Age, that lessens the enjoyment of life, increases our desire of living
You, that are going to be married, think things can never be done too fast: but we that are old, and know what we are about, must elope methodically, madam.
Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain.
Her modest looks the cottage might adorn, Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn.
To aim at excellence, our reputation, and friends, and all must be ventured; to aim at the average we run no risk and provide little service.
The youth who follows his appetites too soon seizes the cup, before it has received its best ingredients, and by anticipating his pleasures, robs the remaining parts of life of their share, so that his eagerness only produces manhood of imbecility and an age of pain.
Is it that Nature, attentive to the preservation of mankind, increases our wishes to live, while she lessens our enjoyments, and as she robs the senses of every pleasure, equips imag-ination in the spoil?
In a polite age almost every person becomes a reader, and receives more instruction from the Press than the Pulpit.
One writer, for instance, excels at a plan or a title page, another works away at the body of the book, and a third is a dab at an index.
How blest is he who crowns in shades like these A youth of labour with an age of ease!
The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade, For talking age and whispering lovers made.
Where village statesmen talked with looks profound, / And news much older than their ale went round.
Who can direct when all pretend to know?
How happy he who crowns in shades like these, / A youth of labour with an age of ease.