Famous quotes containing the word breath:
“Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay:
Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade;
A breath can make them, as a breath has made;
But a bold peasantry, their country’s pride,
When once destroyed, can never be supplied.”
—Oliver Goldsmith (1730?–1774)
“A true poem is distinguished not so much by a felicitous expression, or any thought it suggests, as by the atmosphere which surrounds it. Most have beauty of outline merely, and are striking as the form and bearing of a stranger; but true verses come toward us indistinctly, as the very breath of all friendliness, and envelop us in their spirit and fragrance.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives,
Live registered upon our brazen tombs,
And then grace us in the disgrace of death;
When spite of cormorant devouring Time,
Th’ endeavor of this present breath may buy
That honor which shall bate his scythe’s keen edge,
And make us heirs of all eternity.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)