Philip James Bailey Quotations

Respect is what we owe; love, what we give.

Let each man think himself an act of God, His mind a thought, his life a breath of God; And let each try, by great thoughts and good deeds, To show the most of Heaven he hath in him.

Man is a military animal, glories in gunpowder, and loves parade.

Simplicity is natures first step, and the last of art.

Art is man's nature; nature is God's art.

There is no surer mark of the absence of the highest moral and intellectual qualities than a cold reception of excellence.

We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not figures on a dial. We should count time by heart throbs. He most lives who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.

Evil and good are God's right hand and left.

Prayer is the spirit speaking truth to Truth.

Envy's a coal comes hissing hot from Hell.

The long days are no happier than the short ones.

America, thou half-brother of the world; with something good and bad of every land.

What men call accident is God's own part.

Poets are all who love, who feel great truths, And tell them; and the truth of truths is love.

Life is less than nothing without love.

A poet not in love is out at sea; He must have a lay-figure.

Dreams are rudiments Of the great state to come. We dream what is About to happen.

I am tired of looking on what is, One might as well see beauty never more, As look upon it with an empty eye. I would this world were over. I am tired.

Error is worse than ignorance.

True faith nor biddeth nor abideth form, The bended knee, the eye uplift; is all Which men need render; all which God can bear. What to the faith are forms? A passing speck, A crow upon the sky.

When I forget that the stars shine in air-- When I forget that beauty is in stars-- When I forget that love with beauty is-- Will I forget thee: till then all things else.

Oh, could we lift the future's sable shroud.

It is no great misfortune to oblige ungrateful people, but an unsupportable one to be forced to be under an obligation to a scoundrel.

Joys Are bubble-like--what makes them bursts them too.

Application is the price to be paid for mental acquisition. To have the harvest, we must sow the seed.

The sole equality on earth is death.

I cannot be content with less than heaven.

I run the gauntlet of a file of doubts, Each one of which down hurls me to the ground.

The beautiful are never desolate; But some one alway loves them--God or man. If man abandons, God himself takes them.

The worst men often give the best advice. Our deeds are sometimes better than our thoughts.

Write to the mind and heart, and let the ear Glean after what it can.

Worthy books Are not companions – they are solitudes: We lose ourselves in them and all our cares.

For as nightingales do upon glow-worms feed, So poets live upon the living light.

Music tells no truths.

Tis light translateth night; 'tis inspiration Expounds experience; 'tis the west explains The east; 'tis time unfolds Eternity.

Death is the universal salt of states; Blood is the base of all things--law and war.

Wan night, the shadow goer, came stepping in.

Necessity, like electricity, is in ourselves and all things, and no more without us than within us.

Nature means Necessity.

The course of Nature seems a course of Death, And nothingness the whole substantial thing.

Corruption springs from light: 'tis one same power Creates, preserves, destroys; matter whereon It works, on e'er self-transmutative form, Common to now the living, now the dead.

Men might be better if we better deemed of them.

Kindness is wisdom. There is none in life But needs it and may learn.

And these are joys, like beauty, but skin deep.

For ivy climbs the crumbling hall To decorate decay.

As the master so the valet.

Hell is the wrath of God--His hate of sin.

Burn to be great, Pay not thy praise to lofty things alone. The plains are everlasting as the hills, The bard cannot have two pursuits; aught else Comes on the mind with the like shock as though Two worlds had gone to war, and met in air.

The heart is its own Fate.

England! my country, great and free! Heart of the world, I leap to thee!

The dew, 'Tis of the tears which stars weep, sweet with joy.

The death-change comes. Death is another life. We bow our heads At going out, we think, and enter straight Another golden chamber of the king's Larger than this we leave, and lovelier. And then in shadowy glimpses, disconnect, The story, flower-like, closes thus its leaves. The will of God is all in all. He makes, Destroys, remakes, for His own pleasure, all.

Night comes, world-jewelled, . . . The stars rush forth in myriads as to wage War with the lines of Darkness; and the moon, Pale ghost of Night, comes haunting the cold earth After the sun's red sea-death--quietless.

We must not pluck death from the Maker's hand.

Blessings star forth forever; but a curse is like a cloud, it passes.

The first and worst of all frauds is to cheat one's self.

Leave the poor Some time for self-improvement. Let them not Be forced to grind the bones out of their arms For bread, but have some space to think and feel Like moral and immortal creatures.

Lowliness is the base of every virtue, And he who goes the lowest builds the safest.

Poetry is itself a thing of God; He made his prophets poets; and the more We feel of poesie do we become Like God in love and power,-under-makers.

Love spends his all, and still hath store.

I cannot love as I have loved, And yet I know not why; It is the one great woe of life To feel all feeling die.

Could I love less, I should be happier now.

Ask not of me, love, what is love? Ask what is good of God above; Ask of the great sun what is light; Ask what is darkness of the night; Ask sin of what may be forgiven; Ask what is happiness of heaven; Ask what is folly of the crowd; Ask what is fashion of the shroud; Ask what is sweetness of thy kiss; Ask of thyself what beauty is.

Life hath more awe than death.

We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths; In feelings, not in figures on a dial.

Every believer is God's miracle.

Could we but think with the intensity we love with, we might do great things.

Who can mistake great thoughts? They seize upon the mind; arrest and search, And shake it; bow the tall soul as by wind; Rush over it like a river reeds.

The ground of all great thoughts is sadness.

Grief hallows hearts, even while it ages heads.

Naught but God Can satisfy the soul.

Fulfill thy fate! Be-do-bear-and thank God.

How slight a chance may raise or sink a soul!

The hero is the world-man, in whose heart One passion stands for all, the most indulged.

It is much less what we do than what we think, which fits us for the future.

Art is a man's nature; nature is God's art.

Love is the art of hearts, and heart or arts.

Ah, nothing comes to us too soon but sorrow.

Hell is more bearable than nothingness.

The worst way to improve the world is to condemn it.

The poet's pen is the true divining rod Which trembles towards the inner founts of feeling; Bringing to light and use, else hid from all, The many sweet clear sources which we have of good and beauty in our own deep bosoms; And marks the variations of all mind As does the needle.

Where doubt there truth is - 'tis her shadow.

All things that speak of heaven speak of peace.

The truth of truths is love.

None but the brave and beautiful can love.

Life's but a means unto an end, that end, Beginning, mean, and end to all things--God.

Life is as serious a thing as death.

The strongest passion which I have is honor.

He who has most of heart knows most of sorrow.

All are of the race of God, and have in themselves good.

O, there is naught on earth worth being known but God and our own souls!

Let us think less of men and more of God.

Dear Lord, our God and Saviour! for Thy gifts The world were poor in thanks, though every soul Were to do nought but breathe them, every blade Of grass, and every atomie of earth To utter it like dew.

Evil then results from imperfection.

Evil is limited. One cannot form A scheme for universal evil.

The goodness of the heart is shown in deeds Of peacefulness and kindness. Hand and heart Are one thing with the good, as thou should'st be. Do my words trouble thee? then treasure them, Pain overgot gives peace, as death doth Heaven. All things that speak of Heaven speak of peace.

We love and live in power; it is the spirit's end. Mind must subdue; to conquer is its life.

Sorrow is a stone that crushes a single bearer to the ground, while two are able to carry it with ease.

Youth might be wise; we suffer less from pains than pleasures.

We live not to ourselves, our work is life.