Chapter WISE to WITS of Index by Grocott's Quotations - Alpha

WISE to WITS

WISE.—Too wise to err, too good to be unkind,
Are all the movements of the eternal mind.

East.

[The Rev. John East, of St. Michael’s Church, Bath, quoted by the late Miss Emma Parr, in a small volume entitled “Thoughts of Peace.” Mr. East published a volume of poems and several other works, but I have been unable to ascertain in which of them it is to be found; it is not in his “Songs of my Pilgrimage.” In Sermon III., on the “Plan of Human Redemption,” Dr. Adam Clarke introduces his observations upon his text with the three following propositions, which he says have acquired the power of incontrovertible axioms among religious people:—1. God is too wise to err. 2. He is too holy to do wrong. 3. He is too good to be unkind.]

Remark what I, God’s messenger, aver
From Him, who neither can deceive nor err.

Prior.—Solomon, Book III. Line 849; Horne on the Psalms of David, Psalm CXIX. Verse 43.

Be still then, thou uneasy mortal; know that God is unerringly wise; and be assured that, amidst the greatest multiplicity of beings, he does not overlook thee.

Hervey.—Meditations on a Flower Garden.

I trace a hand that errs not, and find raptures still renewed.

Cowper.—The Task, Book III. Line 722.

Be wise to-day; ’tis madness to defer.

Young.—Night I. Line 390.

The neighbours stared and sigh’d, yet bless’d the lad:
Some deem’d him wondrous wise, and some believed him mad.

Beattie.—The Minstrel, Verse 16, Line 8.

So wise so young, they say, do never live long.

Shakespeare.—King Richard III. Act III. Scene 1.

Wise men applaud us when we eat the eaters,
As the devil laughs when keen folks cheat the cheaters.

Scott.—Peveril of the Peak, Chap. XXXVIII.

Fearfully wise he shakes his empty head,
And deals out empires as he deals out thread.

Churchill.—Night.

WISH.—What ardently we wish, we soon believe.

Young—Night VII. Part II. Line 1311.

WISH.—1. I never thought to hear you speak again. 2. Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought.

Shakespeare.—King Henry IV. Part II. Act IV. Scene 4. (The King to his Son, who had his father’s crown on his head.)

Men’s thoughts are much according to their inclination.