Arthur Hugh Clough Quotes
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Say not the struggle nought availeth,The labour and the wounds are vain,The enemy faints not, nor faileth,And as things have been, things remain.
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There is a great Field-Marshal, my friend, who arrays our battalions;Let us to Providence trust, and abide and work in our stations.
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Grace is given of God, but knowledge is bought in the market;Knowledge needful for all, yet cannot be had for the asking.
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Our ills are worse than at their easeThese blameless happy souls suspect,They only study the disease,Alas, who live not to detect.
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Alas! the great world goes its way,And takes its truth from each new day;They do not quit, nor can retain,Far less consider it again.
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O tell me, friends, while yet we part,And heart can yet be heard of heart,O tell me then, for what is itOur early plan of life we quit;From all our old intentions range,And why does all so wholly change?O tell me, friends, while yet we part!
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’Twas on a sunny summer dayI trod a mighty city’s street,And when I started on my wayMy heart was full of fancies sweet;But soon, as nothing could be seen,But countenances sharp and keen,Nought heard or seen around but toldOf something bought or something sold,And none that seemed to think or careThat any save himself was there.
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'There is no God,' the wicked saith,'And truly it’s a blessing,For what He might have done with usIt’s better only guessing.'
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Trust me, I’ve read your German sageTo far more purpose e’er than you did;You find it in his wisest page,Whom God deludes is well deluded.
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Each for himself is still the ruleWe learn it when we go to school-The devil take the hindmost, O!
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Come back again, old heart! Ah me!Methinks in those thy coward fearsThere might, perchance, a courage be,That fails in these the manlier years;Courage to let the courage sink,Itself a coward base to think,Rather than not for heavenly lightWait on to show the truly right.
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Where lies the land to which the ship would go?Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know.And where the land she travels from? Away,Far, far behind, is all that they can say.
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Hope conquers cowardice, joy grief;Or at least, faith unbelief.
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Truth is a golden thread, seen here and thereIn small bright specks upon the visible sideOf our strange being’s party-coloured web.
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Thou shalt not covet, but traditionApproves all forms of competition.
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A world where nothing is had for nothing.
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For while the tired waves vainly breakingSeem here no painful inch to gain,Far back, through creeks and inlets making,Comes silent, flooding in, the main.
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Dance on, dance on, we see, we seeYouth goes, alack, and with it glee,A boy the old man ne’er can be;Maternal thirty scarce can findThe sweet sixteen long left behind.
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As ships becalmed at eve, that layWith canvas drooping, side by side,Two towers of sail, at dawn of dayAre scarce, long leagues apart, descried.
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Thy duty do? rejoined the voice,Ah, do it, do it, and rejoice;But shalt thou then, when all is done,Enjoy a love, embrace a beautyLike these, that may be seen and wonIn life, whose course will then be run;Or wilt thou be where there is none?I know not, I will do my duty.
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I sit at my table en grand seigneur,And when I have done, throw a crust to the poor;Not only the pleasure, one’s self, of good living,But also the pleasure of now and then giving.So pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho!So pleasant it is to have money.
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Put forth thy leaf, thou lofty plane,East wind and frost are safely gone;With zephyr mild and balmy rainThe summer comes serenely on;Earth, air, and sun and skies combineTo promise all that’s kind and fair:-But thou, O human heart of mine,Be still, contain thyself, and bear.
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So in the sinful streets, abstracted and alone,I with my secret self held communing of mine own.
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In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly,But westward, look, the land is bright.