J. G. Saxe Quotes

If Prometheus was worthy of the wrath of heaven for kindling the first fire upon earth, how ought all the gods honor the men who make it their professional business to put it out?

It is not big armies that win battles, it is the good ones.

Everyone has seen people dancing all night. But take a man and make him dance for a quarter of an hour without music and see if he can bear it.

Every unit that is not supported is a defeated unit.

Order is the primary regulation of the celestial regions.

Hope encourages men to endure and attempt everything; in depriving them of it, or in making it too distant, you deprive them of their very soul.

We (soldiers) are like cloaks,-one thinks of us only when it rains.

It is wise to learn; it is God-like to create.

Old Care has a mortgage on every estate, And that's what you pay for the wealth that you get.

I love vast libraries; yet there is a doubt, If one be better with them or without,-- Unless he use them wisely, and, indeed, Knows the high art of what and how to read.

God bless the man who first invented sleep!" So Sancho Panza said, and so say I.

The wise may find in trifles light as atoms in the air, some useful lesson to enrich the mind.

Long pains are light ones, Cruel ones are brief!

Alas! poor human nature, pity, if hard pressed, degenerates into contempt.

Young men! it 's a critical thing to go Exactly right with a lady in tow; But when you are in the proper track, Just go ahead, and never look back!

Beauty intoxicates the eye, as wine does the body; both are morally fatal if indulged.

So oft in theologic wars, The disputants, I ween, Rail on in utter ignorance Of what each other mean, And prate about an Elephant Not one of them has seen!

Although we human adults are really good at understanding other minds, we weren't always that way. It takes children a long time to break into the system.

At Learning's fountain it is sweet to drink, But 'tis a nobler privilege to think.

Tis well to borrow from the good and the great; 'Tis wise to learn: 'tis God-like to create!

But blast the man, with curses loud and deep, Whate'er the rascal's name, or age, or station, Who first invented, and went round advising, That artificial cut-off, Early Rising!

All things of beauty are not theirs alone who hold the fee; but unto him no less who can enjoy, than unto them who own, are sweetest uses given to posses.

I asked of Echo 't other day (Whose words are few and often funny), What to a novice she could say Of courtship, love, and matrimony. Quoth Echo, plainly, "Matter-o'-money.

It was six men of Hindustan To learning much inclined, Who went to see the Elephant (Though all of them were blind) That each by observation Might satisfy the mind.

Old Care has a mortgage on every estate And that's what you pay for the wealth that you get.

He says a thousand pleasant things - But never says "Adieu"

Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made.