Scarce Quotes

• To the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.

  William Blake

  Nature, Eye, Science

  William Blake (1977). “The Portable William Blake”, p.136, Penguin

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• In Flanders fields the poppies blow.

  John McCrae

  Blow, Fields, Poppies

  "In Flanders Fields" l. 1 (1915)

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• Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
  If mankind perished utterly; And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
  Would scarcely know that we were gone.

  Sara Teasdale

  Nature, Spring, Animal

  Sara Teasdale (1920). “Flame and Shadow”, p.90, Рипол Классик

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• So Nature deals with us, and takes away Our playthings one by one, and by the hand Leads us to rest so gently, that we go, Scarce knowing if we wish to go or stay, Being too full of sleep to understand How far the unknown transcends the what we know.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Nature, Sleep, Hands

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (2012). “My Complete Poetical Works (Annotated Edition)”, p.848, Jazzybee Verlag

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• Courage and wisdom are, indeed, rarities amongst men, but of all that is good, a just man it would seem is the most scarce.

  Plutarch

  Wisdom, Men, Politics

  Plutarch (2015). “Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans: Top Biography”, p.504, 谷月社

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• Blind mouths! That scarce themselves know how to hold A sheep-hook.

  John Milton

  Sheep, Hook, Mouths

  'Lycidas' (1638) l. 114

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• A good book, in the language of the book-sellers, is a salable one; in that of the curious, a scarce one; in that of men of sense, a useful and instructive one.

  Oswald Chambers

  Book, Reading, Men

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• O loss of sight, of thee I most complain! Blind among enemies, O worse than chains, dungeon or beggary, or decrepit age! Light, the prime work of God, to me is extinct, and all her various objects of delight annulled, which might in part my grief have eased. Inferior to the vilest now become of man or worm; the vilest here excel me, they creep, yet see; I, dark in light, exposed to daily fraud, contempt, abuse and wrong, within doors, or without, still as a fool, in power of others, never in my own; scarce half I seem to live, dead more than half.

  John Milton

  Grief, Loss, Dark

  John Milton (1853). “The poetical works of John Milton, with life. Complete ed”, p.359

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• When words are scarce they are seldom spent in vain.

  William Shakespeare

  Thought Provoking, Lovers Meeting, Power Of Words

  William Shakespeare, Roma Gill (1998). “Richard II”, p.23, Oxford University Press, USA

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• A table full of welcome makes scarce one dainty dish.

  William Shakespeare

  Tables, Welcome, Dishes

  William Shakespeare, R.A. Foakes (1962). “Arden Shakespeare: The Comedy Of Errors: Second Series”, p.42, Cengage Learning EMEA

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• We are in the mountains and they are in us, kindling enthusiasm, making every nerve quiver, filling every pore and cell of us....How glorious a conversion, so complete and wholesome it is, scarce memory enough of old bondage days left as a standpoint to view it from! In this newness of life we seem to have been so always

  John Muir

  Memories, Views, Cells

  John Muir, Peter Browning (1988). “John Muir, in His Own Words: A Book of Quotations”, p.8, Great West Books

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• Let those find fault whose wit's so very small, They've need to show that they can think at all; Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow; He who would search for pearls, must dive below. Fops may have leave to level all they can; As pigmies would be glad to lop a man. Half-wits are fleas; so little and so light, We scarce could know they live, but that they bite.

  John Dryden

  Men, Thinking, Errors

  John Dryden (1870). “The Poetical Works of John Dryden”, p.433

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• I died for Beauty--but was scarce
  Adjusted in the Tomb
  When One who died for Truth, was lain
  In an adjoining Room

  Emily Dickinson

  Beauty, Death, Truth

  "I died for beauty but was scarce" l. 1 (ca. 1862)

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• I consider how little man is, yet, in his own mind, how great. He is lord and master of all things, yet scarce can command anything.

  Edmund Burke

  Men, Mind, Littles

  Edmund Burke (1852). “The Works and Correspondence Of...Edmund Burke”, p.7

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• The talent of insinuation is more useful than that of persuasion, as everybody is open to insinuation, but scarce any to persuasion.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Gossip, Talent, Persuasion

  Lord Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope Earl of Chesterfield (1855). “The Works of Lord Chesterfield: Including His Letters to His Son, Etc : to which is Prefixed, an Original Life of the Author”, p.629

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• The definition of the problem, rather than its solution, will be the scarce resource in the future.

  Esther Dyson

  Definitions, Problem, Resources

  "Intellectual Value" by Esther Dyson, www.wired.com. July 1, 1995.

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• It is a sultry day; the sun has drunk
  The dew that lay upon the morning grass;
  There is no rustling in the lofty elm
  That canopies my dwelling, and its shade
  Scarce cools me. All is silent, save the faint
  And interrupted murmur of the bee,
  Settling on the sick flowers,
  And then again Instantly on the wing.

  William C. Bryant

  Summer, Morning, Flower

  William Cullen Bryant, “Summer Wind”

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• For such things as you, I can scarce think there's any, ye're so slight.

  William Shakespeare

  Sassy, Thinking, I Can

  William Shakespeare (2015). “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, p.120, William Shakespeare

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• The man scarce lives who is not more credulous than he ought to be... The natural disposition is always to believe. It is acquired wisdom and experience only that teach incredulity, and they very seldom teach it enough.

  Adam Smith

  Believe, Men, Wisdom And Experience

  Adam Smith (2012). “The Theory of Moral Sentiments”, p.336, Courier Corporation

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• What would men be without women? Scarce, sir, mighty scarce. Mark Twain Women are an alien race set down among us.

  John Updike

  Women, Race, Aliens

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• With books, as with companions, it is of more consequence to know which to avoid, than which to choose; for good books are as scarce as good companions...

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Book, Writing, Companion

  "Lacon, Or, Many Things in Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think". Book by Charles Caleb Colton, 1820.

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• If the people are led to believe that scarce resources are best channeled in a direction that producers and consumers would not choose on their own, the result must necessarily be central planning.

  Llewellyn Rockwell

  Philosophy, Believe, People

  Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr. (2013). “Fascism versus Capitalism”, p.79, Ludwig von Mises Institute

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• Can anybody remember when the times were not hard and money not scarce?

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Encouragement, Money, Remember

  1870 Society and Solitude,'Works and Days'.

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• The longest tyranny that ever sway'd
  Was that wherein our ancestors betray'd
  Their free-born reason to the Stagirite [Aristotle],
  And made his torch their universal light.
  So truth, while only one suppli'd the state,
  Grew scarce, and dear, and yet sophisticate.

  John Dryden

  Truth, Light, Torches

  John Dryden, John Sargeaunt (1929). “The Poems of John Dryden, Ed., with an Introduction and Textual Notes”

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• There is scarce any one invention, which this nation has produced in our age, but it has some way or other been set forward by his assistance. ... He is indeed a man born for the good of mankind, and for the honour of his country. ... So I may thank God, that Dr. Wilkins was an Englishman, for wherever he had lived, there had been the chief seat of generous knowledge and true philosophy.

  Robert Hooke

  God, Country, Philosophy

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