMAS ? KEMPIS. 1380-1471.

Man proposes, but God disposes.

And when he is out of sight, quickly also is he out of mind.

Of two evils, the less is always to be chosen.

FOOTNOTES:

And out of mind as soon as out of sight.

Fer from eze, fer from herte, Quoth Hendyng.

See Chaucer, page 5.

Moche Crye and no Wull.

Comparisons are odious.

FOOTNOTES:

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