Tobias Smollett
18th-century poet and author from Scotland
(Redirected from Tobias George Smollett)
Tobias George Smollett (c. March 16, 1721 – September 17, 1771) was a Scottish novelist, translator, historian and editor.
Quotes
edit- Facts are stubborn things.
- Translation of Gil Blas (1749), Book X, Chap. 1.
- Also used by Bernard Mandeville in An Enquiry Into the Origin of Honour (1732), p. 162, and by Jared Elliot in Essay on Field Husbandry (1747), p. 35.
- Thy spirit, Independence, let me share,
Lord of the lion-heart and eagle-eye.
Thy steps I follow with my bosom bare,
Nor heed the storm that howls along the sky.- Ode to Independence, strophe 1.
- Those sculptur'd halls my feet shall never tread,
Where varnish'd vice and vanity combin'd,
To dazzle and seduce, their banners spread,
And forge vile shackles for the free-born mind.- Ode to Independence, antistrophe 3.
- Writing is all a lottery -- I have been a loser by the works of the greatest men of the age.
- Thy fatal shafts unerring move,
I bow before thine altar, Love!- The Adventures of Roderick Random (1848), Chapter xl, reported in Bartlett's Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
The Regicide (1749)
edit- Keen are the pangs
Of hapless love, and passion unapprov'd:
But where consenting wishes meet, and vows
Reciprocally breath'd, confirm the tie,
Joy rolls on joy, an inexhausted stream!
And virtue crowns the sacred scene.- Act I, scene iii.
- To-day, in snow array'd, stern winter rules
The ravag'd plain—Anon the teeming earth
Unlocks her stores, and spring adorns the year:
And shall not we—while fate, like winter, frowns,
Expect revolving bliss?- Act I, scene vi.
- To exult
Ev'n o'er an enemy oppress'd, and heap
Affliction on the afflicted, is the mark
And the mean triumph of a dastard soul.- Act II, scene vii.
- True courage scorns
To vent her prowess in a storm of words;
And, to the valiant, actions speak alone.- Act II, scene vii.
- To send the injur'd unredress'd away,
How great soe'er th' offender, or the wrong'd
Howe'er obscure, is wicked—weak and vile:
Degrades, denies, and should dethrone a king!- Act IV, scene ix.
Misattributed
edit- As Love can exquisitely bless,
Love only feels the marvellous of pain;
Opens new veins of torture in the soul,
And wakes the nerve where agonies are born.- Edward Young, The Brothers (1753), Act V, scene i.