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C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.

Blindness

  • O loss of sight, of thee I most complain!
  • Blind among enemies, O worse than chains,
  • Dungeon, or beggary, or decrepit age!
  • Milton.

    None so blind as those that will not see.

    Mathew Henry.

  • He that is strucken blind cannot forget
  • The precious treasure of his eyesight lost.
  • Shakespeare.

  • But love is blind, and lovers cannot see
  • The pretty follies that themselves commit.
  • Shakespeare.

  • O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon,
  • Irrecoverably dark! total eclipse,
  • Without all hope of day.
  • Milton.

  • He whom nature thus bereaves,
  • Is ever fancy’s favourite child;
  • For thee enchanted dreams she weaves
  • Of changeful beauty, bright and wild.
  • Mrs. Osgood.

  • Oh, say! what is that thing called light,
  • Which I must ne’er enjoy?
  • What are the blessings of the sight?
  • Oh, tell your poor blind boy!
  • Colley Cibber.

  • Ye have a world of light,
  • When love in the loved rejoices;
  • But the blind man’s home is the house of night,
  • And its beings are empty voices.
  • Bulwer-Lytton.

  • These eyes tho’ clear
  • To outward view of blemish or of spot,
  • Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot.
  • Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear
  • Of sun, or moon, or star, throughout the year,
  • Or man, or woman. Yet I argue not
  • Against Heaven’s hand or will, nor have a jot
  • Of heart or hope; but still bear up and steer
  • Right onward.
  • Milton.

  • O, happiness of blindness! now no beauty
  • Inflames my lust; no other’s goods my envy,
  • Or misery my pity; no man’s wealth
  • Draws my respect; nor poverty my scorn,
  • Yet still I see enough! man to himself
  • Is a large prospect, raised above the level
  • Of his low creeping thoughts; if then I have
  • A world within myself, that would shall be
  • My empire; there I’ll reign, commanding freely,
  • And willingly obey’d, secure from fear
  • Of foreign forces, or domestic treasons.
  • Denham.

    The blindness of men is the most dangerous effect of their pride; it seems to nourish and augment it; it deprives them of knowledge of remedies which can solace their miseries and can cure their faults.

    La Rochefoucauld.

  • This fellow must have a rare understanding;
  • For nature recompenseth the defects
  • Of one part with redundance in another;
  • Blind men have excellent memories, and the tongue
  • Thus indisposed, there’s treasure in the intellect.
  • Shirley.