Delight Quotes - Page 23

• Endure what life God gives and ask no longer span;
  Cease to remember the delights of youth, travel-wearied aged man;
  Delight becomes death-longing if all longing else be vain.

  William Butler Yeats

  Life, Men, Giving

  William Butler Yeats (2010). “The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Vol II: The Plays”, p.431, Simon and Schuster

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• Equals, the proverb goes, delight in equals.

  Plato

  Equality

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• Energy is the only life, and is from the body; and reason is the bound or outward circumference of energy. Energy is eternal delight.

  William Blake

  Energy, Body, Reason

  William Blake, W. H. Stevenson (2007). “Blake: The Complete Poems”, p.111, Pearson Education

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• Let ancient times delight other folk, I rejoice that I was not born till now.

  Ovid

  Ancient, Born, Rejoice

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• Not for any one man's delight has Nature made
  the sun, the wind, the waters; all are free.

  Ovid

  Nature, Men, Wind

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• Delight,--top-gallant delight is to him, who acknowledges no law or lord, but the Lord his God, and is only a patriot to heaven.

  Herman Melville

  God, Law, Joy

  'Moby Dick' (1851) ch. 1

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• The imperfect is our paradise.
  Note that, in this bitterness, delight,
  Since the imperfect is so hot in us,
  Lies in flawed words and stubborn sounds.

  Wallace Stevens

  Lying, Perfection, Sound

  Wallace Stevens (2011). “The Palm at the End of the Mind: Selected Poems and a Play”, p.218, Vintage

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• Full of troubles, the mind is still the only Garden of Delight.

  Mason Cooley

  Garden, Mind, Trouble

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• A tattered copy of Johnson's large Dictionary was a great delight to me, on account of the specimens of English versifications which I found in the Introduction. I learned them as if they were so many poems. I used to keep this old volume close to my pillow; and I amused myself when I awoke in the morning by reciting its jingling contrasts of iambic and trochaic and dactylic metre, and thinking what a charming occupation it must be to "make up" verses.

  Lucy Larcom

  Morning, Thinking, Poetry

  Lucy Larcom (1961). “A New England girlhood”

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• To the untraveled, territory other than their own familiar heath is invariably fascinating. Next to love it is the one thing that solaces and delights.

  Theodore Dreiser

  Territory, Next, Solace

  Theodore Dreiser (2017). “Delphi Complete Works of Theodore Dreiser (Illustrated)”, p.325, Delphi Classics

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• It's the anarchy of poverty
  delights me, the old
  yellow wooden house indented
  among the new brick tenements

  William Carlos Williams

  Yellow, House, Anarchy

  William Carlos Williams, Charles Tomlinson (1985). “Selected Poems”, p.129, New Directions Publishing

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• The delights of this life are not its own, but our fear of the ascent into a higher life; the torments of this life are not its own, but our self-torment because of that fear.

  Franz Kafka

  Life, Fear, Self

  Franz Kafka (1991). “The Blue Octavo Notebooks”

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• Tis a barbarous temper, and a sign of a very ill nature, to take delight in shocking any one: and, on the contrary, it is the mark of an amiable and a beneficent temper, to say all the kind things one can, without flattery or playing the hypocrite,--and what never fails of procuring the love and esteem of every one; which, next to doing good to a deserving object who wants it, is one of the greatest pleasures of this life.

  Samuel Richardson

  Hypocrite, Want, Next

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• The use of butterflies is to adorn the world and delight the eyes of men, to brighten the countryside, serving like so many golden spangles to decorate the fields.

  John Ray

  Butterfly, Eye, Men

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• Our planet
  is poorly equipped
  for delight.
  One must snatch
  gladness
  from the days that are.
  In this life
  it's not difficult to die.
  To make life
  is more difficult by far.

  Vladimir Mayakovsky

  Life Is, This Life, Planets

  Vladimir Mayakovsky (1965). “Mayakovsky”

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• In spite of the fact that religion looks backward to revealed truth while science looks forward to new vistas and discoveries, both activities produce a sense of awe and a curious mixture of humility and arrogance in their practitioners. All great scientists are inspired by the subtlety and beauty of the natural world that they are seeking to understand. Each new subatomic particle, every unexpected object, produces delight and wonderment. In constructing their theories, physicists are frequently guided by arcane concepts of elegance in the belief that the universe is intrinsically beautiful.

  Paul Davies

  Beautiful, Humility, Science

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• The spirit of poetry combines the profundity of the philosopher and the child's delight in bright pictures.

  Franz Grillparzer

  Children, Philosophical, Poetry

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• From a distance the rushing of the torrent delights and uplifts us, but it rocks us in a flimsy boat, we are overwhelmed by despair. The same applies to danger.

  Franz Grillparzer

  Uplifting, Distance, Rushing

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• Boundless in your charity, but shrewd and cautious as a lender, you delight all those today whom you made beggars the day before.

  Franz Grillparzer

  Money, Business, Charity

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• Like musicians who can read and write complicated scores in a world without sounds, for us mathematics is a source of delight, excitement, and even controversy which are hard to share with non mathematicians. In our small micro-cosmos we should ever seek the right balance between competition and solidarity, criticism and empathy, exclusion and inclusion.

  Gil Kalai

  Writing, Science, Empathy

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• I'd want the human voice expressing grievances, or delight, or whatever it might be. But something real

  Studs Terkel

  Real, Voice, Want

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• Yet if strict criticism should till frown on our method, let candor and good humor forgive what is done to the best of our judgment, for the sake of perspicuity in the story and the delight and entertainment of our candid reader.

  Sarah Fielding

  Reading, Forgiving, Criticism

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• Poor comfort all comfort: once what the mouse had spared
  Was enough, was delight, there where the heart was at home

  Ruth Pitter

  Nature, Heart, Home

  Ruth Pitter (1969). “Collected poems”

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• The particular source of frustration of women observing their own self-study and measuring their worth as women by the distance they kept from men necessitated that a distance be kept, and so what vindicated them also poured fuel on the furnace of their rage. One delight presumed another dissatisfaction, but their hatefulness confessed to their own lack of power to please. They hated men because they needed husbands, and they loathed the men they chased away for going.

  Alexander Theroux

  Husband, Distance, Men

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• But the fact is that when wine is taken in moderation, it gives rise to a large amount of breath, whose character is balanced, and whose luminosity is strong and brilliant. Hence wine disposes greatly to gladness, and the person is subject to quite trivial exciting agents. The breath now takes up the impression of agents belonging to the present time more easily than it does those which relate to the future; it responds to agents conducive to delight rather than those conducive to a sense of beauty.

  Avicenna

  Strong, Taken, Character

  Avicenna, Oskar Cameron Gruner (1984). “The Canon of Medicine of Avicenna”

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