Charles Churchill Quotes

Genius is of no country.

Nature listening stood, whilst Shakespeare play'd And wonder'd at the work herself had made.

Weak is that throne, and in itself unsound, Which takes not solid virtue for its ground.

A joke's a very serious thing.

The surest way to health, say what they will, Is never to suppose we shall be ill; Most of the ills which we poor mortals know From doctors and imagination flow.

Keep up appearances; there lies the test. The world will give thee credit for the rest.

The villager, born humbly and bred hard, Content his wealth, and poverty his guard, In action simply just, in conscience clear, By guilt untainted, undisturb'd by fear, His means but scanty, and his wants but few, Labor his business, and his pleasure too, Enjoys more comforts in a single hour Than ages give the wretch condemn'd to power.

The rigid saint, by whom no mercy's shown To saints whose lives are better than his own.

By different methods different men excel, but where is he who can do all things well?

In the first seat, in robe of various dyes, A noble wildness flashing from his eyes, Sat Shakespeare: in one hand a wand he bore, For mighty wonders fam'd in days of yore: The other held a globe, which to his will Obedient turn'd, and own'd the master's skill: Things of the noblest kind his genius drew, And look'd through nature at a single view: A loose he gave to his unbounded soul, And taught new lands to rise, new seas to roll; Call'd into being scenes unknown before, And passing nature's bounds, was something more.

What is this world?--A term which men have got, To signify not one in ten knows what; A term, which with no more precision passes To point out herds of men than herds of asses; In common use no more it means, we find, Than many fools in same opinions joined.

Fame is nothing but an empty name.

Old Age, a second child, by nature curst With more and greater evils than the first, Weak, sickly, full of pains: in ev'ry breath Railing at life, and yet afraid of death.

With curious art the brain, too finely wrought, Preys on herself, and is destroyed by thought.

The laws I love; the lawyers I suspect.

If you mean to profit, learn to praise.

Most of those evils we poor mortals know From doctors and imagination flow.

On the four aces doom'd to roll.

England a fortune-telling host, As num'rous as the stars, could boast; Matrons, who toss the cup, and see The grounds of Fate in grounds of tea.

The proud will sooner lose than ask their way.

And reputation bleeds in ev'ry word.

Man and wife, Coupled together for the sake of strife.

To copy faults is want of sense.

Though by whim, envy, or resentment led, they damn those authors whom they never read.

There's a strange something, which without a brain Fools feel, and which e'en wise men can't explain, Planted in man, to bind him to that earth, In dearest ties, from whence he drew his birth.