Wentworth Dillon, 4th Earl of Roscommon
Choose an author as you would a friend.Collection: Library
The last loud trumpet's wondrous sound, Shall thro' the rending tombs rebound, And wake the nations under ground.Collection: Sound
The men, who labour and digest things most, Will be much apter to despond than boast; For if your author be profoundly good, 'Twill cost you dear before he's understood.Collection: Men
Abstruse and mystic thoughts you must express With painful care, but seeming easiness; For truth shines brightest thro' the plainest dress.Collection: Shining
Immodest words admit of no defence, For want of decency is want of sense.Collection: Want
What you keep by you, you may change and mend but words, once spoken, can never be recalled.Collection: Change
You must not think that a satiric style allows of scandalous and brutish words; the better sort abhor scurrility.Collection: Thinking
Men still had faults, and men will have them still; He that hath none, and lives as angels do, Must be an angel.Collection: Angel
Tis I that call, remember Milo's end, Wedged in that timber which he strove to rend.Collection: Punishment
Words once spoken can never be recalled.Collection: Gossip
The press, the pulpit, and the stage, Conspire to censure and expose our age.Collection: Criticism
Truth shines brightest thro' the plainest dress.Collection: Truth
Pride (of all others the most dang'rous fault) Proceeds from want of sense, or want of thought.Collection: Pride
Beware what spirit rages in your breast; for one inspired, ten thousand are possessed.Collection: Spirit
You gain your point if your industrious art can make unusual words easy.Collection: Art
Let us not write at a loose rambling rate, in hope the world will wink at all our faults.Collection: Writing
Grief dejects and wrings the tortured soul.Collection: Grief
Words are like leaves; some wither every year, and every year a younger race succeed.Collection: Race
Invention is not so much the result of labor as of judgment.Collection: Judgment
Our heroes of the former days deserved and gained their never-fading bays.Collection: Hero
Truth and fiction are so aptly mixed that all seems uniform and of a piece.Collection: Fiction
Sound judgment is the ground of writing well.Collection: Writing
I will not quarrel with a slight mistake, Such as our nature's frailty may excuse.Collection: Mistake
The multitude is always wrong.Collection: Multitudes
We weep and laugh, as we see others do.Collection: Laughing