Thomas Hood Quotations

Oh, if it be to choose and call thee mine, love, thou art every day my Valentine!

Frost is the greatest artist in our clime - he paints in nature and describes in rime.

To attempt to advise conceited people is like whistling against the wind.

I saw old autumn in the misty morn Stand shadowless like silence, listening To silence.

There are three things which the public will always clamor for, sooner or later: namely, novelty, novelty, novelty.

A moment's thinking is an hour in words.

There is even a happiness - that makes the heart afraid.

Lives of great men oft remind us as we o'er their pages turn, That we too may leave behind us - Letters that we ought to burn.

Some minds improve by travel, others, rather, resemble copper wire, or brass, which get the narrower by going farther.

A certain portion of the human race has certainly a taste for being diddled.

The best of friends fall out, and so his teeth had done some years ago.

One more Unfortunate, / Weary of breath, / Rashly importunate, / Gone to her death. Take her up tenderly, / Lift her with care; / Fashioned so slenderly, / Young, and so fair!

Never go to France - Unless you know the lingo, If you do like me, You will repent by jingo

I can't do as much as I used to, but I can still grow a little corn, tomatoes and some cucumbers in my organic garden out back.

I don't set up for being a cosmopolite, which to any mind signifies being polite to every country except your own

What is a modern poet's fate?/ To write his thoughts upon a slate;/ The critic spits on what is done,/ Gives it a wipe" - and all is gone.

Gold! Gold! Gold! Bright and yellow, hard and cold.

Our very hopes belied our fears, / Our fears our hopes belied - / We thought her dying when she slept, / And sleeping when she died!

Lives" of great men oft remind us as we o'er their pages turn, That we too may leave behind us - Letters that we ought to burn

With fingers weary and worn, / With eyelids heavy and red, / A woman sat in unwomanly rags, / Plying her needle and thread - / Stitch! stitch! stitch!

Ben Battle was a soldier bold, / And used to war's alarms: / But a cannon-ball took off his legs, / So he laid down his arms.

Being used but sisterly salutes to feel, Insipid things - like sandwiches of veal

And ye, who have met with Adversity's blast,And been bow'd to the earth by its fury;To whom the Twelve Months, that have recently pass'dWere as harsh as a prejudiced jury -Still, fill to the Future! and join in our chime,The regrets of remembrance to cozen,And having obtained a New Trial of Time,Shout in hopes of a kindlier dozen.

No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,/ No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds, - November!

That picture raffles will conduce to nourish - Design, or cause coloring to flourish, Admits of logic chopping and wise - sawing, For surely lotteries encourage drawing

Alas! my everlasting peace / Is broken into pieces.

It's very convenient and saves me from having to plan and cook meals.

For here I leave my second leg, / And the Forty-second Foot.

It was not in the winter / Our loving lot was cast! / It was the time of roses, / We plucked them as we passed!

No sun - no moon! / No morn - no noon - / No dawn - no dusk - no proper time of day -

I never nursed a dear gazelle, / To glad me with its dappled hide, / But when it came to know me well / It fell upon the buttered side.

I remember, I remember, / The house where I was born, / The little window where the sun / Came peeping in at morn.

If you were queen of bloaters / And I were king of soles, / The sea we'd wag our fins in. / Nor heed the crooked pins in / The water, dropped by boaters / To catch our heedless joles.

His death which happened in his berth, / At forty-odd befell: / They went and told the sexton, and / The sexton toll'd the bell.

For one of the pleasures of having a rout, / Is the pleasure of having it over.

A hollow voice is all I have / But this I tell you plain, / Marry come up! - you marry, Ma'am, / And I'll come up again.

So mayst thou live, dear! many years, In all the bliss that life endears

And there is even a happiness That makes the heart afraid.

But evil is wrought by want of thought, As well as want of heart!

Our very hopes belied our fears, Our fears our hopes belied; We thought her dying when she slept, And sleeping when she died.

We watch'd her breathing through the night, Her breathing soft and low, As in her breast the wave of life Kept heaving to and fro.

Extremes meet', as the whiting said with its tail in its mouth.

She stood breast-high amid the corn Clasp'd by the golden light of morn, Like the sweetheart of the sun, Who many a glowing kiss had won.

No sun, no moon, no morn, no noon, No dawn, no dusk, no proper time of day, . . . . . . No road, no street, no t' other side the way, . . . . . . No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees, No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no buds.

The Quaker loves an ample brim, A hat that bows to no salaam; And dear the beaver is to him As if it never made a dam.

For my part, getting up seems not so easy By half as lying.

He lies like a hedgehog rolled up the wrong way, Tormenting himself with his prickles.

When Eve upon the first of Men The apple press'd with specious cant, Oh! what a thousand pities then That Adam was not Adamant!

I remember, I remember The fir-trees dark and high; I used to think their slender tops Were close against the sky; It was a childish ignorance, But now 't is little joy To know I'm farther off from heaven Than when I was a boy.

I remember, I remember The roses, red and white, The violets, and the lily-cups, Those flowers made of light! The lilacs, where the robin built, And where my brother set The laburmum on his birthday,- The tree is living yet.

I resolved that, like the sun, as long as my day lasted, I would look on the bright side of everything.

I love thee - I love thee, 'Tis all that I can say, It is my vision in the night, My dreaming in the day.

Bells are musics laughter.

The Autumn is old; The sere leaves are flying; He hath gather'd up gold, And now he is dying;- Old age, begin sighing!

The year's in wane; There is nothing adorning; The night has no eve, And the day has no morning; Cold winter gives warning!

Tis like the birthday of the world, When earth was born in bloom; The light is made of many dyes, The air is all perfume: There's crimson buds, and white and blue, The very rainbow showers Have turned to blossoms where they fell, And sown the earth with flowers.

What joy have I in June's return? My feet are parched-my eyeballs burn, I scent no flowery gust; But faint the flagging zephyr springs, With dry Macadam on its wings, And turns me 'dust to dust.'

How bless'd the heart that has a friend. A sympathizing ear to lend.

The biggest bore of all is he who is overflowing with congratulations

There is a silence where hath been no sound, There is a silence where no sound may be,- In the cold grave, under the deep, deep sea, Or in the wide desert where no life is found.

Oh! God! That bread should be so dear, and flesh and blood so cheap!

It was not in the winter Our loving lot was cast! It was the time of roses, We plucked them as we passed!

Some dreams we have are nothing else but dreams, Unnatural and full of contradictions; Yet others of our most romantic schemes, Are something more than fictions.

Gold! gold! gold! gold! Bright and yellow, hard and cold!

O men with sisters dear, O men with mothers and wives, It is not linen you 're wearing out, But human creatures' lives!

It was a childish ignorance, But now 'tis little joy To know I'm further off from heaven Than when I was a boy.

No blessed leisure for love or hope, But only time for grief.

Oh would I were dead now, Or up in my bed now, To cover my head now, And have a good cry!

How widely its agencies vary,- To save, to ruin, to curse, to bless,- As even its minted coins express, Now stamp'd with the image of Good Queen Bess, And now of a Bloody Mary.

My brain is dull, my sight is foul, I cannot write a verse, or read-- Then, Pallas, take away thine Owl, And let us have a lark instead.

Mother of light! how fairly dost thou go Over those hoary crests, divinely led! Art thou that huntress of the silver bow Fabled of old? Or rather dost thou tread Those cloudy summits thence to gaze below, Like the wild chamois from her Alpine snow, Where hunters never climbed--secure from dread?

Whilst breezy waves toss up their silvery spray.

Well, something must be done for May, The time is drawing nigh-- To figure in the Catalogue, And woo the public eye. Something I must invent and paint; But oh my wit is not Like one of those kind substantives That answer Who and What?

For man may pious texts repeat, And yet religion have no inward seat

Father of rosy day, No more thy clouds of incense rise; But waking flow'rs, At morning hours, Give out their sweets to meet thee in the skies.

My tears must stop, for every drop Hinders needle and thread.

What is a modern poet's fate? / To write his thoughts upon a slate; / The critic spits on what is done, / Gives it a wipe - and all is gone.

A man that's fond precociously of stirring , :;:; Must be a spoon.

When he is forsaken, Withered and shaken, What can an old man do but die?

Pity it is to slay the meanest thing.

Some sigh for this and that; My wishes don't go far; The world may wag at will, So I have my cigar.

There is not a string attuned to mirth but has its chord of melancholy.

Comfort and indolence are cronies.

Fuss is the froth of business.

Well for the drones of the social hive that there are bees of an industrious turn, willing, for an infinitesimal share of the honey, to undertake the labor of its fabrication.

Experience enables me to depose to the comfort and blessing that literature can prove in seasons of sickness and sorrow.

What is mind? No matter. What is matter? Never mind. What is the soul? It is immaterial.

The moon, the moon, so silver and cold, Her fickle temper has oft been told, Now shade--now bright and sunny-- But of all the lunar things that change, The one that shows most fickle and strange, And takes the most eccentric range, Is the moon--so called--of honey!

The lily is all in white, like a saint, And so is no mate for me.

While the steeples are loud in their joy, To the tune of the bells' ring-a-ding, Let us chime in a peal, one and all, For we all should be able to sing Hullah baloo.

Apothegms form a short cut to much knowledge.

There's a double beauty whenever a swan Swims on a lake with her double thereon.

My books kept me from the ring, the dog-pit, the tavern, and the saloon.

How bravely Autumn paints upon the sky The gorgeous fame of Summer which is fled!

Alas for the rarity Of Christian charity Under the sun!

Boughs are daily rifled By the gusty thieves, And the book of Nature Getteth short of leaves.

Dear bells! how sweet the sound of village bells When on the undulating air they swim!

A name, it has more than nominal worth, And belongs to good or bad luck at birth

The cowslip is a country wench.

Such a blush In the midst of brown was born, Like red poppies grown with corn.