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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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How poor, how rich, how abject, how august, How complicate, how wonderful, is man!... Midway from nothing to the Deity!
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Death joins us to the great majority.
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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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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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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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Men are but men; we did not make ourselves.
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Death! great proprietor of all! 'tis thine To tread out empire, and to quench the stars.
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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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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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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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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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What is a miracle?--'Tis a reproach, 'Tis an implicit satire on mankind; And while it satisfies, it censures too.
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Live now; be damn'd hereafter.
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Can eternity belong to me, Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour?
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High stations tumult, but not bliss create; None think the Great unhappy, but the Great.
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He rams his quill with scandal and with scoff, But 'tis so very foul, it won't go off.
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To Virtue's humblest son let none prefer Vice, tho' descended from the Conqueror.
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Yet man, fool man! here buries all his thoughts; Inters celestial hopes without one sigh. Prisoner of earth, and pent beneath the moon, Here pinions all his wishes.