Delight Quotes - Page 10

• Criticism, as it was first instituted by Aristotle, was meant as a standard of judging well; the chiefest part of which is to observe those excellencies which delight a reasonable reader.

  John Dryden

  Judging, Criticism, Firsts

  John Dryden (1995). “The Works of John Dryden, Volume XII: Plays Ambboyna, The State of Innocence, Aureng-Zebe”, p.87, Univ of California Press

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• A person with friends need never be bored. There is always more to fathom and enjoy in the complexity of others, and always the possibility of finding a way to delight them.

  Stephanie Mills

  Boredom, Needs, Way

  Stephanie Mills (2003). “Epicurean Simplicity”, p.122, Island Press

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• Despair is not a particularly respectable condition and yet despair and delight alternate like systole and diastole in my heart.

  Stephanie Mills

  Heart, Despair, Desperation

  Stephanie Mills (2003). “Epicurean Simplicity”, p.205, Island Press

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• But in vain she did conjure him, To depart her presence so, Having a thousand tongues t' allure him And but one to bid him go. When lips invite, And eyes delight, And cheeks as fresh as rose in June, Persuade delay,-- What boots to say Forego me now, come to me soon.

  Walter Raleigh

  Eye, June, Rose

  Walter Raleigh (1829). “The Works of Sir Walter Ralegh”, p.721

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• Call'd to the temple of impure delight He that abstains, and he alone, does right. If a wish wander that way, call it home; He cannot long be safe whose wishes roam.

  William Cowper

  Home, Long, Wish

  William Cowper (1825). “Table Talk, and Other Poems, by William Cowper, of the Inner Temple, Esq”, p.49

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• How glowing guilt exalts the keen delight!

  Alexander Pope

  Glowing, Guilt

  Alexander Pope, Alexander Dyce (1866). “The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope. ...”, p.110

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• [The artist] speaks to our capacity for delight and wonder, to the sense of mystery surrounding our lives; to our sense of pity, and beauty, and pain; to the latent feeling of fellowship with all creation--and to the subtle but invincible conviction of solidarity in dreams, in joy, in sorrow, in aspirations, in illusions, in hope, in fear…which binds together all humanity--the dead to the living and the living to the unborn.

  Joseph Conrad

  Dream, Art, Pain

  Joseph Conrad (2007). “The Portable Conrad”, p.48, Penguin

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• I sometimes think, with a sad delight, that if one day, in a future I no longer belong to, these sentences, that I write, last with praise, I will at last have the people who understand me, those mine, the true family to be born in and be loved... I will only be understood in effigy, when affection no longer repays the dead the unaffection that was, when living.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Writing, Thinking, People

  "The Book of Disquiet". Book by Fernando Pessoa, p. 182, 1982.

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• An ear for music is very different from a taste for music. I have no ear whatever; I could not sing an air to save my life; but I have the intensest delight in music, and can detect good from bad.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Music, Air, Different

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge (2015). “The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Poetry, Plays, Literary Essays, Lectures, Autobiography and Letters (Classic Illustrated Edition): The Entire Opus of the English poet, literary critic and philosopher, including The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Kubla Khan, Christabel, Lyrical Ballads, Conversation Poems and Biographia Literaria”, p.2801, e-artnow

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• In every sorrowing soul I pour'd delight, And poverty stood smiling in my sight.

  Homer

  Sight, Soul, Poverty

  Homer (1854). “The Odyssey of Homer”, p.282

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• Life has loveliness to sell, / Music like a curve of gold, / Scent of pine trees in the rain, / Eyes that love you, arms that hold, / And for your spirit's still delight, / Holy thoughts that star the night.

  Sara Teasdale

  Stars, Rain, Love You

  Sara Teasdale (1917). “Love Songs”

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• If it is the love of that which your work represents--if, being a landscape painter, it is love of hills and trees that moves you--if, being a figure painter, it is love of human beauty, and human soul that moves you--if, being a flower or animal painter, it is love, and wonder, and delight in petal and in limb that move you, then the Spirit is upon you, and the earth is yours, and the fullness thereof.

  John Ruskin

  Flower, Moving, Animal

  John Ruskin, Cook (1905). “Works”

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• I have often seen quite demented patients recognize and respond vividly to paintings and delight in the act of painting at a time when they are scarcely responsive, disoriented, and out of it.

  Oliver Sacks

  Health, Patient, Painting

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• I was always aware, reading Chesterton, that there was someone writing this who rejoiced in words, who deployed them on the page as an artist deploys his paints upon his palette. Behind every Chesterton sentence there was someone painting with words, and it seemed to me that at the end of any particularly good sentence or any perfectly-put paradox, you could hear the author, somewhere behind the scenes, giggling with delight.

  Neil Gaiman

  Reading, Writing, Artist

  Neil Gaiman (2016). “The View from the Cheap Seats: Selected Nonfiction”, p.28, HarperCollins

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• Fly away, pretty moth, to the shade Of the leaf where you slumbered all day; Be content with the moon and the stars, pretty moth, And make use of your wings while you may. . . . . But tho' dreams of delight may have dazzled you quite, They at last found it dangerous play; Many things in this world that look bright, pretty moth, Only dazzle to lead us astray.

  Thomas Haynes Bayly

  Dream, Stars, Moon

  Thomas Haynes Bayly (1844). “Songs, Ballads, and Other Poems”, p.249

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• Elegance means appreciating things as they are. There is a sense of delight and of fearlessness. You are not fearful of dark corners.

  Chogyam Trungpa

  Mean, Dark, Appreciate

  Chogyam Trungpa (2010). “The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Four: Journey without Goal; The Lion's Roar; The Dawn of Tantra; An Interview with Cho gyam Trungpa”, p.180, Shambhala Publications

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• She walks--the lady of my delight-- A sheperdess of sheep. Her flocks are thoughts. She keeps them white; She guards them from the steep. She feeds them on the fragrant height, And folds them in for sleep.

  Alice Meynell

  Sleep, White, Sheep

  Alice Meynell, Wilfrid Meynell (1931). “Selected Poems of Alice Meynell”, London, Nonesuch

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• Sometimes our weakness is considered strength, and we take delight in borrowed greatness.

  Meher Baba

  Strength, Greatness, Weakness

  Meher Baba's message dictated to Sanjeeva Reddy at Guruprasad (June 6, 1960), as quoted in Charles Benjamin Purdom "The God Man: The Life, Journeys and Work of Meher Baba with an Interpretation of His Silence and Spiritual Teaching" (p. 353), December 25, 1964.

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• O how far remov'd, Predestination! is thy foot from such As see not the First Cause entire: and ye, O mortal men! be wary how ye judge: For we, who see the Maker, know not yet The number of the chosen; and esteem Such scantiness of knowledge our delight: For all good is, in that primal good, Concentrate; and God's will and ours are one.

  Dante Alighieri

  Men, Feet, Numbers

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• How beautiful the water is! To me 'tis wondrous fair-- No spot can ever lonely be If water sparkle there; It hath a thousand tongues of mirth, Of grandeur, or delight, And every heart is gladder made When water greets the sight.

  Elizabeth Oakes Smith

  Beautiful, Lonely, Heart

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• O lovely lily clean, O lily springing green, O lily bursting white, Dear lily of delight, Spring in my heart agen That I may flower to men.

  John Masefield

  Spring, Flower, Heart

  John Masefield (1978). “Selected poems”, Not Avail

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• He that would be a painter must have a natural turn thereto. Love and delight therein are better of the Art of Painting than compulsion.

  Albrecht Durer

  Art, Joy, Would Be

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• So now the floodgates are open to the delight of pure form, whatever its origin. Anything goes.

  Philip Johnson

  Anything Goes, Form, Pure

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• Even in heavenly pleasures he finds no satisfaction, the disciple who is fully awakened delights only in the destruction of all desires.

  Max Muller

  Desire, Satisfaction, Pleasure

  Max Muller (2013). “Sacred Books of the East: Including Selections from the Vedic Hymns, Zend-Avesta, Dhammapada, Upanishads, the Koran, and the Life of Buddha”, p.146, Lulu Press, Inc

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• Something of the child's pure delight in creation survives in every true work of art.

  Roger Scruton

  Art, Children, Innocence

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