Charles Churchill Quotations

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

The best things carried to excess are wrong.

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

Little do such men know the toil, the pains, the daily, nightly racking of the brains, to range the thoughts, the matter to digest, to cull fit phrases, and reject the rest.

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

To copy beauty forfeits all pretense to fame; to copy faults is want of sense

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

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

Those who would make us feel must feel themselves.

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

A joke's a very serious thing.

Fashion--a word which knaves and fools may use, Their knavery and folly to excuse.

Fool beckons fool, and dunce awakens dunce.

The more haste, ever the worst speed.

Amongst the sons of men how few are known Who dare be just to merit not their own.

Knaves starve not in the land of fools.

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

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

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

The rigid saint, by whom no mercy's shown To saints whose lives are better than his own.

And reputation bleeds in ev'ry word.

Though folly, robed in purple, shines, Though vice exhausts Peruvian mines, Yet shall they tremble and turn pale When satire wields her mighty flail.

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.

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?

Most of those evils we poor mortals know From doctors and imagination flow.

Fame is nothing but an empty name.

Those who raise envy will easily incur censure.

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

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.

No tribute is laid on castles in the air.

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

Genius is nothing more than inflamed enthusiasm.

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....

The proud will sooner lose than ask their way.

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.

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.

A servile race Who, in mere want of fault, all merit place; Who blind obedience pay to ancient schools, Bigots to Greece, and slaves to musty rules.

Wherever waves can roll, and winds can blow.

The laws I love; the lawyers I suspect.

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.

Quick-circulating slanders mirth afford; and reputation bleeds in every word.

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.

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.

Tis mighty easy o'er a glass of wine On vain refinements vainly to refine, To laugh at poverty in plenty's reign, To boast of apathy when out of pain, And in each sentence, worthy of the schools, Varnish'd with sophistry, to deal out rules Most fit for practice, but for one poor fault That into practice they can ne'er be brought.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Who often, but without success, have prayed for apt Alliteration's artful aid.

By different methods different men excel, but where is he who can do all things well?

All hunt for fame, but most mistake the way.

He mouths a sentence as curs mouth a bone.

No two on earth in all things can agree; All have some darling singularity; Women and men, as well as girls and boys, In gewgaws take delight, and sigh for toys, Your sceptres and your crowns, and such like things, Are but a better kind of toys for kings. In things indifferent reason bids us choose, Whether the whim's a monkey or a muse.

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

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

On the four aces doom'd to roll.

Wit, who never once Forgave a brother, shall forgive a dunce.

Drawn by conceit from reason's plan How vain is that poor creature man; How pleas'd in ev'ry paltry elf To grate about that thing himself.

If you mean to profit, learn to praise.

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.

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.

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.

Even in a hero's heart Discretion is the better part.

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

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

Ourselves are to ourselves the cause of ill.

Whom drink made wits, though nature made them fools.

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.

Satire, whilst envy and ill-humor sway The mind of man, must always make her way; Nor to a bosom, with discretion fraught, Is all her malice worth a single thought. The wise have not the will, nor fools the power, To stop her headstrong course; within the hour Left to herself, she dies; opposing strife Gives her fresh vigor, and prolongs her life.

Enough of self, that darling luscious theme, O'er which philosophers in raptures dream; Of which with seeming disregard they write Then prizing most when most they seem to slight.

Men the most infamous are fond of fame, And those who fear not guilt yet start at shame.

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

Genius is independent of situation.

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.

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

Patience is sorrow's salve.

He hurts me most who lavishly commends.

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.

The surest way to health, say what they will, Is never to suppose we shall be ill; Most of the ills which we poor mortals know From doctors and imagination flow.

Nor waste their sweetness in the desert air.

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.

To copy faults is want of sense.

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

In the first seat, in robe of various dyes, A noble wildness flashing from his eyes, Sat Shakespeare: in one hand a wand he bore, For mighty wonders fam'd in days of yore: The other held a globe, which to his will Obedient turn'd, and own'd the master's skill: Things of the noblest kind his genius drew, And look'd through nature at a single view: A loose he gave to his unbounded soul, And taught new lands to rise, new seas to roll; Call'd into being scenes unknown before, And passing nature's bounds, was something more.

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

Genius is of no country.

So loud each tongue, so empty was each head, / So much they talked, so very little said.

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

Statesman all over, in plots famous grown,/ He mouths a sentence, as curs mouth a bone.

Where he falls short, 'tis Nature's fault alone;/ Where he succeeds, the merit's all his own.