A little rule, a little sway,

A sunbeam in a winter's day,

Is all the proud and mighty have

Between the cradle and the grave.

John Dyer (1700-1758): Grongar Hill. Line 88.

Oft has it been my lot to mark

A proud, conceited, talking spark.

James Merrick (1720-1769): The Chameleon.

She that was ever fair and never proud,

Had tongue at will, and yet was never loud.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Othello. Act ii. Sc. 1.

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.

I will instruct my sorrows to be proud;

For grief is proud, and makes his owner stoop.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King John. Act iii. Sc. 1.

Breathes there the man with soul so dead

Who never to himself hath said,

This is my own, my native land!

Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd

As home his footsteps he hath turn'd

From wandering on a foreign strand?

If such there breathe, go, mark him well!

For him no minstrel raptures swell;

High though his titles, proud his name,

Boundless his wealth as wish can claim,—

Despite those titles, power, and pelf,

The wretch, concentred all in self,

Living, shall forfeit fair renown,

And, doubly dying, shall go down

To the vile dust from whence he sprung,

Unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung.

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832): Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto vi. Stanza 1.

I will instruct my sorrows to be proud;

For grief is proud, and makes his owner stoop.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King John. Act iii. Sc. 1.

Knowledge is proud that he has learn'd so much;

Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.

Books are not seldom talismans and spells.

William Cowper (1731-1800): The Task. Book vi. Winter Walk at Noon. Line 96.

But man, proud man,

Drest in a little brief authority,

Most ignorant of what he's most assured,

His glassy essence, like an angry ape,

Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven

As make the angels weep.

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

To be, or not to be: that is the question:

Whether 't is nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep:

No more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heartache and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to,—'t is a consummation

Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;

To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub:

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause: there's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life;

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,

The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office and the spurns

That patient merit of the unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscover'd country from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprises of great pith and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry,

And lose the name of action.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 1.

Thank me no thanks, nor proud me no prouds.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Romeo and Juliet. Act iii. Sc. 5.

Earth laughs in flowers to see her boastful boys

Earth-proud, proud of the earth which is not theirs;

Who steer the plough, but cannot steer their feet

Clear of the grave.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882): Hamatreya.

Every cocke is proud on his owne dunghill.

John Heywood (Circa 1565): Proverbes. Part i. Chap. xi.

Triumphal arch, that fill'st the sky

When storms prepare to part,

I ask not proud Philosophy

To teach me what thou art.

Thomas Campbell (1777-1844): To the Rainbow.

Now night descending, the proud scene was o'er,

But lived in Settle's numbers one day more.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Dunciad. Book i. Line 89.

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.

Warwick, peace,

Proud setter up and puller down of kings!

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry VI. Part III. Act iii. Sc. 3.

How lov'd, how honour'd once avails thee not,

To whom related, or by whom begot;

A heap of dust alone remains of thee:

'T is all thou art, and all the proud shall be!

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): To the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady. Line 71.

Oh why should the spirit of mortal be proud?

Like a fast-flitting meteor, a fast-flying cloud,

A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,

He passes from life to his rest in the grave.

William Knox (1789-1825): Mortality.

When love could teach a monarch to be wise,

And gospel-light first dawn'd from Bullen's eyes.

Too poor for a bribe, and too proud to importune;

He had not the method of making a fortune.

Thomas Gray (1716-1771): On his own Character.

Fires the proud tops of the eastern pines.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Richard II. Act iii. Sc. 2.

Good bye, proud world! I'm going home;

Thou art not my friend, and I'm not thine.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882): Good Bye.

When proud-pied April, dress'd in all his trim,

Hath put a spirit of youth in everything.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Sonnet xcviii.