1 11 2 13 14 15 But to beg, or to borrow, or ask for our own; This world's a bubble. 'Tis the very worst world that ever was known. Ascribed to BACON by THOMAS FARNABY. J. BROMFIELD. As given in The Mirror, under (1629) Appeared in his Book of Epigrams; The Gatherer. Sept. 12, 1840. Quoted by and by JOSHUA SYLVESTER—Panthea. Ap IRVING in Tales of a Traveller. Prefixed to pendix. (1630) See also Wottonianæ. P. Pt. II. Another similar version attributed 513. Attributed to BISHOP USHER. See to EARL OF ROCHESTER. Miscellanes. H. W. GENT. (1708) (See also MOOR, QUARLES, WOTTON) This is the best world, that we live in, To lend and to spend and to give in: Earth took her shining station as a star, But to borrow, or beg, or to get a man's own, In Heaven's dark hall, high up the crowd of It is the worst world that ever was known. worlds. From A Collection of Epigrams. (1737) BAILEY-Festus. Sc. The Centre. 12 3 The severe schools shall never laugh me out Dieu est le poète, les hommes ne sont que les of the philosophy of Hermes, that this visible acteurs. Ces grandes pièces qui se jouent sur la world is but a picture of the invisible, wherein terre ont été composées dans le ciel. as in a portrait , things are not truly, but in God is the author, men are only the players. equivocal shapes, and as they counterfeit some These grand pieces which are played upon real substance in that invisible fabric. earth have been composed in heaven. SIR THOMAS BROWNE-Religio Medici. BALZAC-Socrate Chrétien. (See also JAMES) (See also Do BARTAS) In this bad, twisted, topsy-turvy world, Fly away, pretty moth, to the shade Where all the heaviest wrongs get uppermost. Of the leaf where you slumbered all day; E. B. BROWNING—Aurora Leigh. Bk. V. L. Be content with the moon and the stars, pretty 981. moth, And make use of your wings while you may. O world as God has made it! All is beauty. ROBERT BROWNING—Guardian Angel. A But tho' dreams of delight may have dazzled Picture at Fano. you quite, They at last found it dangerous play; The wide world is all before usMany things in this world that look bright, But a world without a friend. pretty moth, BURNS-Strathallan's Lament. Only dazzle to lead us astray. THOS. HAYNES BAYLY — Fly away, pretty I have not loved the world, nor the world me; Moth. I have not flatter'd its rank breath, nor bow'd 5 To its idolatries a patient knee. Let the world slide. BYRON—Childe Harold. Canto III. St. 113. BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER—Wit Without Money. Act V. Sc. 2. Taming of the Shrew. Well , well, the world must turn upon its axis, Induction. Sc. 1. L. 5. Also Sc. 2. L. 146. And all mankind turn with it, heads or tails, ("Slip" in folio.) And live and die, make love and pay our taxes, (See also HEYWOOD) And as the veering winds shift, shift our sails. BYRON—Don Juan. Canto II. St. 4. The world is like a board with holes in it, and the square men have got into the round holes, Such is the world. Understand it, despise it, and the round into the square. love it; cheerfully hold on thy way through it, BISHOP BERKELEY, as quoted by Punch. with thy eye on highest loadstars! (See also SMITH) CARLYLE —Essays. Count Cagliostro. Last 7 lines. Renounce the devil and all his works, the vain 19 pomp and glory of the world. The true Sovereign of the world, who moulds Book of Common Prayer. Public Baptism of the world like soft wax, according to his pleasure, Infants. is he who lovingly sees into the world. 8 CARLYLE—Essays. Death of Goethe. The pomps and vanity of this wicked world. 20 Book of Common Prayer. Catechism. Socrates, quidem, cum rogaretur cujatem se 9 esse diceret, "Mundanum," inquit; totius enim He sees that this great roundabout, mundi se incolam et civem arbitrabatur. The world, with all its motley rout, Socrates, indeed, when he was asked of what Church, army, physic, law, country he called himself, said, "Of the world;" Its customs and its businesses, for he considered himself an inhabitant and a Is no concern at all of his, citizen of the whole world. And says—what says he?-Caw. CICERO-Tusculanarum Disputationum. Bk VINCENT BOURNE—The Jackdaw. COWPER'S V. 37. 108. trans. (See also DIOGENES, SENECA) 10 'Tis a very good world we live in Such stuff the world is made of. To spend, and to lend, and to give in; COWPER-Hope. L. 211. 16 17 6 18 21 Tis pleasant, through the loopholes of retreat, COWPER—Task. Bk. IV. L. 88. Philosophers are, saith he, whose part is to learn The manners of all nations, and the good from the bad to discern. RICHARD EDWARDS—Damon and Pythias. (See also Do BARTAS) Good-bye, proud world! I'm going home; Thou art not my friend; I am not thine. EMERSON—Good-bye, Proud World! (“And I,” in later Ed.) 2 12 And for the few that only lend their ear, That few is all the world. 3 13 produit. Vien dietro a me, e lascia dir le genti. Come, follow me, and leave the world to its babblings. DANTE-Purgatorio. V. 13. Quel est-il en effet? C'est un verre qui luit, Qu'un souffle peut detruire, et qu'un souffle a What is it (the world), in fact? A glass which shines, which a breath can destroy, and which a breath has produced. DE Caux-L'Horloge de Sable. (1745) In D'ISRAELI'S Curiosities of Literature. Imitations and Similarities. (See also GOLDSMITH) I am a citizen of the world. DIOGENES LAERTIUS. (See also CICERO) The world is a wheel, and it will all come round right. BENJ. DISRAELI-Endymion. Ch. LXX. Shall I speak truly what I now see below? 1696) From the Latin said to have been (See also YOUNG under VISIONS) Map me no maps, sir; my head is a map, a map of the whole world. FIELDING—Rape upon Rape. Act I. Sc. 5. 14 15 5 Long ago a man of the world was defined as a man who in every serious crisis is invariably wrong. Fortnightly Review. Armageddon—and After. Nov., 1914. P. 736. (See also YOUNG) 16 7 Mais dons ce monde, il n'y a rien d'assure que le mort et les impots. But in this world nothing is sure but death and taxes. FRANKLIN—Letter to M. Leroy. (1789) Since every man who lives is born to die, (See also HOWELL) Eppur si muove. (Epur.) Questioned by KARL VON GEBLE; also by 18 9 19 I take the world to be but as a stage, Dialogue Between Heraclitus and Democritus. BOHN's Collection, 1857. JUVENAL—Satires. III. 100. (Natio comoeda est.) (See also Balzac, EDWARDS, HEYWOOD, MIDDLE TON, MONTAIGNE, PETRONIUS, As You LIKE Il mondo è un bel libro, ma poco serve a chi non lo sa leggere. The world is a beautiful book, but of little use to him who cannot read it. GOLDONI–Pamela. I. 14. (See also Noyes) Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates, and men decay; Princes and Lords may flourish, or may fadeA breath can make them, as a breath has made But a bold peasantry, their country's pride, When once destroy'd can never be supplied. GOLDSMITH-Deserted Village. L. 51. (See also De Caux) 14 For to admire an' for to see, For to be'old this world so wide But I can't drop it if I tried! 15 As the world the world hath seen, That the world had pever been. 2 16 3 The world's a theatre, the earth a stage, Author to His Book. Prefix to Apology for (See also Du BARTAS) Nor is this lower world but a huge inn, And men the rambling passengers. JAMES. HOWELL—The Vote. Poem prefixed to his Familiar Letters. (See also DRYDEN) There are two worlds; the world that we can measure with line and rule, and the world that we feel with our hearts and imaginations. LEIGH HUNT-Men, Women, and Books. Fic tion and Matter of Fact. The nations are as a drop of a bucket. Isaiah. XL. 15. It is an ugly world. Offend Good people, how they wrangle, The characters they mangle. And go to church on Sunday, And more of Mrs. Grundy. Plea. 4 17 5 6 World without end. Isaiah. XLV. 17. 7 The visible world is but man turned inside out that he may be revealed to himself. HENRY JAMES (the Elder). From J. A. KEL LOG—Digest of the Philosophy of Henry (See also BROWNE, Noyes) O what a glory doth this world put on LONGFELLOW-Autumn. Glorious indeed is the world of God around us, but more glorious the world of God within us. There lies the Land of Song; there lies the poet's native land. LONGFELLOW-Hyperion. Bk. I. Ch. VIII. One day with life and heart, Is more than time enough to find a world. LOWELL-Columbus. Last lines. 19 Flammantia mania mundi. The flaming ramparts of the world. LUCRETIUS—De Rerum Natura. I. 73. When the world dissolves, And every creature shall be purified, All places shall be hell that are not heaven. MARLOWE—Faustus. L. 543. 21 I never have sought the world; the world was not to seek me. SAMUEL JOHNSON-Boswell's Life of Johnson. (1783) 10 This world, where much is to be done and little to be known. SAMUEL JOHNSON--Prayers and Meditations. Against Inquisitive and Perplexing Thoughts. 11 If there is one beast in all the loathsome fauna of civilization I hate and despise, it is a man of the world. HENRY ARTHUR JONES—The Liars. Act I. (See also YOUNG) Upon the battle ground of heaven and hell I palsied stand. MARIE JOSEPHINE-Rosa Mystica. P. 231. And the sunshine follows the rain; Sweet wife. 24 12 25 13 The world's a stage on which all parts are played. (See also Du BARTAS) Hanging in a golden chain (See also MEASURE FOR MEASURE) 26 9 10 11 His gov 12 13 A boundless continent, Whose Portals are alternate Night and Day, MILTON--Paradise Lost. Bk. III. L. 423. How Sultán after Sultan with his Pomp Abode his destined Hour, and went his way. Then stayed the fervid wheels, and in his hand OMAR KHAYYAM-Rubaiyat. St. 17. FITZHe took the golden compasses, prepared GERALD's trans. Love to his soul gave eyes; he knew things are One foot he centred, and the other turned not as they seem. Round through the vast profundity obscure, The dream is his real life: the world around him And said, “Thus far extend, thus far thy bounds, is the dream. This be thy just circumference, O World." F.T. PALGRAVE—Dream of Maxim Wledig. MILTON—Paradise Lost. Bk. VII. L. 224. God is like a skillful Geometrician. SIR Quod fere totus mundus exerceat histrionem. THOMAS BROWNE-Religio Medici. Pt. I. Almost the whole world are players. Sect. XVI. Nature geometrizeth and ob PETRONIUS ARBITER--Adapted from Fragserveth order in all things. SIR THOMAS ments. No. 10. (Ed. 1790) Over the door BROWNE–Garden of Cyrus. Ch. III. The of Shakespeare's theatre, The Globe, Banksame idea appears in COMBER-Companion side, London, was a figure of Hercules; to the Temple. (Folio 1684) God acts the under this figure was the above quotation. part of a Geometrician. It probably suggested "All the world's a ernment of the World is no less mathemat. stage.” ically exact than His creation of it. (Quot (See also Du BARTAS) ing Plato) JOHN NORRIS--Practical Discourses. II. P. 228. (Ed. 1693) “God They who grasp the world, Geometrizes" is quoted as a traditional sen The Kingdom, and the power, and the glory, tence used by Plato, in PLUTARCH-Sympo Must pay with deepest misery of spirit, sium. By a carpenter mankind was created Atoning unto God for a brief brightness. and made, and by a carpenter mete it was STEPHEN PHILLIPS—Herod. Act III. that man should be repaired. ERASMUSParaphrase of St. Mark. Folio 42. Alexander wept when he heard from Anax3 archus that there was an infinite number of The world was all before them, where to choose worlds, and his friends asking him if any accident Their place of rest, and Providence their guide. had befallen him he returned this answer: "Do MILTON—Paradise Lost. Bk. XII. L. 646. you not think it is a matter worthy of lamenta tion that where there is such a vast multitude of Le monde n'est qu'une bransloire perenne. them we have not yet conquered one?". The world is but a perpetual see-saw. PLUTARCH-On the Tranquillity of the Mind. MONTAIGNE—Essays. Bk. III. Ch. II. One world is not sufficient; he [Alexander the Great] fumes unhappy in the narrow 5 bounds of this earth. Quoted from JUVENAL Is it not a noble farce wherein kings, republics, -Satires. X. and emperors have for so many ages played their parts, and to which the vast universe serves for But as the world, harmoniously confused, a theatre? Where order in variety we see; MONTAIGNE–Of the Most Excellent Men. And where, tho' all things differ, all agree. (See also Du BARTAS) POPE-Windsor Forest. (See also ROWLEY) Or may I think when toss'd in trouble, This world at best is but a bubble. My soul, what's lighter than a feather? Wind. DR. MOOR. MS. Than wind? The fire. And what than fire? (See also BACON) The mind. What's lighter than the mind? A thought. This world is all a fleeting show, Than thought? For man's illusion given; This bubble world. What than this bubble? The smiles of joy, the tears of woe, Nought. Deceitful shine, deceitful flow, QUARLES--Emblems. Bk. I. 4. There's nothing true but Heaven. (See also Bacon, also HARLEIAN MS. under WoMOORE—This World is all a Fleeting Show. MAN) (See also Knox under PRIDE) All nations and kindreds and people and tongues. This outer world is but the pictured scroll Revelation. VII. 9. Of worlds within the soul; 17 A colored chart, a blazoned missal-book, Le monde est le livre des femmes. Whereon who rightly look The world is woman's book. And steer to Paradise. The worlde bie diffraunce ys ynn orders founde. (See also JAMES, also LONGFELLOW under ROWLEY—The Tournament. Same idea in PasNATURE) CAL-Pensées. BERNARDIN DE ST. PIERRE 14 15 16 18 14 Etudes de la Nature. BURKE-Reflections on the French Revolution. HORACE-Epistle 12. LUCAN-Pharsalia. LONGINUS—— Remark on the Eloquence of Demosthenes. (See also POPE) Es liebt die Welt, das Stralende zu schwärzen Und das Erhabne in den Staub zu ziehn. The world delights to tarnish shining names, And to trample the sublime in the dust. SCHILLER—Das Mädchen von Orleans. 2 Denn nur vom Nutzen wird die Welt regiert. For the world is ruled by interest alone. SCHILLER—Wallenstein's Tod. I. 6. 37. 3 Non sum uni angulo natus; patria mea totus hic est mundus. I am not born for one corner; the whole world is my native land. SENECA—Epistles. 28. (See also CICERO) All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players. As You Like It. Act II. Sc. 7. L. 139. (See also Du BARTAS) 5 This wide and universal theatre Presents more woful pageants than the scene Wherein we play in. As You Like It. Act II. Sc. 7. L. 137. (See also Du BARTAS) 6 How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable Seem to me all the uses of this world! Hamlet. Act I. Sc. 2. L. 133. 7 For some must watch, while some must sleep; So runs the world away. Hamlet. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 284. (See also KINGSLEY under WORK) Would I were dead! if God's good will were so: For what is in this world but grief and woe? Henry VI. Pt. III. Act II. Sc. 5. L. 19. The world is grown so bad, That wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch. Richard III. Act I. Sc. 3. L. 70. 15 You'll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race. BERNARD SHAW—0'Flaherty, V. C. 16 The golden years return, Her winter weeds outworn. Making a perpetual mansion of this poor baiting place. SIR PHILIP SIDNEY-Arcadia. Same idea in MOORE— Irish Melodies. IRVING— Bracebridge Hall. Vol. I. P. 213. An adaptation of CICERO-De Senectute. 26; and SENECA, Epistles. 120. 18 If you choose to represent the various parts in life by holes upon a table, of different shapes some circular, some triangular, some square, some oblong, -and the persons acting these parts by bits of wood of similar shapes, we shall generally find that the triangular person has got into the square hole, the oblong into the triangular, and a square person has squeezed himself into the round hole. The officer and the office, the doer and the thing done, seldom fit so exactly that we can say they were almost made for each other. SYDNEY SMITH-Sketches of Moral Philosophy. P. 309. (See also BERKELEY) 19 O Earth! all bathed with blood and tears, yet Hast thou ceased putting forth thy fruit and flowers. MADAME DE STAël-Corinne. Bk. XIII. Ch. IV. L. E. Li's trans. This world surely is wide enough to hold both thee and me. STERNE—Tristram Shandy. Bk. II. Ch. XII. There was all the world and his wife. SwimPolite Conversation. Dialogue III. ANSTEY—New Bath Guide. P. 130. (1767) In this playhouse of infinite forms I have had my play, and here have I caught sight of him that is formless. RABINDRANATH TAGORE-Gitanjali. 96. (See also Du BARTAS) A mad world, my masters. JOHN TAYLOR-Western Voyage. First line. MIDDLETON. Title of a play. (1608) NICHOLAS BRETON. Title of a pamphlet . (1603) Mundus furiosus. (a mad world) Inscription of a book by JANSENIUS-Gallo-Belgicus. (1596) (See also KING JOHN) So many worlds, so much to do, So little done, such things to be. TENNYSON-In Memoriam. Pt. LXXIII. never 8 20 21 22 23 Mad world. Mad kings. Mad composition. (See also TAYLOR) (See also BACON) 11 To be imprisoned in the viewless winds And blown with restless violence around about The pendent world. Measure for Measure. Act III. Sc. 1. L. 124. (See also MILTON) 12 I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano: A stage where every man must play a part. Merchant of Venice. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 76. (See also Du BARTAS) Why, then, the world's mine oyster, Which I with sword will open. Merry Wives of Windsor. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 2. 13 24 |