Quotes from James Thomson

But who can paint like Nature? Can imagination boast, amid its gay creation, hues like hers?

Or where the Northern ocean, in vast whirls,Boils round the naked melancholy islesOf farthest Thulè, and th' Atlantic surgePours in among the stormy Hebrides.

Delightful task! to rear the tender thought,To teach the young idea how to shoot.

Come, gentle Spring! ethereal mildness, come.

Cruel as death, and hungry as the grave.

Come then, expressive silence, muse His praise.

An elegant sufficiency, content,Retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books.

See, Winter comes to rule the varied year,Sullen and sad.

That which makes people dissatisfied with their condition, is the chimerical idea they form of the happiness of others.

But who can paint like Nature? Can imagination boast, amid its gay creation, hues like hers?

When Britain first, at Heaven's command,Arose from out the azure main,This was the charter of the land,And guardian angels sung this strain:Rule, Britannia, rule the waves;Britons never will be slaves.

I find no hint throughout the UniverseOf good or ill, of blessing or of curse;I find alone Necessity Supreme.

Crown'd with the sickle, and the wheaten sheaf,While Autumn, nodding o'er the yellow plain,Comes jovial on.

Health is the vital principle of bliss, and exercise, of health.

Statues and pictures and verse may be grand,But they are not the Life for which they stand.

Peace is the happy natural state of man war is corruption and disgrace.

The City is of Night; perchance of Death,But certainly of Night.

Welcome, kindred glooms!Congenial horrors, hail!

More firm and sure the hand of courage strikes, when it obeys the watchful eye of caution.

A pleasing land of drowsyhead it was.

There studious let me sit,And hold high converse with the mighty dead.

I know no subject more elevating, more amazing, more ready to the poetical enthusiasm, the philosophical reflection, and the moral sentiment than the works of nature. Where can we meet such variety, such beauty, such magnificence?

Absence, with all its pains, is, by this charming moment, wiped away.

Peace is the happy natural state of man war is corruption and disgrace.