The Reading Room

“Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all.”

“Hope Smiles from the threshold of the year to come, Whispering 'it will be happier'...”

“The shell must break before the bird can fly.”

“Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Tears from the depths of some devine despair Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, In looking on the happy autumn fields, And thinking of the days that are no more.”

“Though much is taken, much abides; and though We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

“I hold it true, whate'er befall; I feel it when I sorrow most; 'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all. Verse XXVII”

“Once in a golden hour I cast to earth a seed. Up there came a flower, The people said, a weed.”

“Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.”

“Come friends, it's not too late to seek a newer world.”

“Sin is too stupid to see beyond itself.”

“I must lose myself in action, lest I wither in despair.”

“By blood a king, in heart a clown.”

“Ours not to reason why, ours but to do and die.”

“Shape your heart to front the hour, but dream not that the hours will last.”

“God's finger touched him, and he slept.”

“Men at most differ as Heaven and Earth, but women, worst and best, as Heaven and Hell.”

“Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change.”

“All experience is an arch wherethrough gleams that untravelled world whose margin fades for ever and for ever when I move.”

“To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

“Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering, 'It will be happier.'”

“Tis not too late to seek a newer world.”

“He makes no friends who never made a foe.”

“Authority forgets a dying king.”

“Thine are these orbs of light and shade; Thou madest Life in man and brute; Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot Is on the skull which thou hast made.”

“'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”

“Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole Unequal laws unto a savage race, That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.”

“A smile abroad is often a scowl at home.”

“Guard your roving thoughts with a jealous care, for speech is but the dealer of thoughts, and every fool can plainly read in your words what is the hour of your thoughts.”

“And this gray spirit yearning in desire To follow knowledge like a sinking star, Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.”

“O earth, what changes hast thou seen!”

“In Memoriam A.H.H. Section 5 I sometimes hold it half a sin To put in words the grief I feel; For words, like Nature, half reveal And half conceal the Soul within. But, for the unquiet heart and brain, A use in measured language lies; The sad mechanic exercise, Like dull narcotics, numbing pain. In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er, Like coarsest clothes against the cold: But that large grief which these enfold Is given in outline and no more.”

“Words, like nature, half reveal and half conceal the soul within.”

“We cannot be kind to each other here for even an hour. We whisper, and hint, and chuckle and grin at our brother's shame; however you take it we men are a little breed.”

“A lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies.”

“My strength is as the strength of ten, because my heart is pure.”

“O love, O fire! once he drew With one long kiss my whole soul through My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew.”

“Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control; these three alone lead life to sovereign power.”

“What rights are those that dare not resist for them?”

“Theirs is not to make reply: Theirs is not to reason why: Theirs is but to do and die.”

“I came in haste with cursing breath, And heart of hardest steel; But when I saw thee cold in death, I felt as man should feel. For when I look upon that face, That cold, unheeding, frigid brown, Where neither rage nor fear has place, By Heaven! I cannot hate thee now!”

“A day may sink or save a realm.”

“I am a part of all that I have met.”

“So many worlds, so much to do, so little done, such things to be.”

“Ring out the false, ring in the true.”

“The same words conceal and declare the thoughts of men.”

“The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions.”

“The Gods themselves cannot recall their gifts.”

“I the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of time.”