Blithe Quotes

• The bosom can ache beneath diamond brooches; and many a blithe heart dances under coarse wool.

  Edwin Hubbel Chapin

  Heart, Wool, Jewelry

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• Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Spirit, Classic, Hail

  "To a Skylark" l. 1 (1819)

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• Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more, Men were deceivers ever,- One foot in sea and one on shore, To one thing constant never.

  William Shakespeare

  Lost Love, Men, Sea

  'Much Ado About Nothing' (1598-9) act 2, sc. 3, l. [65]

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• When blithe to argument I come, Though armed with facts, and merry, May Providence protect me from The fool as adversary, Whose mind to him a kingdom is Where reason lacks dominion, Who calls conviction prejudice And prejudice opinion.

  Phyllis McGinley

  Mind, Atheism, Prejudice

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• It is discouraging how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.

  Noel Coward

  Honesty, Lying, People

  Noel Coward (1979). “Plays, four”, Methuen Drama

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• I dwell no more in Arcady, But when the sky is blue with May, And birds are blithe and winds are free, I know what message is for me, For I have been in Arcady.

  Louise Chandler Moulton

  Blue, Wind, Sky

  Louise Chandler Moulton (1908). “The Poems and Sonnets of Louise Chandler Moulton ...”

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• There was a blithe certainty that came from first comprehending the full Einstein field equations, arabesques of Greek letters clinging tenuously to the page, a gossamer web. They seemed insubstantial when you first saw them, a string of squiggles. Yet to follow the delicate tensors as they contracted, as the superscripts paired with subscripts, collapsing mathematically into concrete classical entities - potential; mass; forces vectoring in a curved geometry - that was a sublime experience. The iron fist of the real, inside the velvet glove of airy mathematics.

  Gregory Benford

  Real, Math, Iron

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• Here may I live what life I please, Married and buried out of sight, - Married to pleasure and buried to pain, - Hidden away amongst scenes like these, Under the fans of the chestnut trees; Living my child-life over again, With the further hope of a fallen delight, Blithe as the birds and wise as the bees.

  Violet Fane

  Life, Wise, Hope

  Violet Fane (1880). “Collected Verses”

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• As a young designer explained to me bluntly: "Everyone upstairs is dumb," referring to the floor above the engineering lair at the 156 University office where customer support, administrators and salespeople sat. My first impulse was to laugh at his ridiculous, blithe dismissiveness, until I realized that it wasn't very funny.

  Katherine Losse

  Engineering, Laughing, Office

  Katherine Losse (2012). “The Boy Kings: A Journey into the Heart of the Social Network”, p.77, Simon and Schuster

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• Do not judge from mere appearances.

  Edwin Hubbel Chapin

  Judging, Jewelry, Appearance

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• Standing on the bare ground,--my head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted into infinite space,--all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or parcel of God.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Faith, Nature, Mean

  Nature, rev. ed., ch. 1 (1849)

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• Do not judge men by mere appearances; for the light laughter that bubbles on the lip often mantles over the depths of sadness, and the serious look may be the sober veil that covers a divine peace and joy.

  Edwin Hubbel Chapin

  Sad, Laughter, Ex Boyfriend

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• For in the theoretical field bourgeois economics no longer engages in blithe and joyous fights.

  Rudolf Hilferding

  Fighting, Fields, Economics

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• I am one of those who hold that poetry is never so blithe as in a wanton and irregular subject.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Poetry, Subjects, Wanton

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.145, Stanford University Press

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• O Cuckoo! shall I call thee bird, Or but a wandering voice?

  William Wordsworth

  Voice, Bird, Cuckoos

  'To the Cuckoo' (O blithe new-comer!, 1807)

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• Come forth into the light of things, let nature be your teacher.

  William Wordsworth

  Life, Education, Teacher

  William Wordsworth (1837). “The Complete Poetical Works of William Wordsworth: Together with a Description of the Country of the Lakes in the North of England, Now First Published with His Works ...”, p.337

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• Sigh no more ladies, sigh no more, men were deceivers ever

  William Shakespeare

  Men, Sigh, Inconstancy

  'Much Ado About Nothing' (1598-9) act 2, sc. 3, l. [65]

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• The poet is blithe and cheery ever, and as well as nature.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Poetry, Poet, Wells

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.279, Simon and Schuster

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• O' who will walk with me along lifes merry way? A comrade blithe and full of glee, who dares to laugh out loud and free.

  Henry Van Dyke

  Laughing, Glee, Way

  Henry Van Dyke (1920). “The works of Henry Van Dyke”

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• As I walked in the woods I felt what I often feel that nothing can befall me in life, no calamity, no disgrace (leaving me my eyes) to which Nature will not offer a sweet consolation. Standing on the bare ground with my head bathed by the blithe air, & uplifted into the infinite space, I become happy in my universal relations. The name of the nearest friend sounds then foreign & accidental. I am the heir of uncontained beauty and power.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Sweet, Nature, Eye

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• There was a jolly miller once, Lived on the River Dee; He worked and sang, from morn to night; No lark so blithe as he. And this the burden of his song, Forever used to be, "I care for nobody, not I, If no one cares for me.

  Isaac Bickerstaffe

  Song, Night, Rivers

  Love in aVillage act 1, sc. 2 (1762)

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• It's no surprise that the Bush administration's bullying swagger and blithe ignorance have caused much of the Muslim world to hold the U.S. in rock-bottom regard.

  Graydon Carter

  Bullying, Ignorance, Rocks

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• Knowledge enormous makes a God of me.
  Names, deeds, gray legends, dire events, rebellions,
  Majesties, sovran voices, agonies,
  Creations and destroyings, all at once
  Pour into the wide hollows of my brain,
  And deify me, as if some blithe wine
  Or bright elixir peerless I had drunk,
  And so become immortal.

  John Keats

  Wine, Agony, Names

  John Keats (2015). “John Keats - The Man Behind The Lyrics: Life, letters, and literary remains: Complete Letters and Two Extensive Biographies of one of the most beloved English Romantic poets”, p.307, e-artnow

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• In the downhill of life, when I find I'm declining, May my lot no less fortunate be Than a snug elbow-chair can afford for reclining, And a cot that o'erlooks the wide sea; With an ambling pad-pony to pace o'er the lawn, While I carol away idle sorrow, And blithe as the lark that each day hails the dawn, Look forward with hope for to-morrow.

  John Churton Collins

  Sea, Sorrow, Ponies

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• I'm not much like my mother; that role falls to my brothers, who have more of her blithe and freewheeling spirit.

  Meghan O'Rourke

  Mother, Brother, Fall

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