Your absence of mind we have borne, till your presence
of body came to be called in question by it.
Charles Lamb (1775-1834): Amicus Redivivus.
Appearances to the mind are of four kinds. Things
either are what they appear to be; or they neither are,
nor appear to be; or they are, and do not appear to be;
or they are not, and yet appear to be. Rightly to aim
in all these cases is the wise man's task.
Epictetus (Circa 60 a d): Discourses. Chap. xxvii.
There is in souls a sympathy with sounds;
And as the mind is pitch'd the ear is pleased.
With melting airs or martial, brisk or grave;
Some chord in unison with what we hear
Is touch'd within us, and the heart replies.
How soft the music of those village bells
Falling at intervals upon the ear
In cadence sweet!
William Cowper (1731-1800): The Task. Book vi. Winter Walk at Noon. Line 1.
Discourse, the sweeter banquet of the mind.
Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Odyssey of Homer. Book xv. Line 433.
Be ye all of one mind.
New Testament: 1 Peter iii. 8.
Gentle of speech, beneficent of mind.
Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Odyssey of Homer. Book iv. Line 917.
I, thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated
To closeness and the bettering of my mind.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Tempest. Act i. Sc. 2.
A faultless body and a blameless mind.
Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Odyssey of Homer. Book iii. Line 138.
Vain, very vain, my weary search to find
That bliss which only centres in the mind.
Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774): The Traveller. Line 423.
Some write their wrongs in marble: he more just,
Stoop'd down serene and wrote them in the dust,—
Trod under foot, the sport of every wind,
Swept from the earth and blotted from his mind.
There, secret in the grave, he bade them lie,
And grieved they could not 'scape the Almighty eye.
Samuel Madden (1687-1765): Boulter's Monument.
Afflicted, or distressed, in mind, body, or estate.
Book Of Common Prayer: Prayer for all Conditions of Men.
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.
Clothed, and in his right mind.
New Testament: Mark v. 15; Luke viii. 35.
And bear unmov'd the wrongs of base mankind,
The last and hardest conquest of the mind.
Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Odyssey of Homer. Book xiii. Line 353.
The mind, conscious of rectitude, laughed to scorn the
falsehood of report.
Ovid (43 b c-18 a d): Fasti. iv. 311.
Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight? or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act ii. Sc. 1.
Compound for sins they are inclined to,
By damning those they have no mind to.
Samuel Butler (1600-1680): Hudibras. Part i. Canto i. Line 215.
It [Poesy] was ever thought to have some participation
of divineness, because it doth raise and erect the
mind by submitting the shews of things to the desires
of the mind.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Advancement of Learning. Book ii.
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.
Doct. Not so sick, my lord,
As she is troubled with thick-coming fancies,
That keep her from her rest.
Macb. Cure her of that.
Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas'd,
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
Raze out the written troubles of the brain,
And with some sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart?
Doct. Therein the patient
Must minister to himself.
Macb. Throw physic to the dogs: I 'll none of it.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act v. Sc. 3.
'T is education forms the common mind:
Just as the twig is bent the tree's inclined.
Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Moral Essays. Epistle i. Line 149.
I have not the Chancellor's encyclopedic mind. He is
indeed a kind of semi-Solomon. He half knows everything,
from the cedar to the hyssop.
Thomas B Macaulay (1800-1859): Letter to Macvey Napier, Dec. 17, 1830.
In lazy apathy let stoics boast
Their virtue fix'd: 't is fix'd as in a frost;
Contracted all, retiring to the breast;
But strength of mind is exercise, not rest.
Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Essay on Man. Epistle ii. Line 101.
O, now, for ever
Farewell the tranquil mind! farewell content!
Farewell the plumed troop and the big wars
That make ambition virtue! O, farewell!
Farewell the neighing steed and the shrill trump,
The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife,
The royal banner, and all quality,
Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war!
And, O you mortal engines, whose rude throats
The immortal Jove's dread clamours counterfeit,
Farewell! Othello's occupation's gone!
William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Othello. Act iii. Sc. 3.
Years steal
Fire from the mind as vigour from the limb,
And life's enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim.
Lord Byron 1788-1824: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 8.
The glory of a firm, capacious mind.
Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Odyssey of Homer. Book iv. Line 262.
How fleet is a glance of the mind!
Compared with the speed of its flight
The tempest itself lags behind,
And the swift-winged, arrows of light.
William Cowper (1731-1800): Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk.
My mind to me a kingdom is;
Such present joys therein I find,
That it excels all other bliss
That earth affords or grows by kind:
Though much I want which most would have,
Yet still my mind forbids to crave.
Edward Dyer (Circa 1540-1607): MS. Rawl. 85, p. 17.
Cease, every joy, to glimmer on my mind,
But leave, oh leave the light of Hope behind!
What though my winged hours of bliss have been
Like angel visits, few and far between.
Thomas Campbell (1777-1844): Pleasures of Hope. Part ii. Line 375.
Mens regnum bona possidet (A good mind possesses a kingdom).—Seneca:
Thyestes, ii. 380.
Though man a thinking being is defined,
Few use the grand prerogative of mind.
How few think justly of the thinking few!
How many never think, who think they do!
Jane Taylor (1783-1824): Essays in Rhyme. (On Morals and Manners. Prejudice.) Essay i. Stanza 45.
A grateful mind
By owing owes not, but still pays, at once
Indebted and discharg'd.
John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 55.
I have heard of reasons manifold
Why Love must needs be blind,
But this the best of all I hold,—
His eyes are in his mind.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834): To a Lady, Offended by a Sportive Observation.
When beauty fires the blood, how love exalts the mind!
John Dryden (1631-1701): Cymon and Iphigenia. Line 41.
'T is true, 't is certain; man though dead retains
Part of himself: the immortal mind remains.
Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Iliad of Homer. Book xxiii. Line 122.
Babylon in all its desolation is a sight not so awful as
that of the human mind in ruins.
Scrope Davies: Letter to Thomas Raikes, May 25, 1835.
Unbounded courage and compassion join'd,
Tempering each other in the victor's mind,
Alternately proclaim him good and great,
And make the hero and the man complete.
Joseph Addison (1672-1719): The Campaign. Line 219.
Oh woman, woman! when to ill thy mind
Is bent, all hell contains no fouler fiend.
Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Odyssey of Homer. Book xi. Line 531.
I am going a long way
With these thou seëst—if indeed I go
(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt)—
To the island-valley of Avilion,
Where falls not hail or rain or any snow,
Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies
Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard lawns
And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea,
Where I will heal me of my grievous wound.
Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): The Passing of Arthur.
As Meander says, "For our mind is God;" and as
Heraclitus, "Man's genius is a deity."
Plutarch (46(?)-120(?) a d): Platonic Questions. i.
A mind not to be chang'd by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.
John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 253.
There is in souls a sympathy with sounds;
And as the mind is pitch'd the ear is pleased.
With melting airs or martial, brisk or grave;
Some chord in unison with what we hear
Is touch'd within us, and the heart replies.
How soft the music of those village bells
Falling at intervals upon the ear
In cadence sweet!
William Cowper (1731-1800): The Task. Book vi. Winter Walk at Noon. Line 1.
I do not distinguish by the eye, but by the mind, which
is the proper judge of the man.
Seneca (8 b c-65 a d): On a Happy Life. 2. (L' Estrange's Abstract, Chap. i.)
Mind is the great lever of all things; human thought
is the process by which human ends are ultimately answered.
Daniel Webster (1782-1852): Address on laying the Corner-Stone of the Bunker Hill Monument, 1825. Vol. i. p. 71.
When you wander, as you often delight to do, you
wander indeed, and give never such satisfaction as the
curious time requires. This is not caused by any natural
defect, but first for want of election, when you, having
a large and fruitful mind, should not so much labour
what to speak as to find what to leave unspoken. Rich
soils are often to be weeded.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Letter of Expostulation to Coke.
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise
(That last infirmity of noble mind)
To scorn delights, and live laborious days;
But the fair guerdon when we hope to find,
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
Comes the blind Fury with th' abhorred shears
And slits the thin-spun life.
John Milton (1608-1674): Lycidas. Line 70.
The watch-dog's voice that bay'd the whispering wind,
And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind.
Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774): The Deserted Village. Line 121.
The keenest pangs the wretched find
Are rapture to the dreary void,
The leafless desert of the mind,
The waste of feelings unemployed.
Lord Byron 1788-1824: The Giaour. Line 957.
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616): A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Sc. 1.
The power of thought,—the magic of the mind!
Lord Byron 1788-1824: The Corsair. Canto i. Stanza 8.
It is the mind that makes the man, and our vigour is in our immortal
soul.—Ovid: Metamorphoses, xiii.
Thou has left behind
Powers that will work for thee,—air, earth, and skies!
There's not a breathing of the common wind
That will forget thee; thou hast great allies;
Thy friends are exultations, agonies,
And love, and man's unconquerable mind.
William Wordsworth (1770-1850): To Toussaint L' Ouverture.
Where the statue stood
Of Newton, with his prism and silent face,
The marble index of a mind forever
Voyaging through strange seas of thought alone.
William Wordsworth (1770-1850): The Prelude. Book iii.
The march of the human mind is slow.
Edmund Burke (1729-1797): Speech on the Conciliation of America. Vol. ii. p. 149.
Such graves as his are pilgrim shrines,
Shrines to no code or creed confined,—
The Delphian vales, the Palestines,
The Meccas of the mind.
Alfred Bunn (1790-1860): Burns.
Men to be of one mind in an house.
Book Of Common Prayer: The Psalter. Psalm lxviii. 6.
The mildest manners with the bravest mind.
Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Iliad of Homer. Book xxiv. Line 963.
Of all the causes which conspire to blind
Man's erring judgment, and misguide the mind;
What the weak head with strongest bias rules,—
Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools.
Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Essay on Criticism. Part ii. Line 1.
That darksome cave they enter, where they find
That cursed man, low sitting on the ground,
Musing full sadly in his sullein mind.
Edmund Spenser (1553-1599): Faerie Queene. Book i. Canto ix. St. 35.
Who, born for the universe, narrow'd his mind,
And to party gave up what was meant for mankind;
Though fraught with all learning, yet straining his throat
To persuade Tommy Townshend to lend him a vote.
Who too deep for his hearers still went on refining,
And thought of convincing while they thought of dining:
Though equal to all things, for all things unfit;
Too nice for a statesman, too proud for a wit.
Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774): Retaliation. Line 31.
O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!
The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's eye, tongue, sword.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 1.
The devil hath power
To assume a pleasing shape.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act ii. Sc. 2.
The noblest mind the best contentment has.
Edmund Spenser (1553-1599): Faerie Queene. Book i. Canto i. St. 35.
Not body enough to cover his mind decently with; his
intellect is improperly exposed.
Sydney Smith (1769-1845): Lady Holland's Memoir. Vol. i. p. 258.
A mind not to be chang'd by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.
John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 253.
Let not thy mind run on what thou lackest as much
as on what thou hast already.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180 a d): Meditations. vii. 27.
The earth was made so various, that the mind
Of desultory man, studious of change
And pleased with novelty, might be indulged.
William Cowper (1731-1800): The Task. Book i. The Sofa. Line 506.
A sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man,—
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.
William Wordsworth (1770-1850): Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey.
Wine is wont to show the mind of man.
Theognis (570(?)-490(?) b c): Maxims. Line 500.
Men to be of one mind in an house.
Book Of Common Prayer: The Psalter. Psalm lxviii. 6.
Where gripinge grefes the hart wounde,
And dolefulle dumps the mynde oppresse,
There music with her silver sound
With spede is wont to send redresse.
Thomas Percy (1728-1811): A Song to the Lute in Musicke.
I saw Othello's visage in his mind.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Othello. Act i. Sc. 3.
And when he is out of sight, quickly also is he out of
mind.
Thomas à Kempis (1380-1471): Imitation of Christ. Book i. Chap. 23.
And out of mind as soon as out of sight.
Lord Brooke (1554-1628): Sonnet lvi.
The flash and outbreak of a fiery mind,
A savageness in unreclaimed blood.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act ii. Sc. 1.
The pen is the tongue of the mind.
Miguel De Cervantes (1547-1616): Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. xvi.
Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.
New Testament: Romans xiv. 5.
A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism,
but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to
religion.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Of Atheism.
For pity melts the mind to love.
John Dryden (1631-1701): Alexander's Feast. Line 96.
Their cause I plead,—plead it in heart and mind;
A fellow-feeling makes one wondrous kind.
David Garrick (1716-1779): Prologue on Quitting the Stage in 1776.
Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the
ability to investigate systematically and truly all that
comes under thy observation in life.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180 a d): Meditations. iii. 11.
Absence of occupation is not rest,
A mind quite vacant is a mind distress'd.
William Cowper (1731-1800): Retirement. Line 623.
It [Poesy] was ever thought to have some participation
of divineness, because it doth raise and erect the
mind by submitting the shews of things to the desires
of the mind.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Advancement of Learning. Book ii.
Anacharsis said a man's felicity consists not in the
outward and visible favours and blessings of Fortune,
but in the inward and unseen perfections and riches of
the mind.
Plutarch (46(?)-120(?) a d): The Banquet of the Seven Wise Men. 11.
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.
William Wordsworth (1770-1850): Lines written in Early Spring.
Give me, kind Heaven, a private station,
A mind serene for contemplation:
Title and profit I resign;
The post of honour shall be mine.
John Gay (1688-1732): Fables. Part ii. The Vulture, the Sparrow, and other Birds.
That though on pleasure she was bent,
She had a frugal mind.
William Cowper (1731-1800): History of John Gilpin.
Were I so tall to reach the pole,
Or grasp the ocean with my span,
I must be measured by my soul:
The mind's the standard of the man.
Isaac Watts (1674-1748): Horae Lyricae. Book ii. False Greatness.
There is no better ballast for keeping the mind steady
on its keel, and saving it from all risk of crankiness,
than business.
James Russell Lowell (1819-1891): Among my Books. First Series. New England Two Centuries ago.
The true, strong, and sound mind is the mind that can
embrace equally great things and small.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784): Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. vii. Chap. vi. 1778.
Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind;
The thief doth fear each bush an officer.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry VI. Part III. Act v. Sc. 6.
Where Nature's end of language is declin'd,
And men talk only to conceal the mind.
Edward Young (1684-1765): Love of Fame. Satire ii. Line 207.
To the solid ground
Of Nature trusts the mind that builds for aye.
William Wordsworth (1770-1850): A Volant Tribe of Bards on Earth.
It is the mind that makes the man, and our vigour is
in our immortal soul.
Ovid (43 b c-18 a d): Metamorphoses. xiii.
'T is strange the mind, that very fiery particle,
Should let itself be snuff'd out by an article.
Lord Byron 1788-1824: Don Juan. Canto xi. Stanza 59.
In years that bring the philosophic mind.
William Wordsworth (1770-1850): Ode. Intimations of Immortality. Stanza 10.
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Romeo and Juliet. Act i. Sc. 4.
Remember that to change thy mind and to follow him
that sets thee right, is to be none the less the free agent
that thou wast before.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180 a d): Meditations. viii. 16.
Cease, every joy, to glimmer on my mind,
But leave, oh leave the light of Hope behind!
What though my winged hours of bliss have been
Like angel visits, few and far between.
Thomas Campbell (1777-1844): Pleasures of Hope. Part ii. Line 375.
My mind to me a kingdom is;
Such present joys therein I find,
That it excels all other bliss
That earth affords or grows by kind:
Though much I want which most would have,
Yet still my mind forbids to crave.
Edward Dyer (Circa 1540-1607): MS. Rawl. 85, p. 17.
My mind to me an empire is,
While grace affordeth health.
Robert Southwell (1560-1595): Loo Home.
True love's the gift which God has given
To man alone beneath the heaven:
It is not fantasy's hot fire,
Whose wishes soon as granted fly;
It liveth not in fierce desire,
With dead desire it doth not die;
It is the secret sympathy,
The silver link, the silken tie,
Which heart to heart and mind to mind
In body and in soul can bind.
Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832): Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto v. Stanza 13.
Better be with the dead,
Whom we, to gain our peace, have sent to peace,
Than on the torture of the mind to lie
In restless ecstasy. Duncan is in his grave;
After life's fitful fever he sleeps well:
Treason has done his worst; nor steel, nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,
Can touch him further.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Her track, where'er the goddess roves,
Glory pursue, and gen'rous shame,
Th' unconquerable mind, and freedom's holy flame.
Thomas Gray (1716-1771): The Progress of Poesy. II. 2, Line 10.
Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor'd mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;
His soul proud Science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk or milky way.
Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Essay on Man. Epistle i. Line 99.
Who with a body filled and vacant mind
Gets him to rest, crammed with distressful bread.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry V. Act iv. Sc. 1.
Absence of occupation is not rest,
A mind quite vacant is a mind distress'd.
William Cowper (1731-1800): Retirement. Line 623.
By a tranquil mind I mean nothing else than a mind
well ordered.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180 a d): Meditations. iv. 3.
The sightless Milton, with his hair
Around his placid temples curled;
And Shakespeare at his side,—a freight,
If clay could think and mind were weight,
For him who bore the world!
William Wordsworth (1770-1850): The Italian Itinerant.
Oh that it were my chief delight
To do the things I ought!
Then let me try with all my might
To mind what I am taught.
Jane Taylor (1783-1824): For a Very Little Child.
What you are pleased to call your mind.
Whose little body lodg'd a mighty mind.
Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Iliad of Homer. Book v. Line 999.
Whose well-taught mind the present age surpast.
Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Odyssey of Homer. Book vii. Line 210.
