Quotes by James Thomson
Health is the vital principle of bliss, and exercise, of health.
The world rolls round forever like a mill; it grinds out death and life and good and ill; it has no purpose, heart or mind or will.
But who can paint like Nature? Can imagination boast, amid its gay creation, hues like hers?
'Tis easier for the generous to forgive, than for offence to ask it.
Statues and pictures and verse may be grand, But they are not the Life for which they stand.
For life is but a dream whose shapes return, some frequently, some seldom, some by night and some by day.
I know no subject more elevating, more amazing, more ready to the poetical enthusiasm, the philosophical reflection, and the moral sentiment than the works of nature. Where can we meet such variety, such beauty, such magnificence?
Rule, Britannia, rule the waves; Britons never will be slaves.
A little, round, fat, oily man of God.
Peace is the happy natural state of man; war is corruption and disgrace.
More firm and sure the hand of courage strikes, when it obeys the watchful eye of caution.
Ingratitude is treason to mankind.
I think a bishop who doesn't give offence to anyone is probably not a good bishop.
That which makes people dissatisfied with their condition, is the chimerical idea they form of the happiness of others.
The City is of Night; perchance of Death, But certainly of Night; for never there...
Once in a stately passion / I cried with desperate grief,/ 'O Lord, my heart is black with guile,/ Of sinners I am chief.'
For life is but a dream whose shapes return, Some frequently, some seldom, some by night And some by day,
And all sad scenes and thoughts and feelings vanish In that sweet sleep no power can ever banish,...
Absence, with all its pains, is, by this charming moment, wiped away.
