Sigh Quotes - Page 17

• I fled, and cry'd out, Death; Hell trembled at the hideous name, and sigh'd From all her caves, and back resounded, Death.

  John Milton

  Death, Names, Caves

  John Milton (1754). “Paradise Lost”, p.148

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• An artist doesn't necessarily have deeper feelings than other people, but he can express these feelings. He is like everyone else-only more so! He speaks with a Formal Sigh.

  Ned Rorem

  Artist, People, Feelings

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• But for my sighs, I should be drowned by my tears; and but for my tears, I should be burned by my sighs.

  Ibn al-Farid

  Tears, Longing, Should

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• A discussion between Haldane and a friend began to take a predictable turn. The friend said with a sigh, 'It's no use going on. I know what you will say next, and I know what you will do next.' The distinguished scientist promptly sat down on the floor, turned two back somersaults, and returned to his seat. 'There,' he said with a smile. 'That's to prove that you're not always right.'

  John B. S. Haldane

  Science, Two, Use

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• When panting sighs the bosom fill,
  And hands by chance united thrill
  At once with one delicious pain
  The pulses and the nerves of twain;
  When eyes that erst could meet with ease,
  Do seek, yet, seeking, shyly shun
  Ecstatic conscious unison, -
  The sure beginnings, say, be these
  Prelusive to the strain of love
  Which angels sing in heaven above?

  Arthur Hugh Clough

  Pain, Angel, Eye

  "Love and Reason". Poem by Arthur Hugh Clough, 1844.

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• In 1978 I decided not to work with Man Ray as an act of self-discipline. I didn't want to rely on him. Man Ray hated not working, though. He would come into my studio, see me drawing or working on photographs, and just slump down at my feet with a big sigh. Fortunately for both of us the year ended. Polaroid had invented a new camera, the twenty-by-twenty-four, and I was invited to Cambridge, Mass., to experiment with it. Naturally, I took Man Ray and we were working again.

  William Wegman

  Men, Self, Years

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• So, then, Oxford Street, stonyhearted stepmother, thou that listenest to the sighs of orphans, and drinkest the tears of children, at length I was dismissed from thee.

  Thomas de Quincey

  Children, Oxford, Tears

  'Confessions of an English Opium Eater' (1822) pt. 1

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• Some sigh for this and that; My wishes don't go far; The world may wag at will, So I have my cigar.

  Thomas Hood

  Wish, World, May

  Thomas Hood, Thomas Hood (Jr.) (1867). “The Comic Poems of Thomas Hood”, p.193

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• For monarchs seldom sigh in vain.

  Walter Scott

  Royalty, Vain, Monarchy

  Sir Walter Scott, J. W. Lake (1848). “The poetical works of Sir Walter Scott: with a sketch of his life”, p.83

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• How does Love speak? In the faint flush upon the telltale cheek, And in the pallor that succeeds it; by The quivering lid of an averted eye-- The smile that proves the parent to a sigh Thus doth Love speak.

  Ella Wheeler Wilcox

  Love, Eye, Parent

  Ella Wheeler Wilcox (2016). “Complete Poetical Works of Ella Wheeler Wilcox (Delphi Classics)”, p.675, Delphi Classics

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• Why should we faint and fear to live alone,Since all alone, so Heaven has willed, we die?Nor even the tenderest heart, and next our own,Knows half the reasons why we smile and sigh.

  John Keble

  Heart, Heaven, Solitude

  John Keble (1874). “The Christian Year: Thoughts in Verse for the Sundays and Holydays Throughout the Year”, p.185

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• I'm growing fonder of my staff; I'm growing dimmer in the eyes; I'm growing fainter in my laugh; I'm growing deeper in my sighs; I'm growing careless of my dress; I'm growing frugal of my gold; I'm growing wise; I'm growing yes, I'm growing old!

  John Godfrey Saxe

  Wise, Eye, Laughing

  John Godfrey Saxe (1860). “The Money-king: And Other Poems”, p.34

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• My faultless breast the furnace is, the fuel wounding thorns;Love is the fire and sighs the smoke, the ashes shame and scorns;The fuel Justice layeth on, and Mercy blows the coals;The metal in this furnace wrought are men's defiled souls.

  Robert Southwell

  Blow, Love Is, Men

  Robert Southwell (1856). “Poetical Works”, p.98

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• Different minds incline to different objects; one pursues the vast alone, the wonderful, the wild; another sighs for harmony and grace, and gentlest beauty.

  Mark Akenside

  Grace, Mind, Different

  Mark Akenside (1744). “The Pleasures of Imagination: A Poem in Three Books”, p.136

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• Gather a shell from the strewn beach
  And listen at its lips: they sigh
  The same desire and mystery,
  The echo of the whole sea's speech.

  Dante Gabriel Rossetti

  Beach, Echoes, Sea

  "The Sea-Limits". "Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th edition", 1919.

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• The shy little Mayflower weaves her nest, But the south wind sighs o'er the fragrant loam, And betrays the path to her woodland home.

  Sarah Helen Whitman

  Home, Wind, Shy

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• Reviving Spring, a toast to thy fresh lips! Thy blush is music, and e'en heaven lurks In thy thick perfumed hair that hangs about Thy flowered shoulders like enchanted rain; Thy sigh is song and thy soft breath a balm, Dispelling death -- soft loosing his cold grip, Unravelling darkness in the heart of pain, As o'er dank waters rings the laugh of dawn.

  William Batchelder Greene

  Song, Pain, Spring

  William Batchelder Greene (1888). “Cloudrifts at Twilight”

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• There whil'st the world prov'd prodigal of breath, the headless trunks lay prostrated in heaps; this field of funerals sacred unto death, did paint out horror in most hideous shapes: whil'st men unhors'd, horses unmast'red, stray'd, some call'd on those whom they most dearly lov'd, some rag'd, some groan'd, some sigh'd, roar'd, promis'd, pray'd, as blows, falls, faintness, pain, hope, anguish mov'd.

  William Alexander, 1st Earl of Stirling

  Horse, Pain, War

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• Our yesterdays Are like a lonely and a ruined land Wherein a breeze of recollection sighs-- A fading land to which is no return.

  Henry Abbey

  Lonely, Past, Land

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• I go forth to seek To seek and claim the lovely magic garden Where grasses softly sigh and Muses speak.

  Anna Akhmatova

  Garden, Lovely, Magic

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• Once a pallid Vestal Doubted truth in blue; Listed red in ruin, Harried every hue; Barricaded vision, Garbed herself in sighs; Ridiculed the birthmarks Of the butterflies.

  Nathalia Crane

  Butterfly, Blue, Vision

  Nathalia Crane (1925). “The Janitor's Boy and Other Poems”

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• The sign work of the Orient it runneth up and down; The Talmud stalks from right to left, a rabbi in a gown; The Roman rolls from left to right from Maytime unto May; But the gods shake up their symbols in an absent-minded way. Their language runs to circles like the language of the eyes, Emphasised by strange dilations with little panting sighs.

  Nathalia Crane

  Running, Eye, Circles

  Nathalia Crane (1925). “The Janitor's Boy and Other Poems”

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• In the name of sense, man, if God made fish to be eaten, what difference does it make if I enjoy the killing of them before I eat them? You would have none but a fisherman by trade do it, and then you would have him utter a sigh, a prayer, and a pious ejaculation at each cod or haddock that he killed.

  William Cowper Prime

  Prayer, Men, Differences

  William Cowper Prime (1876). “I Go A-fishing”, p.266

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• Did you hear the one about the woman who is attacked on the street by a gorilla, beaten senseless, raped repeatedly, and left to die? When she finally regains consciousness and tries to speak, her doctor leans over to hear her sigh contently and to feebly ask, 'Where is that marvelous ape?'

  John McCain

  Doctors, Trying, Gorillas

  "McCain Ape Rape Joke Recalled By Sources" by Sam Stein, www.huffingtonpost.com. July 23, 2008.

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• Love delights in paradoxes. Saddest when it has most reason to be gay, sighs are the signs of its deepest joy, and silence is the expression of its yearning tenderness.

  Christian Nestell Bovee

  Love, Gay, Expression

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