165 Quotes by Thomas Gray

How low, how little are the proud, How indigent the great!

T'was Spring, t'was Summer, all was gay Now Autumn bears a cloud brow The flowers of Spring are swept way And Summer fruits desert the bough

The different steps and degrees of education may be compared to the artificer's operations upon marble; it is one thing to dig it out of the quarry, and another to square it, to give it gloss and lustre, call forth every beautiful spot and vein, shape it into a column, or animate it into a statue.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene The dark unfathom’d caves of ocean bear: Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

The different steps and degrees of education may be compared to the artificer’s operations upon marble; it is one thing to dig it out of the quarry, and another to square it, to give it gloss and lustre, call forth every beautiful spot and vein, shape it into a column, or animate it into a statue.

From toil he wins his spirits light, From busy day the peaceful night; Rich, from the very want of wealth, In heaven’s best treasures, peace and health.

Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife Their sober wishes never learn’d to stray; Along the cool sequester’d vale of life They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

Here rests his head upon the lap of earth, A youth to fortune and to fame unknown: Fair Science frown’d not on his humble birth, And Melancholy mark’d him for her own.

Bright-eyed Fancy, hov’ring o’er, Scatters from her pictured urn Thoughts that breathe and words that burn.