- D -
- All the good we have rests in the mind,
By whose proportions only we redeem
Our thoughts from out confusion, and do find
The measure of ourselves and of our powers."
Samuel Daniel, To the Lady Lucy, Countess of Bedford 47-50
- Some diplomat no doubt
Will launch a heedless word
And lurking war leap out.
John Davidson, War-Song
- And blood in torrents pour
In vain--always in vain.
For war breeds war again.
John Davidson, War-Song
- Do I believe in Heaven and Hell? I do;
We have them here; the world is nothing else.
John Davidson, Dedication to the Generation Knocking at the Door
- Why did my parents send me to the schools,
That I with knowledge might enrich my mind,
Since the desire to know first made men fools,
And did corrupt the root of all mankind?
Sir John Davies, Nosce Teipsum, 1-4
- I know I am one of Nature's little kings.
Sir John Davies, Nosce Teipsum, 175
- I know myself a MAN,
Which is a proud, and yet a wretched thing.
Sir John Davies, Nosce Teipsum, 179-180
- For each ecstatic instant
We must an anguish pay
In keen and quivering ratio
To the ecstasy.
Emily Dickinson
- To make a prarie it takes clover and one bee
one clover, and a bee,
and revery
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.
Emily Dickinson
- Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.
Emily Dickinson, Success is counted sweetest
- I dwell in Possibility --
A fairer house than Prose --
More numerous of Windows --
Superior -- for Doors.
Emily Dickinson
- On a huge hill,
Cragged, and steep, Truth stands, and he that will
Reach her, about must, and about must go . . . .
John Donne, Satire III: Religion
- He's not of none, nor worst, that seeks the best.
John Donne, Satire III: Religion
- And new Philosophy calls all in doubt,
The Element of fire is quite put out;
The Sun is lost, and th'earth, and no man's wit
Can well direct him where to look for it.
And freely men confess that this world's spent,
When in the Planets, and the Firmament
They seek so many new; they see that this
Is crumbl'd out again to his Atomies.
'Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone . . . .
John Donne, The First Anniversary
- You can and you can't,
You will and you won't
You'll be damned if you do,
You'll be damed if you don't.
Dow, Definition of Calvinism
- They are not long, the days of wine and roses.
Ernest Dowson, "Vitae Summa Brevis . . .," line 5
- Though absent, present in desires they be;
Our soul much farther than our eyes can see.
Michael Drayton, The Baron's Wars, Book III
- O the curst fate of all conspiracies!
They move on many springs; if one but fail,
The restive machine stops.
John Dryden, Don Sebastian
- As for my epitaph when I am gone,
I'le trust no Poet, but will write my own.
John Dryden, "Epilogue" to Tyrannick Love
- Great Wits are sure to Madness near allied,
And thin Partitions do their Bounds divide.
John Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel
- Dim, as the borrow'd beams of Moon and Stars
To lonely, weary, wandring Travellers,
Is Reason to the Soul: And as on high,
Those rowling Fires discover but the Sky
Not light us here; so Reason's glimmering Ray
Was lent, not to assure our doubtfull way,
But guide us upward to a better Day.
And as those nightly Tapers disappear
When Day's bright Lord ascends our Hemisphere;
So pale grows Reason at Religion's sight;
So dyes, and so dissolves in Supernatural Light."
John Dryden, Religio Laici
- Presence of mind, and courage in distress,
Are more than armies to procure success.
John Dryden, Aurengzebe, Act II
- The unhappy man who once has trail'd a pen,
Lives not to please himself, but other men;
Is always drudging, wastes his life and blood,
Yet only eats and drinks what you think good.
John Dryden, Prologue to Lee's Caesar Borgia
- I know why the caged bird sings.
Paul Laurence Dunbar, "Sympathy," line 15
- We like the man who soars and sings
With high and lofty inspiration;
But he who sings of common things
Shall always share our admiration.
Paul Laurence Dunbar, "Common Things," lines 17-20
- A little rule, a little sway,
A sunbeam on a winter's day,
Is all the proud and mighty have
Between the cradle and the grave.
Edward Dyer, Grongar Hill
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