borrowed words, Part Seven (& last)

Here's the last installment of my quote collection, circa post-high-school and beyond.  

I remember reading Alexander Pope to while away empty hours at my desk in Japan, "teaching" English.  (Cheers, fellow JETs!). Kahlil Gibran, though, came before Pope, I thought - I read him ensconced in the philosophy nook of the commune library, that summer in Georgia.  

I still enjoy the poem my collection ends on.  Reminds me of another quote, from Solon of ancient Greece:  "Each man of you, individually, walketh with the tread of a fox, but collectively ye are geese."

One science only will one genius fit,

So vast is Art, so narrow human wit.

~Alexander Pope

A little learning is a dangerous thing. ~Alexander Pope

Poets, like painters, thus unskilled to trace

The naked nature and the living grace,

With gold and jewels cover every part

And hide with ornaments their want of art.

~Alexander Pope

All looks infected that the infected spy,

As all looks jaundiced to the jaundiced eye.

~Alexander Pope

And she who scorns a man must die a maid. ~Alexander Pope

Fear not the anger of the wise to raise;

Those best can bear reproof, who merit praise.

~Alexander Pope

Words are like leaves; and where they most abound,

Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.

~Alexander Pope

Is not the dread of thirst when your well is full, the thirst that is unquenchable? ~Kahlil Gibran

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. ~Kahlil Gibran

Verily the lust for comfort murders the passion of the soul, and then walks grinning in the funeral. ~Kahlil Gibran

…even as the holy and the righteous cannot rise beyond the highest which is in each one of you, so the wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than the lowest which is in you also. ~Kahlil Gibran

You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts; and when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart you live in your lips, and sound is a diversion and a pastime. … For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly. ~Kahlil Gibran

“The Wishes of an Elderly Man at a Garden Party, June 1914”

I wish I loved the human race;

I wish I loved its silly face;

I wish I liked the way it walks;

I wish I like the way it talks.

And when I'm introduced to one,

I wish I thought “what jolly fun.”

~Walter-Raleigh

So, after typing all this … I find I still cannot throw the old notebook away. I still like quotes, and there are pages left, empty .....

[If you missed Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five, and Six, click and be happy!]