Page:Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922).djvu/46

1

Awake, arise, or be forever fall'n!

Milton—Paradise Lost. Bk. I. L. 330.

2

Execute their aery purposes.

Milton—Paradise Lost. Bk. I. L. 430.

3

Those graceful acts,
Those thousand decencies that daily flow
Prom all her words and actions.

Milton—Paradise Lost. Bk. VIII. L. 600.

4

Ce qui est faict ne se peult desfaire.
What's done can't be undone.

Montaigne—Essays. III.

(See also Macbeth)

5

Push on,—keep moving.

Thomas Morton—Cure for the Heartache. Act II. Sc. 1.

6

Ferreus assiduo consumitur anulus usu.
The iron ring is worn out by constant use.

Ovid—Ars Amatoris. Bk. I. 473.

7

Aut petis, aut urgues ruiturum, Sisyphe, saxum.
Either you pursue or push, O Sisyphus, the
stone destined to keep rolling.

Ovid—Metamorphoses. 4, 459.

(See also Longfellow)

8

What the Puritans gave the world was not thought, but action.

Wendell Phillips—Speech. The Pilgrims. Dec. 21, 1855.

9

Not always actions show the man; we find
Who does a kindness is not therefore kind.

Pope—Moral Essays. Epistle I. L. 109.

10

Iron sharpeneth iron.

Proverbs. XXVII. 17.

(See also Horace)

11

So much to do; so little done.

Cecil Rhodes—Last words

(See also Tennyson)

12

Prius quam incipias consulto, et ubi consulueris mature facto opus est.
Get good counsel before you begin: and when you have decided, act promptly.

Sallust—Catilina. I.

13

Wer gar zu viel bedenkt, wird wenig leisten.
He that is overcautious will accomplish little.

Schiller—Wilhelm Tell. III. 1. 72.

14

Action is eloquence, and the eyes of the ignorant
More learned than the ears.

Coriolanus. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 75.

15

 * * * the blood more stirs
To rouse a lion, than to start a hare.

Henry IV. Pt. I. Act I. Sc. 3. L. 197.

16

I profess not talking: only this,
Let each man do his best.

Henry IV. Pt. I. Act V. Sc. 2. L. 92.

17

We must not stint
Our necessary actions, in the fear
To cope malicious censurers.

Henry VIII. Act I. Sc. 2. L. 76.

18

Things done well,
And with a care, exempt themselves from fear;
Things done without example, in their issue
Are to be fear'd.

Henry VIII. Act I. Sc. 2. L. 88.

19

If it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly.

Macbeth. Act I. Sc. 7. L. 1.

20

 From this moment,
The very firstlings of my heart shall be
The firstlings of my hand. And even now,
To crown my thoughts with acts, be it thought
and done.

Macbeth. Act IV. Sc. 1. L. 146.

21

 But I remember now
I am in this earthly world; where, to do harm,
Is often laudable; to do good, sometime,
Accounted dangerous folly.

Macbeth. Act IV. Sc. 2. L. 74.

22

What's done can't be undone.

Macbeth. Act V. Sc. 1.

(See also Montaigne)

23

So smile the Heavens upon this holy act
That after hours with sorrow chide us not!

Romeo and Juliet. Act II. Sc. 6. L. 1.

24

How my achievements mock me!
I will go meet them.

Troilus and Cressida. Act IV. Sc. 2. L. 71.

25

Only the actions of the just
Smell sweet and blossom in their dust.

James Shirley—Contention of Ajax and Ulysses. Sc. 3. L. 23. ("In the dust" in Percy's Reliques. Misquoted "Ashes of the dust" on old tombstone at St. Augustine, Florida.)

26

Heaven ne'er helps the men who will not act.

Sophocles—Fragment. 288.

27

Rightness expresses of actions, what straightness does of lines; and there can no more be two
kinds of right action than there can be two kinds
of straight line.

Herbert Spencer—Social Statics. Ch. XXXII. Par. 4.

28

The sweet remembrance of the just
Shall flourish when he sleeps in dust.

Tate and Brady—Psalm 112. (Ed. 1695).

29

So many worlds, so much to do,
So little done, such things to be.

Tennyson—In Memoriam. LXXII. 1.

(See also Rhodes)

30

Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.

Tennyson—Charge of the Light Brigade. St. 2.