882 WISHES WISHES
Wisdom, though richer than Peruvian mines,
And sweeter than the sweet ambrosial hive,
What is she, but the means of happiness?
That unobtain'd, than folly more a fool.
The man of wisdom is the man of years.
But wisdom, awful wisdom! which inspects,
Discerns, compares, weighs, separates, infers,
Seizes the right, and holds it to the last.
Teach me my days to number, and apply
My trembling heart to wisdom.
WISHES
"'Man wants but little here below
Nor wants that little long,"
'Tis not with me exactly so;
But 'tis so in the song.
My wants are many, and, if told,
Would muster many a score;
And were each wish a mint of gold,
I still should long for more.
John Quincy Adams—The Wants of Man.
| seealso = (See also {{sc|Goldsmith)
{{Hoyt quote
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| text = <poem>Every wish
Is like a prayer—with God.
E. B. Browning—Aurora Leigh. Bk. II.
O, that I were where I would be,
Then would I be where I am not;
For where I am I would not be,
And where I would be I can not.
Quiller Couch. Quoted in Ship of Stars.
Ch. XII.
If a man could half his wishes he would double
Tiis Troubles.
Benj. Franklin—Poor Richard. (1752)
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{{Hoyt quote
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| text = <poem>Was man in der Jugend wiinscht, hat man im
Alter die Fiille.
What one has wished for in youth, in old
age one has in abundance.
Goethe—Wahrheit und Dichtung. Motto to
Partn.
Man wants but little here below,
Nor wants that little long.
| author = Goldsmith
| work = The Hermit. St. 8.
| seealso = (See also Adams, Holmes, Young.)
And the evil wish is most evil to the wisher.
Hesiod—Works and Days. V. 264.
Little I ask; my wants are few;
I only wish a hut of stone
(A very plain brown stone will do),
That I may call my own;
And close at hand is such a one
In yonder street that fronts the sun.
Holmes—Contentment.
With all thy sober charms possest,
Whose wishes never learnt to stray.
Langhorne—Poems. II. P. 123. (Park's
Ed.}})
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{{Hoyt quote
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| text = <poem>I wish I knew the goodof wishing.
Henry S. LeighYou pursue, I fly; you fly, I pursue; such is
my humor. What you wish, Dondymus, I do
not wish, what you do not wish, I do.
Martial—Epigrams. Bk. V. Ep. 83.
Vous l'avez voulu, vous l'avez voulu, George
Dandin, vous l'avez voulu.
You have wished it so, you have wished it
so, George Dandin, you have wished it so.
Moliere—George Dandin. Act I. Sc. 9.
Wert thou all that I wish thee, great, glorious
and free,
First flower of the earth, and first gem of the sea.
Moore—Remember Thee.
If I live to grow old, as I find I go down,
Let this be my fate in a country town;
May I have a warm house, with a stone at mr
And a cleanly young girl to rub my bald pate.
May I govern my passions with an absolute
sway,
Grow wiser and better as my strength wears
away,
Without gout or stone, by a gentle decay.
Walter
| author = Pope
| work = The Old Man's Wish. First appeared in A Collection of Thirty- one Songs. (1685)
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{{Hoyt quote
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| text = <poem>Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought:
I stay too long by thee, I weary thee.
Henry IV. Pt. II. Act IV. Sc. 5. L. 93.
Thy wish was father to that thought.
Idea found in Arrian—Anabasis. I. Ch.
Vn. Æschylus—Prometh. Vinct. I. 928.
Achilles Tatius—De Leucippes. Bk. VI.
17. Heliodorus. Bk. VIII. Cesar—De
Bello Gattico. IU. 18. Quintilian—Institutes. Bk. VI. Ch. II. Sec. V. (Ed.
Bonnell.) (1861)
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{{Hoyt quote
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| text = <poem>Where nothing wants that want itself doth seek.
Love's Labour's Lost. Act W. Sc. 3. L. 237.
I've often wished that I had clear,
For life, six hundred pounds a year,
A handsome house to lodge a friend,
A river at my garden's end,
A terrace walk, and half a rood
Of land, set out to plant a wood.
Swift—Imitation of Horace. Bk. II. Satire 6.
Quoniam id fieri quod vis non potest
Id velis quod possis.
As you can not do what you wish, you
should wish what you can do.
Terence:—Andria. II. 1. 6.
On ne peut desirer ce qu'on ne connait pas.
We cannot wish for that we know not.
Voltaire—Zaire. I. 1.
