Charles Churchill Quotes

Though by whim, envy, or resentment led, they damn those authors whom they never read.

England a fortune-telling host, As num'rous as the stars, could boast; Matrons, who toss the cup, and see The grounds of Fate in grounds of tea ...

Genius is independent of situation.

Keep up appearances; there lies the test. The world will give thee credit for the rest.

And reputation bleeds in ev'ry word.

Gipsies, who every ill can cure,
Except the ill of being poor
Who charms 'gainst love and agues sell,
Who can in hen-roost set a spell,
Prepar'd by arts, to them best known
To catch all feet except their own,
Who, as to fortune, can unlock it,
As easily as pick a pocket.

Who to patch up his fame, or fill his purse, Still pilfers wretched plans, and makes them worse; Like gypsies, lest the stolen brat be known, Defacing first, then claiming for his own.

With curious art the brain, too finely wrought, Preys on herself, and is destroyed by thought.

Nor waste their sweetness in the desert air.

Who all in raptures their own works rehearse, And drawl out measur'd prose, which they call verse.

He mouths a sentence as curs mouth a bone.

Nature, through all her works, in great degree,
Borrows a blessing from variety.
Music itself her needful aid requires
To rouse the soul, and wake our dying fires.

Truth! why shall every wretch of letters Dare to speak truth against his betters! Let ragged virtue stand aloof, Nor mutter accents of reproof; Let ragged wit a mute become, When wealth and power would have her dumb.

The danger chiefly lies in acting well; no crime's so great as daring to excel.

Be England what she will, with all her faults she is my country still.

With that malignant envy which turns pale, And sickens, even if a friend prevail.

It can't be Nature, for it is not sense.

Those who would make us feel, must feel themselves.

Fool beckons fool, and dunce awakens dunce.

Constant attention wears the active mind, Blots out our pow'rs, and leaves a blank behind.

Old Age, a second child, by nature curst
With more and greater evils than the first,
Weak, sickly, full of pains: in ev'ry breath
Railing at life, and yet afraid of death.

Ourselves are to ourselves the cause of ill.

To copy faults is want of sense.

Genius is of no country.

Fame is nothing but an empty name.

Childhood, who like an April morn appears,
Sunshine and rain, hopes clouded o'er with fears.

Nature listening stood, whilst Shakespeare play'd
And wonder'd at the work herself had made.

Genius is nothing more than inflamed enthusiasm.

Genius is of no country; her pure ray Spreads all abroad, as general as the day.

The villager, born humbly and bred hard,
Content his wealth, and poverty his guard,
In action simply just, in conscience clear,
By guilt untainted, undisturb'd by fear,
His means but scanty, and his wants but few,
Labor his business, and his pleasure too,
Enjoys more comforts in a single hour
Than ages give the wretch condemn'd to power.

Enough of satire; in less harden'd times
Great was her force, and mighty were her rhymes.
I've read of men, beyond man's daring brave,
Who yet have trembled at the strokes she gave;
Whose souls have felt more terrible alarms
From her one line, than from a world in arms.

Great use they have, when in the hands
Of one like me, who understands,
Who understands the time and place,
The person, manner, and the grace,
Which fools neglect; so that we find,
If all the requisites are join'd,
From whence a perfect joke must spring,
A joke's a very serious thing.

If honor calls, where'er she points the way
The sons of honor follow, and obey.

On the four aces doom'd to roll.

Who shall dispute what the Reviewers say? Their word's sufficient; and to ask a reason, In such a state as theirs, is downright treason.

England, a happy land we know,
Where follies naturally grow,
Where without culture they arise,
And tow'r above the common size.

With various readings stored his empty skull, Learn'd without sense, and venerably dull.

Knaves starve not in the land of fools.

The stage I chose
a subject fair and free
'Tis yours
'tis mine
'tis public property.
All common exhibitions open lie,
For praise or censure, to the common eye.
Hence are a thousand hackney writers fed;
Hence monthly critics earn their daily bread.
This is a general tax which all must pay,
From those who scribble, down to those who play.

The oak, when living, monarch of the wood; The English oak, which, dead, commands the flood.

Those who raise envy will easily incur censure.

There's a strange something, which without a brain
Fools feel, and which e'en wise men can't explain,
Planted in man, to bind him to that earth,
In dearest ties, from whence he drew his birth.

The virtuous to those mansions go
Where pleasures unembitter'd flow,
Where, leading up a jocund band,
Vigor and Youth dance hand in hand,
Whilst Zephyr, with harmonious gales,
Pipes softest music through the vales,
And Spring and Flora, gaily crown'd,
With velvet carpet spread the ground;
With livelier blush where roses bloom,
And every shrub expires perfume.

The more haste, ever the worst speed.

What it 't to us, if taxes rise or fall,
Thanks to our fortune, we pay none at all.
Let muckworms who in dirty acres deal,
Lament those hardships which we cannot feel,
His grace who smarts, may bellow if he please,
But must I bellow too, who sit at ease?
By custom safe, the poets' numbers flow,
Free as the light and air some years ago.
No statesman e'er will find it worth his pains
To tax our labours, and excise our brains.
Burthens like these with earthly buildings bear,
No tributes laid on castles in the air.

This a sacred rule we find
Among the nicest of mankind,
(Which never might exception brook
From Hobbes even down to Bolingbroke,)
To doubt of facts, however true,
Unless they know the causes too.

What is this world?
A term which men have got,
To signify not one in ten knows what;
A term, which with no more precision passes
To point out herds of men than herds of asses;
In common use no more it means, we find,
Than many fools in same opinions joined.

Weak is that throne, and in itself unsound,
Which takes not solid virtue for its ground.

The Scots are poor, cries surly English pride; True is the charge, nor by themselves denied. Are they not then in strictest reason clear, Who wisely come to mend their fortunes here?

Greatly his foes he dreads, but more his friends; He hurts me most who lavishly commends.

Man and wife, Coupled together for the sake of strife.

When satire flies abroad on falsehood's wing, Short is her life, and impotent her sting; But when to truth allied, the wound she gives Sinks deep, and to remotest ages lives.

Within the brain's most secret cells,
A certain lord chief justice dwells,
Of sov'reign power, whom one and all,
With common voice we reason call.

When fiction rises pleasing to the eye, men will believe, because they love the lie; but truth herself, if clouded with a frown, must have some solemn proof to pass her down.

Who, with tame cowardice familiar grown, would hear my thoughts, but fear to speak their own.