The British essayists; with prefaces by A. Chalmers, Volume 14

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Page 128 - No more ; and by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep; To sleep : perchance to dream : ay, there's the rub ; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause...
Page 126 - Farewell, a long farewell, to all my greatness ! This is the state of man; To-day he puts forth The tender leaves of hope, to-morrow blossoms, And bears his blushing honours thick upon him : The third day, comes a frost, a killing frost; And, — when he thinks, good easy man, full surely His greatness is a ripening, — nips his root, And then he falls, as I do.
Page 128 - TO be— or not to be — that is the question ; Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The stings and arrows of outrageous fortune — Or to take arms against a sea of troubles ; And, by opposing, end them...
Page 128 - The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin...
Page 24 - And when we consider the infinite Power and Wisdom of the Maker, we have reason to think, that it is suitable to the magnificent Harmony of the Universe, and the great Design and infinite Goodness of the Architect, that the Species of Creatures should also, by gentle degrees, Ascend upward from us toward his infinite Perfection, as we see they gradually descend from us downwards...
Page 243 - There is no question but the universe has certain bounds set to it : but when we consider that it is the work of infinite power, prompted by infinite goodness, with an infinite space...
Page 209 - The dialect of conversation is now-a-days so swelled with vanity and compliment, and so surfeited (as I may say) of expressions of kindness and respect, that if a man that lived an age or two ago should return into the world again, he would really want a dictionary to help him to understand his own language...
Page 245 - Behold, I go forward, but he is not there; And backward, but I cannot perceive him: On the left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot behold him: He hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him: But he knoweth the way that I take: When he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.
Page 128 - But that the dread of something after death, The undiscover'd country from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will, And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of?
Page 24 - ... in all the visible corporeal world, we see no chasms, or gaps. All quite down from us the descent is by easy steps, and a continued series of things, that in each remove differ very little one from the other.

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