Quotes from Anna Letitia Barbauld

Man is the nobler growth our realms supply, And souls are ripened in our northern sky.

Say not 'Good-night' but in some brighter clime, bid me 'Good-morning.'

We neither laugh alone, nor weep alone, why then should we pray alone?

The most characteristic mark of a great mind is to choose some one important object, and pursue it for life.

Society than solitude is worse, And man to man is still the greatest curse.

A thousand pleasant arts we'll have To add new feathers to the wings of Time, And make him smoothly haste away: We'll use him as our slave, And when we please we'll bid him stay, And clip his wings, and make him stop to view Our studies, and our follies too.

The world has little to bestow Where two fond hearts in equal love are joined.

Let parents, therefore, not scruple to use the power God and Nature have put into their hands for the advantage of their offspring. Let them not fear to impress them with prejudices for whatever is fair and honorable in action — whatever is useful and important in systematic truth. Let such prejudices be wrought into the very texture of the soul.

Come, clear thy studious looks awhile, 'Tis arrant treason now To wear that moping brow, When I, thy empress, bid thee smile.

Life! we have been long together, Through pleasant and through cloudy weather; 'Tis hard to part when friends are dear; Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear;- Then steal away, give little warning, Choose thine own time; Say not Good-night, but in some brighter clime Bid me Good-morning!

I would not be understood to inveigh against wealth, or against the enjoyments of it; they are real enjoyments, and allied to many elegancies in manners and in taste ; — I only wish to prevent unprofitable pains and inconsistent expectations.

What hand unseen Impells me onward through the glowing orbs Of habitable nature, far remote, To the dread confines of eternal night, To solitudes of vast unpeopled space, To deserts of creation, wide and wild; Where embryo systems and unkindled suns Sleep in the womb of chaos?

O thou mighty mind! whose powerful word Said, thus let all things be, and thus they were!

A thousand pretty ways we'll find To mock old Winter's starving reign; We'll bid the violets spring again, Bid rich poetic roses blow, Peeping agove his heaps of snow; We'll dress his withered cheeks in flowers, And on his smooth bald head Fantastic garlands bind.

But now my soul, unused to stretch her powers In flight so daring, drops her weary wing, And seeks again the known accustomed spot, Drest up with sun, and shade, and lawns, and streams, A mansion fair, and spacious for its guest, And full replete with wonders.

We are often hurt by a brutality and sluggish conceptions of the vulgar; not considering that some there must be, to be hewers of wood and drawers of water, and that cultivated genius, or even any great refinement and delicacy in their moral feelings, would be a real misfortune to them.

Society than solitude is worse And man to man is still the greatest curse.

Let me here, Content and grateful, wait the appointed time, And ripen for the skies: the hour will come When all these splendours bursting on my sight Shall stand unveiled, and to my ravished sense Unlock the glories of the world unknown.

Another morning soon shall rise, Another day salute our eyes, As smiling and as fair as she, And make as many promises; But do not thou The tale believe, They're sisters all, And all deceive.

Is knowledge the pearl of price? That, too, may be purchased -- by steady application, and long solitary hours of study and reflection. Bestow these, and you shall be wise.

The most characteristic mark of a great mind is to choose some one important object, and pursue it for life.

We neither laugh alone, nor weep alone, why then should we pray alone?

But every act in consequence of our faith, strengthens faith.

Is there not A tongue in every star that talks with man, And wooes him to be wise? nor wooes in vain; This dead of midnight is the noon of thought, And wisdom mounts her zenith with the stars.