Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.
Perfect to Poems
blend which makes the p. man, 1352
cannot expect p. government, 1351
work from imperfect man, 1348
of machinery … will in the end avail it [state] nothing, 1760
clear, 231
free till all are free, 1350
happy till all are happy, 1350
moral till all are moral, 1350
something worthy to be remembered, 13
what we cannot, 1544
of being judged not to have lived, 1088
we stood by our government in its p., 737
When we depart from these values, we do so at our p., 1868
in the execution, 1765
do not take lightly the p. of war, 1948
over which, in the past, the nation has triumphed, 57
was so far like the present p., 1818
better for us to p. in battle, 402
civilisation or liberty must p., 334
civilization would p., 421
If we work upon marble, it will p., 1198
liberty would p., 421
than live as slaves, 1634
[Time] the most p. of all our possessions, 1816
is the beginning of knowledge, 968
if p., it will be generally read, 170
cannot harm him who stands by Truth, 1833
to p. no assistance, 670
through abuse and even injury, 1560
and determination are omnipotent, 1355
Nothing in the World can take the place of p., 1355
ribald, useless, drunken, outcast p. we have always wished to be, 24
mine, 2070
of taste and cultivation, 108
with all her gold, 351
with its riches, 834
is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart, 1359
snows of p., 2099
shunned as a p., 281
I know I’m in the wrong p., 1523
America is … a blessed and hopeful p., 45
such a monstrous p., 676
must first be great in his own P., 817
battle between the literati and the P., 167
know the enemy’s p., 1365
of Lincoln, 801
those who have been brought up in p., 1016
to p. and to the divine, 1229
like a young p., she will rise full plumed and glorious, 1067
is the servant of the art, 847
for the young p.—we ought to throw in no medicine at all, 1038
Men are men before they are … p., 1150
has not yet found any indivisible matter, 111
best p. has not yet been painted, 111
promises and pye-crusts are made to be broken, 1546
Violence is as American as cherry p., 1889
that had starved to death, 78
giant power wielded by p., 706
will now start to squabble, 1913
whether p. have wings, 1811
the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo, 1964
we ourselves must P. be, 1838
of the state, 1028
build a nation’s p. deep, 1234
if its [Capitol’s] lofty p. should fall 755
to help him endure and prevail, 1145
in a p. universe, 433
[has] a human face, 1464
know the p. for the first time, 579
no p. like the old p., 1814
Go p. amid the noise and the haste, 1114
on both your houses, 985
of Hesitation, 1823
wide and rising p., 350
cannot fail if the people are with us, 1332
follows out the p., 1290
for a year, plant a seed, 495
necessary if we are to p., 147
the particle and the p. are subject to the same laws, 972
sleepy and permanent p., 1118
See also Earth; Space Exploration
squanderers of p. capital, 309
drastic revision of strategic p., 1968
more wisdom in such [environmental] p., 541
Enjoy your achievements as well as your p., 1114
Make no little p., 1360
make p. fit the circumstances, 1362
If [you plan] for ten years, p. a tree, 495
no time to lose, p. it this afternoon, 1815
old men p. trees they will never sit under, 694
time to p., and a time to pluck up, 1810
for nothing, 2030
no p. in them, for this comes after work, 1124
[policy] is like a p. in many acts, 1369
will go on, 1369
all the men and women merely p., 1158
Let dull critics feed upon the carcases of p., 361
to p. universally, 1787
to tax and to p., 1787
just puts down what he damn p., 1768
from p. to p., 1195
generally comes from things, 923
of later cutting them down to size, 1266
we can find our greatest p., 1096
without conscience, 1697
curse of p., 15
For what avail the p. or sail,… if freedom fail, 641
like a ripe field of wheat where once drove p., 915
new ground, 391
America’s conquests are made with the plowshare, 2045
cabinet of eight millionaires and one p., 1510
An excellent p. is infinitely more admirable than an incompetent philosopher, 568
not our affluence, or our p. … that grip the imagination of others, 1868
Absence of p., 993
legal p., 993
partial p., 993
poor would p. the rich, 421
property as its prey and p., 1649
universal p., 993
career of p. and blundering, 713
their wealth, 2040
at once into the whirlpool of politics, 86
predatory p. or predatory poverty, 1249
Dedicate … Verses to p., 656
general was doing more for victory by writing a p., 1589
greatest p. is still unsung, 111
of my life, 2006
of New England, 1241
Here are entered by author and title the poems in this collection.
Alger, Horatio, Jr., “Carving a Name,” 1215
Auden, Wystan Hugh, “Hymn to the United Nations,” 1856
Author unknown
Bullfight critics row on row, 14
“Don’t Quit,” 1358
“I Shall Not Pass This Way Again,” 453
“Monday’s child is fair in face,” 200
“They talk about a ‘woman’s sphere,’” 2012
“Three Things,” 1239
Belloc, Hilaire, “Dedicatory Ode,” 682
Benét, Stephen Vincent, “Western Star,” 1542
Blake, William, “Auguries of Innocence,” 196
“The Divine Image,” 1464
Brooke, Rupert, “The Soldier,” 1720
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, “A Court Lady,” 1233
Browning, Robert, “Andrea Del Sarto,” 1840
“A Death in the Desert,” 700
“Paracelsus,” 1142
Bryant, William Cullen, “The Battle-Field,” 1829
Burnet, Dana, “Who Dreams Shall Live,” 457
Byron, Lord, “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage,” 1459
Carroll, Lewis, “The Walrus and the Carpenter,” 1811
Clark, Esther M., “A Plea,” 683
Clough, Arthur Hugh, “The Latest Decalogue,” 1805
Dante Alighieri, “Inferno,” 1211
Diderot, Denis, “Les Éleuthéromanes,” 965
Dowson, Ernest, “They are not long, the weeping and the laughter,” 460
Dryden, John, Absalom and Achitophel, 1960
“Horace, the Twenty-Ninth Ode of the Third Book,” 636
Eaton, Anne S., “The Business of Friendship,” 684
Ehrmann, Max, “Desiderata,” 1114
Eliot, T. S., “Little Gidding,” 579
Emerson, Ralph Waldo,
“Boston,” 641
“A Nation’s Strength,” 1234
“Solution,” 1686
Fields, James T., “The Stars and Stripes,” 601
Foss, Sam Walter, “The House by the Side of the Road,” 685
Frost, Robert, “The Death of the Hired Man,” 860
“The Gift Outright,” 475
Galsworthy, John, “Errantry,” 4
Gérard, Rosemonde, “L’éternelle chanson,” 1130
Gray, Thomas, “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,” 1216
Guest, Edgar A., “It Couldn’t Be Done” 1841
Hale, Edward Everett, “Lend a Hand,” 899
Healey, Thomas F., “Give Me My Roses Now,” 1217
Hodges, Leigh Mitchell, “Give Them the Flowers Now,” 1218
Holmes, Oliver Wendell,
“Dorothy Q., A Family Portrait,” 1090
“No Time Like the Old Time,” 1814
“Poem,” 135
“To an Insect,” 631
Hope, James Barron, “Our Heroic Dead,” 366
Housman, Alfred Edward,
“Into my heart an air that kills,” 2093
“The laws of God, the laws of man,” 1008
Houston, Samuel, “There is a proud undying thought in man,” 593
Hughes, Langston, “Goodbye Christ,” 917
“Harlem,” 461
Keats, John, “Sonnet to Fanny Brawne,” 1219
Kingsley, Charles, “Old and New,” 1220
Kipling, Rudyard, “The Ballad of the King’s Jest” 824
“Our Lady of the Snows,” 2014
“Tommy,” 1723
Lazarus, Emma, “The New Colossus,” 1770
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, “Charles Sumner,” 371
Lowell, James Russell, “For an Autograph,” 587
“The Present Crisis,” 1838
“Sonnet IV,” 1252
“The Vision of Sir Launfal,” 2072
“Yussouf,” 1251
MacLeish, Archibald, “At the Lincoln Memorial,” 1853
Magee, John Gillespie, Jr., “High Flight,” 603
Markham, Edwin, “A Creed,” 136
“Lincoln, the Man of the People,” 1108
“Man-Making,” 1149
“The Vermin in the Dark,” 293
Marquis, Don, “A Roach of the Taverns,” 121
“What the Ants Are Saying,” 833
Masters, Edgar Lee, “John Hancock Otis,” 1452
McCrae, John, “In Flanders Fields,” 2048
McGuffey, William Holmes, “The Lark is up to meet the sun,” 470
Meredith, George, “For the Centenary of Garibaldi,” 915
Milton John, “A Mask Presented at Ludlow Castle,” 563
“Paradise Regain’d,” 919
O’Reilly, John Boyle, “Distance,” 2034
Pope, Alexander, “An Essay on Criticism,” 2021
“Temple of Fame,” 594
Quarles, Francis, “Of common Devotion,” 1731
Rice, Grantland, “Alumnus Football,” 1993
Rittenhouse, Jessie B., “My Wage,” 1099
Robinson, Henry Morton, “Litany for D-Day: 1944,” 1474
Russell, George William (AE), “Salutation” 1866
Sandburg, Carl “Grass,” 1964
“Money, Politics, Love, and Glory,” 1426
“The People, Yes,” 1946
“Washington Monument by Night,” 464
Saxe, John Godfrey, “The Blind Men and the Elephant,” 879
Scott, Sir Walter, The Lay of the Last Minstrel, 1310
Seeger, Alan, “I Have a Rendezvous with Death,” 373
Service, Robert William, The Spell of the Yukon, 33
Smith, Minnie Richard, “Stick to Your Job,” 1356
Spencer, Herbert, “The Coming Slavery,” 1705
Spenser, Edmund, The Faerie Queene, 962
Swinburne, Algernon Charles, “Super Flumina Babylonis,” 375
Tennyson, Alfred, Lord,
“Idylls of the King,” 181
“In Memoriam A. H. H.,” 1135
“Locksley Hall,” 973, 2038
“To J.S.,” 377
“Ulysses,” 575
Van Doren, Mark, “Freedom,” 659
Van Dyke, Henry, “Four Things,” 1126
Virgil, “Moretum,” 1867
Wesley, John, “Rule of Conduct,” 452
Wilcox, Ella Wheeler,
“Protest,” 1695
“Solitude,” 1707
Wintle, Walter D., “The Man Who Thinks He Can,” 1436
Yeats, William Butler,
“Easter 1916,” 1659
“The Municipal Gallery Revisited,” 690
“The Second Coming,” 454
Young, Edward, Night Thoughts, 1223