Such an act

That blurs the grace and blush of modesty.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 4.

Thus all below is strength, and all above is grace.

John Dryden (1631-1701): Epistle to Congreve. Line 19.

Such an act

That blurs the grace and blush of modesty.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 4.

'Cause grace and virtue are within

Prohibited degrees of kin;

And therefore no true saint allows

They shall be suffer'd to espouse.

Samuel Butler (1600-1680): Hudibras. Part iii. Canto i. Line 1293.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be;

For loan oft loses both itself and friend,

And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.

This above all: to thine own self be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 3.

From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part,

And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Essay on Criticism. Part i. Line 152.

Stately and tall he moves in the hall,

The chief of a thousand for grace.

Kate Franklin: Life at Olympus, Lady's Book, Vol. xxiii. p. 33.

O fair undress, best dress! it checks no vein,

But every flowing limb in pleasure drowns,

And heightens ease with grace.

James Thomson (1700-1748): The Castle of Indolence. Canto i. Stanza 26.

I care not, Fortune, what you me deny:

You cannot rob me of free Nature's grace,

You cannot shut the windows of the sky

Through which Aurora shows her brightening face;

You cannot bar my constant feet to trace

The woods and lawns, by living stream, at eve:

Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace,

And I their toys to the great children leave:

Of fancy, reason, virtue, naught can me bereave.

James Thomson (1700-1748): The Castle of Indolence. Canto ii. Stanza 3.

No ceremony that to great ones 'longs,

Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword,

The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe,

Become them with one half so good a grace

As mercy does.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Measure for Measure. Act ii. Sc. 2.

Get place and wealth, if possible, with grace;

If not, by any means get wealth and place.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Satires, Epistles, and Odes of Horace. Epistle i. Book i. Line 103.

Bring me to the test,

And I the matter will re-word; which madness

Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,

Lay not that flattering unction to your soul.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 4.

Elysian beauty, melancholy grace,

Brought from a pensive though a happy place.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): Laodamia.

Oh, could you view the melody

Of every grace

And music of her face,

You 'd drop a tear;

Seeing more harmony

In her bright eye

Than now you hear.

Richard Lovelace (1618-1658): Orpheus to Beasts.

O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies

In herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities:

For nought so vile that on the earth doth live

But to the earth some special good doth give,

Nor aught so good but strain'd from that fair use

Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse:

Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied;

And vice sometimes by action dignified.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Romeo and Juliet. Act ii. Sc. 3.

Who God doth late and early pray

More of his grace than gifts to lend;

And entertains the harmless day

With a religious book or friend.

Sir Henry Wotton (1568-1639): The Character of a Happy Life.

Her father loved me; oft invited me;

Still question'd me the story of my life,

From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes,

That I have passed.

I ran it through, even from my boyish days,

To the very moment that he bade me tell it:

Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances,

Of moving accidents by flood and field,

Of hair-breadth 'scapes i' the imminent deadly breach,

Of being taken by the insolent foe

And sold to slavery, of my redemption thence

And portance in my travels' history;

Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle,

Rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touch heaven,

It was my hint to speak,—such was the process;

And of the Cannibals that each other eat,

The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads

Do grow beneath their shoulders. This to hear

Would Desdemona seriously incline.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Othello. Act i. Sc. 3.

Was never eie did see that face,

Was never eare did heare that tong,

Was never minde did minde his grace,

That ever thought the travell long;

But eies and eares and ev'ry thought

Were with his sweete perfections caught.

Mathew Roydon (Circa 1586): An Elegie; or Friend's Passion for his Astrophill.

But the tender grace of a day that is dead

Will never come back to me.

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): Break, break, break.

And ne'er did Grecian chisel trace

A Nymph, a Naiad, or a Grace

Of finer form or lovelier face.

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832): Lady of the Lake. Canto i. Stanza 18.

Who hath not own'd, with rapture-smitten frame,

The power of grace, the magic of a name?

Thomas Campbell (1777-1844): Pleasures of Hope. Part ii. Line 5.

O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies

In herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities:

For nought so vile that on the earth doth live

But to the earth some special good doth give,

Nor aught so good but strain'd from that fair use

Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse:

Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied;

And vice sometimes by action dignified.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Romeo and Juliet. Act ii. Sc. 3.

The light of love, the purity of grace,

The mind, the music breathing from her face,

The heart whose softness harmonized the whole,—

And oh, that eye was in itself a soul!

Lord Byron 1788-1824: The Bride of Abydos. Canto i. Stanza 6.

From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part,

And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Essay on Criticism. Part i. Line 152.

Not what we wish, but what we want,

Oh, let thy grace supply!

James Merrick (1720-1769): Hymn.

Vows with so much passion, swears with so much grace,

That 't is a kind of heaven to be deluded by him.

Nathaniel Lee (1655-1692): Alexander the Great. Act i. Sc. 3.

A sweet attractive kinde of grace,

A full assurance given by lookes,

Continuall comfort in a face

The lineaments of Gospell bookes.

Mathew Roydon (Circa 1586): An Elegie; or Friend's Passion for his Astrophill.

For contemplation he and valour form'd,

For softness she and sweet attractive grace;

He for God only, she for God in him.

His fair large front and eye sublime declar'd

Absolute rule; and hyacinthine locks

Round from his parted forelock manly hung

Clustering, but not beneath his shoulders broad.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 297.

But the tender grace of a day that is dead

Will never come back to me.

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): Break, break, break.

Give me a look, give me a face,

That makes simplicity a grace;

Robes loosely flowing, hair as free,—

Such sweet neglect more taketh me

Than all the adulteries of art:

They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.

Ben Jonson (1573-1637): Epicoene; Or, the Silent Woman. Act i. Sc. 1.

And grace that won who saw to wish her stay.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book viii. Line 43.

Born for success he seemed,

With grace to win, with heart to hold,

With shining gifts that took all eyes.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882): In Memoriam.

Grace was in all her steps, heaven in her eye,

In every gesture dignity and love.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book viii. Line 488.

Look here, upon this picture, and on this,

The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.

See, what a grace was seated on this brow:

Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself;

An eye like Mars, to threaten and command;

A station like the herald Mercury

New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill,—

A combination and a form indeed,

Where every god did seem to set his seal,

To give the world assurance of a man.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 4.