Quotes from Thomas Gray

I shall be but a shrimp of an author.

To Contemplation's sober eye. / Such is the race of Man.

E'en from the tomb the voice of nature cries, E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires.

Alas, regardless of their doom, the little victims play! No sense have they of ills to come nor care beyond today.

The language of the age is never the language of poetry, except among the French, whose verse, where the thought or image does not support it, differs in nothing from prose.

Hell is full of good intentions.

The applause of list'ning senates to command, The threats of pain and ruin to despise, To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, And read their history in a nation's eyes.

Can honor's voice provoke the silent dust, or flattery soothe the dull, cold ear of death?

Where ignorance is bliss, 'Tis folly to be wise.

There are certain scenes that would awe an atheist into belief, without the help of other argument.

But knowledge to their eyes her ample page Rich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll; Chill Penury repressed their noble rage, And froze the genial current of the soul.

And weep the more, because I weep in vain.

Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes, Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart.

Man's feeble race what ills await! Labour, and Penury, the racks of Pain, Disease, and Sorrow's weeping train, And Death, sad refuge from the storms of Fate!

Here rests his head upon the lap of earth, A youth to fortune and to fame unknown: Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth, And Melancholy mark'd him for her own.

Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile The short and simple annals of the poor.

He gave to misery (all he had) a tear.

Too poor for a bribe, and too proud to importune, he had not the method of making a fortune.

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray; Along the cool sequester'd vale of life They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

'Tis folly to be wise.

Rich with the spoils of time.

Along the cool sequestered vale of life, They kept the noiseless tenour of their way.

Hands that the rod of empire might have sway'd, Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre.

Poetry is thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.