Elegant Extracts: Or, Useful and Entertaining Passages in Prose, Selected for the Improvement of Young Persons: Being Similar in Design to Elegant Extracts in Poetry

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B. Law [and others], 1797 - 1120 pages
An extremely popular anthology of prose writings by well-known authors, collected by Vicesimus Knox and first published in 1783.
 

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Page 698 - Had you rather Caesar were living and die all slaves, than that Caesar were dead, to live all free men? As Caesar loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was valiant, I honour him : but, as he was ambitious, I slew him. There is tears for his love; joy for his fortune; honour for his valour; and death for his ambition.
Page 933 - Wednesday. Doth he feel it ? No. Doth he hear it? No. Is it insensible then ? Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living ? No. Why ? Detraction will not suffer it : — therefore I'll none of it: Honour is a mere 'scutcheon, and so ends my catechism.
Page 691 - Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor: suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature...
Page 1043 - Lost Time is never found again; and what we call Time enough, always proves little enough: Let us then up and be doing, and doing to the Purpose; so by Diligence shall we do more with less Perplexity. Sloth makes all Things difficult, but Industry all easy...
Page 933 - Can honour set to a leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the grief of a wound ? No. Honour hath no skill in surgery then ? No. What is honour? A word. What is in that word, honour? What is that honour? Air. A trim reckoning ! — Who hath it? He that died o
Page 1045 - ... ask that blessing humbly, and be not uncharitable to those that at present seem to want it, but comfort and help them. Remember Job suffered, and was afterwards prosperous. And now, to conclude, " experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other," as poor Richard says, and scarce in that ; for, it is true, " we may give advice, but we cannot give conduct ;" however, remember this ; "they that will not be counselled, cannot be helped;" and farther, that "if you will not hear reason,...
Page 1043 - The cat in gloves catches no mice, as Poor Richard says. It is true there is much to be done, and perhaps you are weak-handed; but stick to it steadily, and you will see great effects; for, Constant dropping wears away stones; and, By diligence and patience the mouse ate in two the cable; and Little strokes fell great oaks...
Page 886 - But the knowledge of nature is only half the task of a poet; he must be acquainted likewise with all the modes of life. His character requires that he estimate the happiness and misery of every condition ; observe the power of all the passions in all their combinations, and trace the changes of the human mind as they are modified by various institutions and accidental influences of climate or custom, from the sprightliness of infancy to the despondence of decrepitude.
Page 960 - I saw him pale and feverish ; in thirty years the western breeze had not once fanned his blood ; he had seen no sun, no moon, in all that time, nor had the voice of friend or kinsman breathed through his lattice ; his children — but here my heart began to bleed, and I was forced to go on with another part of the portrait.
Page 888 - Jonson, never equalled them to him in their esteem, and in the last king's court, when Ben's reputation was at highest, Sir John Suckling, and with him the greater part of the courtiers, set our Shakespeare far above him.

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