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

Apparel

Let thy attyre bee comely, but not costly.

Lyly.

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express’d in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man.

Shakespeare.

She’s adorned
Amply, that in her husband’s eye looks lovely—
The truest mirror that an honest wife
Can see her beauty in!

John Tobin.

Dress drains our cellar dry,
And keeps our larder lean; puts out our fires.
And introduces hunger, frost, and woe,
Where peace and hospitality might reign.

Cowper.

Through tatter’d clothes small vices do appear;
Robes and furr’d gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold,
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks;
Arm it in rags, a pigmy’s straw doth pierce it.

Shakespeare.

Her polish’d limbs,
Veil’d in a simple robe, their best attire;
Beyond the pomp of dress; for Loveliness
Needs not the foreign aid of ornament,
But is, when unadorn’d, adorn’d the most.

Thomson.

He that is proud of the rustling of his silks, like a madman, laughs at the rattling of his fetters. For indeed, Clothes ought to be our remembrancers of our lost innocency.

Fuller.

So for thy spirit did devise
Its maker seemly garniture,
Of its own essence parcel pure—
From grave simplicities a dress,
And reticent demureness,
And love encinctured with reserve;
Which the woven vesture would subserve.
For outward robes in their ostents
Should show the soul’s habiliments.
Therefore I say—thou’rt fairer even so,
But better Fair I use to know.

Francis Thompson.

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