Over 40,000 Famous Quotes Sorted By Topic and Author

Sweet April-time--O cruel April-time! Year after year returning, with a brow Of promise, and red lips with longing paled, And backward-hidden hands that clutch the joys Of vanished springs, like flowers.

Autumn Into earth's lap does throw Brown apples gay in a game of play, As the equinoctials blow.

A slender young Blackbird built in a thorn-tree: A spruce little fellow as ever could be; His bill was so yellow, his feathers so black, So long was his tail, and so glossy his back, That good Mrs. B., who sat hatching her eggs, And only just left them to stretch her poor legs, And pick for a minute the worm she preferred, Thought there never was seen such a beautiful bird.

The buttercups across the field Made sunshine rifts of splendor.

Sing away, ay, sing away, Merry little bird Always gayest of the gay, Though a woodland roundelay You ne'er sung not heard; Though your life from youth to age Passes is a narrow cage.

God rest ye, little children; let nothing you affright, For Jesus Christ, your Saviour, was born this happy night; Along the hills of Galilee the white flocks sleeping lay, When Christ, the Child of Nazareth, was born on Christmas Day.

The irrevocable Hand That opes the year's fair gate, doth ope and shut The portals of our earthly destinies; We walk through blindfold, and the noiseless doors Close after us, forever.

O how grandly cometh Even, Sitting on the mountain summit, Purple-vestured, grave, and silent, Watching o'er the dewy valleys, Like a good king near his end.

With faces like dead lovers who died true.

Forgotten? No, we never do forget: We let the years go; wash them clean with tears, Leave them to bleach out in the open day, Or lock them careful by, like dead friends' clothes, Till we shall dare unfold them without pain,-- But we forget not, never can forget.

I said to the sky-poised Lark: "Hark--hark! Thy note is more loud and free Because there lies safe for thee A little nest on the ground."

O, the mulberry-tree is of trees the queen! Bare long after the rest are green; But as the time steals onwards, while none perceives Slowly she clothes herself with leaves-- Hides her fruit under them, hard to find. . . . . But by and by, when the flowers grow few And the fruits are dwindling and small to view-- Out she comes in her matron grace With the purple myriads of her race; Full of plenty from root to crown, Showering plenty her feet adown. While far over head hang gorgeously Large luscious berries of sanguine dye, For the best grows highest, always highest, Upon the mulberry-tree.

I said to the Nightingale: "Hail, all hail! Pierce with thy trill the dark, Like a glittering music-spark, When the earth grows pale and dumb."

Those Rooks, dear, from morning till night, They seem to do nothing but quarrel and fight, And wrangle and jangle, and plunder. - Dinah Maria Mulock ,

Autumn to winter, winter into spring, Spring into summer, summer into fall,-- So rolls the changing year, and so we change; Motion so swift, we know not that we move.

A secret at home is like rocks under tide.

I said to the brown, brown thrush: "Hush, hush! Through the wood's full strains I hear Thy monotone deep and clear, Like a sound amid sounds most fine."

To-morrow is, ah, whose?

I took the wren's nest;-- Heaven forgive me! Its merry architects so small Had scarcely finished their wee hall, That empty still, and nest and fair, Hung idly in the summer air.