Page:Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922).djvu/428

1

Facte nova virtute, puer; sic itur ad astra.

Go on and increase in valor, O boy! this is the path to immortality.

Vergil—Æneid. IX. 641.

Happy he whose inward ear
Angel comfortings can hear,
O'er the rabble's laughter;
And, while Hatred's fagots burn,
Glimpses through the smoke discern
Of the good hereafter.

Whether—Barclay of Ury.

3

Man is immortal till his work is done.

James Williams—Sonnet Ethandune. Claimed for Williams in the Guardian, Nov. 17, 1911; also Nov. 24.

(See also Fuller)

4

Though inland far we be.
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither.

Wordsworth—Ode. Intimations of Immortality. St. 9.

5

'Tis immortality, 'tis that alone,
Amid life's pains, abasements, emptiness,
The soul can comfort, elevate, and fill.
That only, and that amply this performs.

Young—Night Thoughts. Night VI. L. 573.

IMPATIENCE

Impatient straight to flesh his virgin sword.

Homer—Odyssey. Bk. 20. L. 381. Pope's trans.

7

I wish, and I wish that the spring would go faster,
Nor long summer bide so late;
And I could grow on like the foxglove and aster,
For some things are ill to wait.

Jean Ingelow—Song of Seven. Seven Times Two.

8

I am on fire
To hear this rich reprisal is so nigh
And yet not ours.

Henry IV. Pt. I. Act IV. Sc. 1. L. 117.

IMPOSSIBILITY (See also Difficulties)

You cannot make a crab walk straight.

Aristophanes—Pax. 1083.

It is not a lucky word, this same impossible; no good comes of those that have it so often in their mouth.
 | author = Carlyle
 | work = French Revolution.
 | place = Pt. III. Bk. III. Ch.X.
 | note =
 | topic =
 | page = 390
}}

{{Hoyt quote
 | num =
 | text = <poem>And what's impossible, can't be,
And never, never conies to pass.
Geo. Colman
 | cog = (The Younger)
 | work = Broad Grins.
The Maid of the Moor.

Hope not for impossibilities.

Fuller—The Holy and Profane States. Of Expecting Preferment. Maxim I.

Few things are impossible to diligence and skill.

Samuel Johnson—Rasselas. Ch. XII.

Simul flare sorbereque haud facile
Est : ego hie esse et illic simul, haud potui.
To blow and to swallow at the same time
is not easy; I cannot at the same time be here
and also there.

Plautus—Mostellaria. Act III. 2. 105.

Certainly nothing is unnatural that is not physically impossible.

R. B. Sheridan—The Critic. Act II. Sc. 1.

Certum est quia impossibile est.
The fact is certain because it is impossible.
Tertullian—De Came Ckristi. Ch. V. Pt. II. Called "Tertullian's rule of faith." Also given "Credo quia impossibile." I believe because it is impossible. Same idea in St. Augustine:—Confessions. VI. 5. (7) Credo quia absurdum est. An anonymous rendering of the same.

You cannot make, my Lord, I fear, a velvet purse of a sow's ear.

John Walcot—Lord B. and his Notions.

INCONSTANCY

I hate inconstancy—I loathe, detest,
Abhor, condemn, abjure the mortal made
Of such quicksilver clay that in his breast
No permanent foundation can be laid.

Byron—Don Juan. Canto II. St. 209.

They are not constant but are changing still.

Cymbeline. Act II. Sc. 5. L. 30.

O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,
That monthly changes in her circled orb,
Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.

Romeo and Juliet. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 109.

Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove;
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height betaken.

Sonnet CXVI.

Or as one nail by strength drives out another,
So the remembrance of my former love
Is by a newer object quite forgotten.

Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act II. Sc. 4. L. 193.

23

I loved a lass, a fair one,
As fair as e'er was seen;
She was indeed a rare one,
Another Sheba queen:
But, fool as then I was,
I thought she loved me too:
But now, alas! she's left me,
Falero, lero, loo!

George Wither—I Loved a Lass.