M.K. Alexander Quotes

Leave not a foot of verse, a foot of stone, A Page, a Grave, that they can call their own; But spread, my sons, your glory thin or thick, On passive paper, or on solid brick.

The finest minds, like the finest metals, dissolve the easiest.

But those who cannot write, and those who can, All rhyme, and scrawl, and scribble, to a man.

The good must merit God's peculiar care; But who but God can tell us who they are?

How Instinct varies in the grov'ling swine.

The lot of man - to suffer and to die.

Learn to live well, or fairly make your will; You've play'd, and lov'd, and ate, and drank your fill: Walk sober off, before a sprightlier age Comes titt'ring on, and shoves you from the stage.

Some have at first for wits, then poets passed, Turned critics next, and proved plain fools at last.

Who ne'er knew joy but friendship might divide,Or gave his father grief but when he died.

I lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came.

Is there no bright reversion in the sky, For those who greatly think or bravely die?

Still follow sense, of ev'ry art the soul, Parts answering parts shall slide into a whole.

Heav'n from all creatures hides the book of fate, All but the page prescribed, their present state: From brutes what men, from men what spirits know: Or who could suffer being here below?

And binding nature fast in fate, Left free the human will.

Nor Fame I slight, nor her favors call.

What woeful stuff this madrigal would be, In some starved hackney sonneteer, or me! But let a lord once own the happy lines, How the wit brightens! how the style refines!

When rumours increase, and when there is an abundance of noise and clamour, believe the second report.

Some people are commended for a giddy kind of good-humor, which is as much a virtue as drunkenness.

The cabinets of the sick and the closets of the dead have been ransacked to publish private letters and divulge to all mankind the most secret sentiments of friendship.

The flower's are gone when the Fruits appear to ripen.

The enormous faith of many made for one.

Placed on this isthmus of a middle state.

In vain sedate reflections we would make When half our knowledge we must snatch, not take.

That virtue only makes our bliss below, And all our knowledge is ourselves to know.

Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar; Wait the great teacher, Death, and God adore; What future bliss He gives not thee to know, But gives that hope to be thy blessing now.

Whether the darken'd room to muse invite, Or whiten'd wall provoke the skew'r to write; In durance, exile, Bedlam, or the Mint, Like Lee or Budgel I will rhyme and print.

The race by vigour, not by vaunts, is won.

Praise is like ambergrease: a little whiff of it, and by snatches, is very agreeable; but when a man holds a whole lump of it to your nose, it is a stink, and strikes you down.

If I am right, Thy grace impart Still in the right to stay; If I am wrong, O, teach my heart To find that better way!

So man, who here seems principal alone, Perhaps acts second to some sphere unknown Touches some wheel, or verges to some goal; 'Tis but a part we see, and not a whole.

If faith itself has different dresses worn, What wonder modes in wit should take their turn?

Thus God and nature linked the gen'ral frame, And bade self-love and social be the same.

Giving advice is many times only the privilege of saying a foolish thing one's self, under the pretense of hindering another from doing one.

The Dying Christian to His Soul (1712) -Vital spark of heav'nly flame! Quit, oh quit, this mortal frame: Trembling, hoping, ling'ring, flying, Oh the pain, the bliss of dying! Stanza 1.

Oh, blindness to the future! kindly giv'n, That each may fill the circle mark'd by heaven.

No more was seen the human form divine.

I am satisfied to trifle away my time, rather than let it stick by me.

Still when the lust of tyrant power succeeds, some Athens perishes, or some Tully bleeds.

Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.

Who taught that heaven-directed spire to rise?

Tis all in vain to keep a constant pother About one vice and fall into another.

Though triumphs were to generals only due, crowns were reserved to grace the soldiers too.

What nothing earthly gives, or can destroy, The soul's calm sunshine, and the heart-felt joy, Is virtue's prize.

The learned is happy, nature to explore; The fool is happy, that he knows no more.

The zeal of fools offends at any time.

For when success a lover's toil attends,Few ask, if fraud or force attain'd his ends

There are certain times when most people are in a disposition of being informed, and 'tis incredible what a vast good a little truth might do, spoken in such seasons.

A gen'rous heart repairs a sland'rous tongue.

The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed today, Had he thy reason, would he skip and play? Pleas'd to the last he crops the flow'ry food, And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood.

Man never thinks himself happy, but when he enjoys those things which others want or desire.