Delight Quotes - Page 18

• They love the country, and none else, who seek
  For their own sake its silence and its shade.
  Delights which who would leave, that has a heart
  Susceptible of pity, or a mind
  Cultured and capable of sober thought.

  William Cowper

  Country, Heart, Silence

  William Cowper, James Thomson (1832). “The Works of Cowper and Thompson: Including Many Letters and Poems Never Before Published in this Country. With a New and Interesting Memoir of the Life of Thomson”, p.73

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• Misery still delights to trace
  Its semblance in another's case.

  William Cowper

  Misery, Cases, Stills

  William Cowper (1851). “The Works of William Cowper: His Life, Letters, and Poems. Now First Completed by the Introduction of Cowper's Private Correspondence”, p.446

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• Go, mark the matchless working of the power
  That shuts within the seed the future flower;
  Bids these in elegance of form excel.
  In color these, and those delight the smell;
  Sends nature forth, the daughter of the skies,
  To dance on earth, and charm all human eyes.

  William Cowper

  Daughter, Flower, Eye

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• Habit hath so vast a prevalence over the human mind that there is scarce anything too strange or too strong to be asserted of it. The story of the miser who, from long accustoming to cheat others, came at last to cheat himself, and with great delight and triumph picked his own pocket of a guinea to convey to his hoard, is not impossible or improbable.

  Henry Fielding

  Strong, Long, Mind

  Henry Fielding (2012). “Joseph Andrews”, p.186, tredition

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• What Tully said of war may be applied to disputing: "It should be always so managed as to remember that the only true end of it is peace." But generally true disputants are like true sportsmen,--their whole delight is in the pursuit; and the disputant no more cares for the truth than the sportsman for the hare.

  Alexander Pope

  War, Care, May

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• But me, not destined such delights to share,
  My prime of life in wandering spent and care;
  Impell'd, with steps unceasing, to pursue
  Some fleeting good, that mocks me with the view
  That, like the circle bounding earth and skies,
  Allures from far, yet, as I follow, flies;
  My fortune leads to traverse reams alone,
  And find no spot of all the world my own.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Views, Sky, Circles

  Oliver Goldsmith (1841). “Goldsmith's miscellaneous works”, p.2

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• books have been my greatest comfort, castle-building a never-failing delight, and scribbling a very profitable amusement.

  Louisa May Alcott

  Book, Comfort, Castles

  Louisa May Alcott (2015). “LOUISA MAY ALCOTT Ultimate Collection: 16 Novels & 150+ Short Stories, Plays and Poems (Illustrated): Little Women, Good Wives, Little Men, Jo's Boys, A Modern Mephistopheles, Eight Cousins, Rose in Bloom, Jack and Jill, Behind a Mask, Lulu's Library, The Abbot's Ghost, A Garland for Girls…”, p.3951, e-artnow

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• [Rhyme is] but the invention of a barbarous age, to set off wretched matter and lame Meter; ... Not without cause therefore some both Italian and Spanish poets of prime note have rejected rhyme, ... as have also long since our best English tragedies, as... trivial and of no true musical delight; which [truly] consists only in apt numbers, fit quantity of syllables, and the sense variously drawn out from one verse into another, not in the jingling sound of like endings, a fault avoided by the learned ancients both in poetry and all good oratory.

  John Milton

  Italian, Numbers, Long

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• Go to your banquet then, but use delight
  So as to rise still with an appetite.

  Robert Herrick

  Use, Eating, Appetite

  Robert Herrick (1869). “Hesperides: The Poems and Other Remains of Robert Herrick Now First Collected”, p.236

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• [On gardens:] I think they're sanctuaries for the mind and spirit. ... It's easy to feel wonder-struck in a garden, especially if you cultivate delight.

  Diane Ackerman

  Garden, Thinking, Mind

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• Nurtured, nourished people, who love themselves and care for themselves, are the delight of the Universe.

  Melody Beattie

  People, Care, Universe

  Melody Beattie (2013). “Melody Beattie 4 Title Bundle: Codependent No More and 3 Other Best Sellers by Melody Beattie: A collection of four Melody Beattie best sellers”, Hazelden Publishing

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• If thy desire to raise thy fortunes encourage thy delights to the casts of fortune, be wise betimes, lest thou repent too late; what thou gettest, thou gainest by abused providence; what thou losest, thou losest by abused patience; what thou winnest is prodigally spent; what thou losest is prodigally lost; it is an evil trade that prodigally drives; and a bad voyage where the pilot is blind.

  Francis Quarles

  Wise, Gambling, Evil

  Francis Quarles (1856). “Enchiridon: containing institutions divine, moral”, p.149

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• When the flesh presents thee with delights, then present thyself with dangers; where the world possesses thee with vain hopes, there possess thyself with true fear; when the devil brings thee oil, bring thou vinegar. The way to be safe is never to be secure.

  Francis Quarles

  Oil, Temptation, Devil

  Francis Quarles (1844). “Enchiridion Institutions, Essays and Maxims, political, moral & divine. Divided into four centuries. By Francis Quarles”, p.94

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• We are often infinitely mistaken, and take the falsest measures, when we envy the happiness of rich and great men; we know not the inward canker that eats out all their joy and delight, and makes them really much more miserable than ourselves.

  Joseph Hall

  Men, Envy, Joy

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• God loves to see his creatures happy; our lawful delight is His; they know not God that think to please Him with making themselves miserable. The idolaters thought it a fit service for Baal to cut and lance themselves; never any holy man looked for thanks from the true God by wronging himself.

  Joseph Hall

  Happiness, Cutting, Men

  Joseph Hall, Josiah Pratt (1808). “The Works: Now First Collected : with Some Account of His Life and Sufferings. Contemplations”, p.12

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• Is there any delight as great as the child's discovering ability?

  Doris Lessing

  Children, Ability, Discovering

  Doris May Lessing (1994). “Under my skin”

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• human beings seem to hold on more tenaciously to a cultural identity that is learned through suffering than to one that has been acquired through pleasure and delight.

  Margaret Mead

  Suffering, Identity, Culture

  Margaret Mead (1970). “Culture and Commitment”

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• In those happy days when leisure was held to be no sin, men and women wrote journals whose copiousness both delights and dismays us.

  Agnes Repplier

  Men, Diaries, Leisure

  Agnes Repplier (1898). “Varia”

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• Guests are the delight of leisure, and the solace of ennui.

  Agnes Repplier

  Guests, Leisure, Hospitality

  Agnes Repplier (1894). “In the Dozy Hours, and Other Papers”

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• The whole difference between a man of genius and other men, it has been said a thousand times, and most truly, is that the first remains in great part a child, seeing with the large eyes of children, in perpetual wonder, not conscious of much knowledge--conscious, rather of infinite ignorance, and yet infinite power; a fountain of eternal admiration, delight, and creative force within him meeting the ocean of visible and governable things around him.

  John Ruskin

  Children, Ocean, Ignorance

  John Ruskin (1907). “The stones of Venice”

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• The fact of our deriving constant pleasure from whatever is a type or semblance of divine attributes, and from nothing but that which is so, is the most glorious of all that can be demonstrated of human nature; it not only sets a great gulf of specific separation between us and the lower animals, but it seems a promise of a communion ultimately deep, close, and conscious, with the Being whose darkened manifestations we here feebly and unthinkingly delight in.

  John Ruskin

  Animal, Promise, Facts

  John Ruskin (1858). “Modern Painters: (pt.3) Of ideas of beauty”, p.86

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• The delight we find in art amounts to recognition of a saving grace, to an acknowledgment that the problem of life has a solution implicit in its own nature, though not yet formulated by the intellect.

  Rebecca West

  Art, Grace, Saving

  Rebecca West (1957). “The Court and the Castle: Some Treatments of a Recurrent Theme /$Rebecca West”

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• It is not easy always to be joyful, to keep in mind the duty of delight.

  Dorothy Day

  Joy, Mind, Easy

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• When my way is too rough for my feet, or too steep for my strength, I get off it to some smooth velvet path which fancy has scattered over with rosebuds of delights; and, having taken a few turns in it, come back strengthened and refreshed.

  Laurence Sterne

  Taken, Feet, Way

  Laurence Sterne (1800). “A sentimental journey through France and Italy: to which are added the letters to Eliza”, p.92

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• The lovers of life, they are children at heart always in their wonder and delight, but they do not grab.

  Elizabeth Goudge

  Children, Passion, Heart

  Elizabeth Goudge (1948). “Pilgrim's Inn”

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