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Some wits, too, like oracles, deal in ambiguities, but not with equal success; for though ambiguities are the first excellence of an imposter, they are the last of a wit.
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A tardy vengeance shares the tyrant's guilt.
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On every thorn, delightful wisdom grows, In every rill a sweet instruction flows.
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Death joins us to the great majority.
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How poor, how rich, how abject, how august, How complicate, how wonderful, is man!... Midway from nothing to the Deity!
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Of all the documents that have come down from antiquity, Genesis three is the only one that explains how the world became sinful and evil.
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He that's ungrateful, has no guilt but one; All other crimes may pass for virtues in him.
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A prince indebted is a fortune made.
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Men are but men; we did not make ourselves.
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The bell strikes One. We take no note of time But from its loss. To give it then a tongue Is wise in man. As if an angel spoke, I feel the solemn sound. If heard aright, It is the knell of my departed hours.
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But love, like wine, gives a tumultuous bliss, Heighten'd indeed beyond all mortal pleasures; But mingles pangs and madness in the bowl.
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Death! great proprietor of all! 'tis thine To tread out empire, and to quench the stars.
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The clouds may drop down titles and estates, wealth may seek us; but wisdom must be sought.
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Pride, like hooded hawks, in darkness soars From blindness bold, and towering to the skies.
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If he provokes a war, his empire shakes, And all her lofty glories nod to ruin.
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At thirty a man suspects himself a fool; Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan; At fifty chides his infamous delay, Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve; In all the magnanimity of thought Resolves; and re-resolves; then dies the same.
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This is the bud of being, the dim dawn, The twilight of our day, the vestibule; Life's theatre as yet is shut, and death, Strong death, alone can heave the massy bar, This gross impediment of clay remove, And make us embryos of existence free.
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High stations tumult, but not bliss create; None think the Great unhappy, but the Great.
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What is a miracle?--'Tis a reproach, 'Tis an implicit satire on mankind; And while it satisfies, it censures too.
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Will toys amuse, when med'cines cannot cure? When spirits ebb, when life's enchanting scenes Their lustre lose, and lessen in our sight, As lands and cities, with their glittering spires, To the poor shatter'd bark by sudden storm Thrown off to sea, and soon to perish there? Will toys amuse? No: thrones will then be toys, And earth and skies seem dust upon the scale.
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Can eternity belong to me, Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour?
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Ocean into tempest wrought, To waft a feather, or to drown a fly.
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To Virtue's humblest son let none prefer Vice, tho' descended from the Conqueror.
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He rams his quill with scandal and with scoff, But 'tis so very foul, it won't go off.