Top 15 James Beattie Quotes

Ah! when shall it dawn on the night of the grave!

'Tis night, and the landscape is lovely no more; I mourn, but you woodlands I mourn not for you! For spring is returning your charms to restore, Perfumed with fresh fragrance and glittering with dew. Nor yet for the ravage of winter I mourn, Kind nature the embryo blossom shall save; But when shall spring visit the mouldering urn?

And beauty immortal awakes from the tomb.

By the glare of false science betray’d,
That leads to bewilder, and dazzles to blind.

But when shall spring visit the mouldering urn?
Oh when shall it dawn on the night of the grave?

He thought as a sage, though he felt as a man.

At the close of the day when the hamlet is still,
And mortals the sweets of forgetfulness prove,
When naught but the torrent is heard on the hill,
And naught but the nightingale’s song in the grove.

Mine be the breezy hill that skirts the down,
Where a green grassy turf is all I crave,
With here and there a violet bestrewn,
Fast by a brook or fountain’s murmuring wave;
And many an evening sun shine sweetly on my grave!

To the pure soul by Fancy's fire refined,
Ah, what is mirth but turbulence unholy,
When with the charm compared of heavenly melancholy.

Old age comes on apace to ravage all the clime.

Zealous, yet modest; innocent, though free;
Patient of toil, serene amidst alarms;
Inflexible in faith, invincible in arms.

Wilt thou debase the heart which God refined?
No; let thy heaven-taught soul to heaven aspire,
To fancy, freedom, harmony, resigned;
Ambition's groveling crew forever left behind.

Though richest hues the peacock's plumes adorn,
Yet horror screams from his discordant throat.
Rise, sons of harmony, and hail the morn,
While warbling larks on russet pinions float;
Or seek at noon the woodland scene remote,
Where the gray linnets carol from the hill:
O let them ne'er, with artificial note,
To please a tyrant, strain the little bill,
But sing what heaven inspires, and wander where they will.

Ah, who can tell how hard it is to climb
The steep where Fame’s proud temple shines afar?

What is a law, if those who make it
Become the forwardest to break it?