Related quotes: Virtue runs before the muse...

Loss And Gain

Virtue runs before the muse
And defies her skill,
She is rapt, and doth refuse
To wait a painter's will.

Star-adoring, occupied,
Virtue cannot bend her,
Just to please a poet's pride,
To parade her splendor.

The bard must be with good intent
No more his, but hers,
Throw away his pen and paint,
Kneel with worshippers.

Then, perchance, a sunny ray
From the heaven of fire,
His lost tools may over-pay,
And better his desire.

poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Related quotes

The Nature Of Love. (From The Italian)

To noble heart Love doth for shelter fly,
As seeks the bird the forest's leafy shade;
Love was not felt till noble heart beat high,
Nor before love the noble heart was made.
Soon as the sun's broad flame
Was formed, so soon the clear light filled the air;
Yet was not till he came:
So love springs up in noble breasts, and there
Has its appointed space,
As heat in the bright flames finds its allotted place.
Kindles in noble heart the fire of love,
As hidden virtue in the precious stone:
This virtue comes not from the stars above,
Till round it the ennobling sun has shone;
But when his powerful blaze
Has drawn forth what was vile, the stars impart
Strange virtue in their rays;
And thus when Nature doth create the heart
Noble and pure and high,
Like virtue from the star, love comes from woman's eye.

poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Sonnet 52: A Strife Is Grown

A strife is grown between Virtue and Love,
While each pretends that Stella must be his:
Her eyes, her lips, her all, saith Love, do this
Since they do wear his badge, most firmly prove.

But Virtue thus that title doth disprove:
That Stella (oh dear name) that Stella is
That virtuous soul, sure heir of heav'nly bliss,
Not this fair outside, which our hearts doth move;

And therefore, though her beauty and her grace
Be Love's indeed, in Stella's self he may
By no pretense claim any manner place.

Well, Love, since this demur our suit will stay,
Let Virtue have that Stella's self; yet thus
That Virtue but that body grant to us.

poem by Philip Sidney
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Pray To God.

To pray to God no
Vigor is lost.
To wait for God no
Time is lost.
To plead to God no
Repute is lost.
To ask of God no
Breath is lost.
To move to God no
Hope is lost.
To lose to God no
Race is lost.
To obey to God no
Grasp is lost.
To hold onto God no
Desire is lost.
To believe in God no
Peace is lost.
To seek pardon of God
No virtue is lost.

So if trust in God
You will never be lost.

poem by Syed Anwar Yarkhan Jilani
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Certainly virtue is like precious odors, most fragrant when they are incensed, or crushed for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue.

quote by Francis Bacon
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Sonnet 68: Stella, The Only Planet

Stella, the only planet of my light,
Light of my life, and life of my desire,
Chief good, whereto my hope doth only aspire,
World of my wealth, and heav'n of my delight:

Why dost thou spend the treasure of thy sprite,
With voice more fit to wed Amphion's lyre,
Seeking to quench in me the noble fire
Fed by thy worth, and kindled by thy sight?

And all in vain, for while thy breath most sweet,
With choicest words, thy words with reasons rare,
Thy reasons firmly set on Virtue's feet,

Labor to kill in me this killing care:
Oh, think I then, what paradise of joy
It is, so fair a Virtue to enjoy.

poem by Philip Sidney
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A Praise of his Lady

GIVE place, you ladies, and begone!
Boast not yourselves at all!
For here at hand approacheth one
Whose face will stain you all.

The virtue of her lively looks
Excels the precious stone;
I wish to have none other books
To read or look upon.

In each of her two crystal eyes
Smileth a naked boy;
It would you all in heart suffice
To see that lamp of joy.

I think Nature hath lost the mould
Where she her shape did take;
Or else I doubt if Nature could
So fair a creature make.

She may be well compared
Unto the Phoenix kind,
Whose like was never seen or heard,
That any man can find.

In life she is Diana chaste,
In troth Penelopey;
In word and eke in deed steadfast.
--What will you more we say?

If all the world were sought so far,
Who could find such a wight?
Her beauty twinkleth like a star
Within the frosty night.

Her rosial colour comes and goes
With such a comely grace,
More ruddier, too, than doth the rose,
Within her lively face.

At Bacchus' feast none shall her meet,
Ne at no wanton play,
Nor gazing in an open street,
Nor gadding as a stray.

The modest mirth that she doth use
Is mix'd with shamefastness;
All vice she doth wholly refuse,
And hateth idleness.

O Lord! it is a world to see
How virtue can repair,
And deck in her such honesty,
Whom Nature made so fair.

Truly she doth so far exceed
Our women nowadays,
As doth the jeliflower a weed;
And more a thousand ways.

How might I do to get a graff
Of this unspotted tree?
--For all the rest are plain but chaff,
Which seem good corn to be.

This gift alone I shall her give;
When death doth what he can,
Her honest fame shall ever live
Within the mouth of man.

poem by Anonymous Olde English
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Evelyne

Embodiment of southern charm and fire,
Vision-promise singing sunny skies;
Enchantment bubbling through bright flashing eyes
Like passion flowers pregnant with desire.
You stole my soul, then sent it back to me
New forged, not wholly mine, for part of thee
Endures whose siren strings c[h]ords strike heart's lyre.
Ecstasy suspends time's aweful ire,
Virtue all adversity defies,
Eternity, once taken by surprise,
Leaves jealousy no choice but to retire.
Youth sends this message to humanity:
Newborn, coeval with eternity,
Entranced dreams gleam advance, chance beams desire.

(9 May 1990)

poem by Jonathan Robin
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Were there no desire there would be no virtue, and because one man desires what another does not, who shall say whether the child of his desire be Vice or Virtue?

quote by Edgar Rice Burroghs
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Certainly virtue is like precious odours, most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed: for prosperity doth best discover vice; but adversity doth best discover virtue.

Francis Bacon in Of Adversity
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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And what does reward virtue? You think the communist commissar rewards virtue? You think a Hitler rewards virtue? You think, excuse me, if you'll pardon me, American presidents reward virtue? Do they choose their appointees on the basis of the virtue of the people appointed or on the basis of their political clout?

quote by Milton Friedman
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In An Illuminated Missal

I would have loved: there are no mates in heaven;
I would be great: there is no pride in heaven;
I would have sung, as doth the nightingale
The summer's night beneath the moone pale,
But Saintes hymnes alone in heaven prevail.
My love, my song, my skill, my high intent,
Have I within this seely book y-pent:
And all that beauty which from every part
I treasured still alway within mine heart,
Whether of form or face angelical,
Or herb or flower, or lofty cathedral,
Upon these sheets below doth lie y-spred,
In quaint devices deftly blazoned.
Lord, in this tome to thee I sanctify
The sinful fruits of worldly fantasy.

1839.

poem by Charles Kingsley
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The effect of the virtue

A man of virtue practises virtue
Against the myriads of odds, so true,
And wove around him a crust of virtue
But his core remained as same underneath.
His libido is much in compression,
Capable of giving more explosions.
A man of virtue is a potential danger
From whom might spurt evils at any scale.
28.08.2000, Palasa

poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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The Glance

Cold Virtue guard me, or I shall endure
From the next glance a double calenture
Of fire and lust! Two flames, two Semeles,
Dwell in those eyes, whose looser glowing rays
Would thaw the frozen Russian into lust,
And parch tile negro's hotter blood to dust.
Dart not your bllls of wild-fire here; go throw
Those flakes upon the eunuch's colder snow,
Till he in active blood do boil as high
As he that made him so in jealousy.
When that loose queen of love did dress her eyes
In the most taking flame to the prize
At Ida; that faint glare to this desire
Burnt like a taper to the zone of fire:
And could she then the lustful youth have crowned
With thee his Helen, Troy had never found
Her fate in Sinon's fire; thy hotter eyes
Had made it burn a quicker sacrifice
To lust, whilst every glance in subtle wiles
Had shot itself like lightning through the piles.
Go blow upon some equal blood, and let
Earth's hotter ray engender and beget
New flames to dress the aged Paphians' quire,
And lend the world new Cupids borne on fire.
Dart no more here, those flatmes, nor strive to throw
Your fire on him who is immured in snow!
Those glances work on me like the weak shine
The frosty sun throws on the Appenine,
When the hill's active coldness doth go near
To freeze the glimmering taper to his sphere:
Each ray is lost on me, like the faint light
The glow-worm shoots at the cold breast of night.
Thus virtue can secure; but for that name
I had been now sin's martyr, and your flame.

poem by Francis Beaumont
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Doth Then The World Go Thus?

Doth then the world go thus? doth all thus move?
Is this the justice which on earth we find?
Is this that firm decree which all doth bind?
Are these your influences, Powers above?
Those souls, which vice's moody mists most blind,
Blind Fortune, blindly, most their friend doth prove;
And they who thee, poor idol Virtue! love,
Ply like a feather tossed by storm and wind.
Ah! if a Providence doth sway this all,
Why should best minds groan under most distress?
Or why should pride humility make thrall,
And injuries the innocent oppress?
Heavens! hinder, stop this fate; or grant a time
When good may have, as well as bad, their prime!

poem by William Henry Drummond
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Philosophy Of Beauty And The Beautiful

Simplicity is beauty,
Purity, divinity;
The virtue of quality
Excels that of quantity.
Beauty that pleases the sense is good,
Beauty and vitue are good,
Seek for things simple but noble,
Virtue alone can ennoble.
True beauty is simply graceful,
The graceful are beautiful,
There's beauty that's deceitful,
Nature itself is beautiful,
Beauty is perfection of form,
Virtue and good sense conforms,
Beautiful things may deform,
But virtue act in good form.

poem by Merlin Archivilla
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Man's Civil War

MY hovering thoughts would fly to heaven
And quiet nestle in the sky,
Fain would my ship in Virtue's shore
Without remove at anchor lie.

But mounting thoughts are haled down
With heavy poise of mortal load,
And blustring storms deny my ship
In Virtue's haven secure abode.

When inward eye to heavenly sights
Doth draw my longing heart's desire,
The world with jesses of delights
Would to her perch my thoughts retire,

Fon Fancy trains to Pleasure's lure,
Though Reason stiffly do repine;
Though Wisdom woo me to the saint,
Yet Sense would win me to the shrine.

Where Reason loathes, there Fancy loves,
And overrules the captive will;
Foes senses are to Virtue's lore,
They draw the wit their wish to fill.

Need craves consent of soul to sense,
Yet divers bents breed civil fray ;
Hard hap where halves must disagree,
Or truce halves the whole betray !

O cruel fight ! where fighting friend
With love doth kill a favoring foe,
Where peace with sense is war with God,
And self-delight the seed of woe !

Dame Pleasure's drugs are steeped in sin,
Their sugared taste doth breed annoy ;
O fickle sense ! beware her gin,
Sell not thy soul to brittle joy !

poem by Robert Southwell
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The determined scholar and the man of virtue will not seek to live at the expense of injuring their virtue. They will even sacrifice their lives to preserve their virtue complete.

quote by Confucius
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Verses

The sturdy rock, for all his strength,
By raging seas, is rent in twaine;
The marble stone is pearst at length
With littel drops of drizzling raine:
The ox doth yield unto the yoke,
The steele obeyeth the hammer-stroke.

The stately stagge, that seemes as stout
By yalping hounds at day is set;
The swiftest bird, that flies about,
Is caught at length in fowler's net:
The greatest fish, in deepest brooke,
Is soon deceiv'd by subtill hooke.

Yea, man himselfe, unto whose will
All thinges are bounden to obey,
For all his wit and worthie skill,
Doth fade at length and fall away:
There nothing is but Time doth waste;
The heavens, the earth comsume at last.

But Virtue sits, triumphing still
Upon the throne of glorious fame;
Though spiteful death man's body kill
Yet hurts he not his vertuous name;
By life or death what so betides,
The state of virtue never slides.