Charles Churchill Quotes
When fiction rises pleasing to the eye, men will believe, because they love the lie; but truth herself, if clouded with a frown, must have some solemn proof to pass her down.
This a sacred rule we find Among the nicest of mankind, (Which never might exception brook From Hobbes even down to Bolingbroke,) To doubt of facts, however true, Unless they know the causes too.
Little do such men know the toil, the pains, the daily, nightly racking of the brains, to range the thoughts, the matter to digest, to cull fit phrases, and reject the rest.
Within the brain's most secret cells, A certain lord chief justice dwells, Of sov'reign power, whom one and all, With common voice we reason call.
The oak, when living, monarch of the wood; The English oak, which, dead, commands the flood.
Drawn by conceit from reason's plan How vain is that poor creature man; How pleas'd in ev'ry paltry elf To grate about that thing himself.
Who all in raptures their own works rehearse, And drawl out measur'd prose, which they call verse.
Who, with tame cowardice familiar grown, would hear my thoughts, but fear to speak their own.
England, a happy land we know, Where follies naturally grow, Where without culture they arise, And tow'r above the common size.
