Browse 29779 quotes about May.
“The character and history of each child may be a new and poetic experience to the parent, if he will let it.”
Source: Woman in the 19th century, and kindred papers relating to the sphere, condition, and duties of woman
“An uncontrolled imagination may become as surely intoxicated by overindulgence as a toper may do bodily with strong drink.”
“But now I rejoice when, in my winter studio, I can spread out my summer studies and recall through them the beautiful season and places which gave them being. Here the painter feels how small things may suggest the greater - the drop of water, image the firmament.”
“Take care what you say before a wall, as you cannot tell who may be behind it.”
Source: Gulistan or Rose Garden
“Marriages are said to be made in Heaven, which may be why they don't work here on Earth.”
“A nickname a man may chance to wear out; but a system of calumnity, pursued by a faction, may descend even to posterity. This principal has taken full effect on this state favorite.”
“The art of meditation may be exercised at all hours, and in all places, and men of genius, in their walks, at table, and amidst assemblies, turning the eye of the the mind upwards, can form an artificial solitude; retired amidst a crowd, calm amidst distraction, and wise amidst folly.”
“Reader, I wish thee Health, Wealth, Happiness, And may kind Heaven thy Year's Industry bless.”
Source: Poor Richard's almanac for 1850-52
“Keep out of the Sight of Feasts and Banquets as much as may be; for 'tis more difficult to refrain good Cheer, when it's present, than from the Desire of it when it is away; the like you may observe in the Objects of all the other Senses.”
Source: Poor Richard's Almanack
“One Man may be more cunning than another, but not more cunning than every body else.”
Source: Poor Richard's Almanack
“A greater Quantity of some things may be eaten than of others, some being of lighter Digestion than others.”
Source: Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin
“Suspicions which may be unjust need not be stated.”
Source: The Portable Abraham Lincoln
“The ways of creation are wrapt in mystery. We may only marvel, and bow our head.”
“Confidence, once lost or betrayed, can never be restored again to the same measure; and we learn too late in life that our acts of deception are irrevocable - they may be forgiven, but they cannot be forgotten by their victims.”
Source: Best of Sydney J. Harris
“The loner may be respected, but he is always resented by his colleagues, for he seems to be passing a critical judgment on them, when he may be simply making a limiting statement about himself.”
Source: Clearing the ground
“May is a pious fraud of the almanac A ghastly parody of real Spring Shaped out of snow and breathed with eastern wind.”
Source: The poetical works of James Russell Lowell
“The Don Quixote of one generation may live to hear himself called the savior of society by the next.”
Source: Books and Libraries: And Other Papers
“Of my merit On that pint you yourself may jedge: All is, I never drink no sperit, Nor I haint never signed no pledge.”
Source: The Biglow papers
“The rich man's sons inherits cares; The bank may break, the factory burn, A breath may burst his bubble shares, And soft, white hands could hardly earn A living that would serve his turn.”
Source: The poetical works of James Russell Lowell
“Life is a sheet of paper white / Whereon each one of us may write / His word or two, and then comes night.”
“Wine is the source of the greatest evils among communities. It causes diseases, quarrels, seditions, idleness, aversion to labor, and family disorders. . . . It is a species of poison that causes madness. It does not make a man die, but it degrades him into a brute. Men may preserve their health and vigor without wine; with wine they run the risk of ruining their health and losing their morals.”
“Accommodated; that is, when a man is, as they say, accommodated; or when a man is, being, whereby a' may be thought to be accommodated,?which is an excellent thing.”
Source: The New Oxford Shakespeare: Modern Critical Edition: The Complete Works
“Affliction may one day smile again; and till then, sit thee down, sorrow!.”
Source: The plays of William Shakespeare
“What, shall one of us, That struck for the foremost man of all this world But for supporting robbers--shall we now Contaminate our fingers with base bribes, And sell the mighty space of our large honors For so much trash as may be grasped thus?”
Source: The Family Shakespeare: In One Volume, in which Nothing is Added to the Original Text, But Those Words and Expressions are Omitted which Cannot with Propriety be Read Aloud in a Family
“He that will have a cake out of the wheat must tarry the grinding. Have I not tarried? Ay, the grinding; but you must tarry the bolting. Have I not tarried? Ay, the bolting; but you must tarry the leavening. Still have I tarried. Ay, to the leavening; but here's yet in the word 'hereafter' the kneading, the making of the cake, the heating of the oven, and the baking; nay, you must stay the cooling too, or you may chance to burn your lips.”
Source: The Plays of Shakspeare
“So may the outward shows be least themselves; The world is still deceived with ornament.”
“Great men may jest with saints; 'tis wit in them; But, in the less foul profanation.”
“A woman that is like a German clock, Still a-repairing, ever out of frame, And never going aright, being a watch, But being watched that it may still go right!”
Source: Love's Labour's Lost
“What many men desire--that 'many' may be meant By the fool multitude that choose by show, Not learning more than the fond eye doth teach, Which pries not to th' interior, but like the martlet Builds in the weather on the outward wall, Even in the force and road of casualty.”
“Can it be That modesty may more betray our sense Than woman's lightness? Having waste ground enough, Shall we desire to raze the sanctuary And pitch our evils there?”
Source: Measure for Measure
“I will not be sworn but love may transform me to an oyster; but I'll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster of me he shall never make me such a fool.”
Source: The Plays and Poems of William Shakspeare: With the Corrections and Illustrations of Various Commentators
“It may do good; pride hath no other glass To show itself but pride, for supple knees Feed arrogance and are the proud man's fees.”
Source: The Dramatic Works of William Shakspeare: From the Text of Johnson, Stevens, and Reed; with Glossarial Notes, His Life, and a Critique on His Genius & Writings
“There is a history in all men's lives, Figuring the nature of the times deceased, The which observed, a man may prophesy, With a near aim, of the main chance of things As yet not come to life, which in their seeds And weak beginnings lie intreasured.”
“Two may keep counsel putting one away!”
Source: CliffsComplete Romeo and Juliet
“Passionate intensity may serve as a substitute for confidence.”
Source: The Ordeal of Change
“Though a man cannot abstain from being weak, he may from being vicious.”
Source: THE WORKS OF THE RIGHT HONOURABLE JOSEPH ADDISON, Esq; In FOUR VOLUMES.: VOLUME the FOURTH
“An idol may be undeified by many accidental causes. Marriage, in particular, is a kind of counter apotheosis, as a deification inverted. When a man becomes familiar with his goddess she quickly sinks into a woman.”
Source: The spectator
“O ye powers that search The heart of man, and weigh his inmost thoughts, If I have done amiss, impute it not! The best may err, but you are good.”
Source: The Tatler. The Guardian. The Freeholder. The Whig-examiner. The lover. Dialogues upon the usefulness of ancient medals. Remarks on several parts of Italy, etc. The present state of the war. The late trial and conviction of Count Tariff. The evidences of the Christian religion. Essay on Virgil's Georgics. Poems on several occasions. Translations from Ovid's Metamorphoses. Notes on some of the foregoing stories in Ovid's Metamorphoses. Poemata. Rosamond. Cato. The drummer
“Among the writers of antiquity there are none who instruct us more openly in the manners of their respective times in which they lived than those who have employed themselves in satire, under whatever dress it may appear.”
“SCARABAEUS, n. The sacred beetle of the ancient Egyptians, allied to our familiar "tumble-bug." It was supposed to symbolize immortality, the fact that God knew why giving it its peculiar sanctity. Its habit of incubating its eggs in a ball of ordure may also have commended it to the favor of the priesthood, and may some day assure it an equal reverence among ourselves. True, the American beetle is an inferior beetle, but the American priest is an inferior priest.”
Source: The Devil's Dictionary: Easyread Super Large 18pt Edition
“When you are ill make haste to forgive your enemies, for you may recover.”
“Brevity may be the soul of wit, but not when someone's saying "I love you.”
Source: Love and Guilt and the Meaning of Life, Etc.
“Conversation, which is friendship's mode of expression, is a superficial digression which gives us nothing worth acquiring. We may talk for a lifetime without doing more than indefinitely repeat the vacuity of a minute.”
Source: In Search of Lost Time, Volume II: Within a Budding Grove (A Modern Library E-Book)
“A man may plan as much as he wants to, but nothing of consequence is likely to come of it until the magician circumstance steps in and takes the matter off his hands.”
Source: Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations
“Grant that I may become beautiful in my soul within, and that all my external possessions may be in harmony with my inner self. May I consider the wise to be rich, and may I have such riches as only a person of self-restraint can bear or endure.”
“My name may have buoyancy enough to float upon the sea of time.”
“Very whitely still The lilies of our lives may reassure Their blossoms from their roots, accessible Alone to heavenly dews that drop not fewer; Growing straight out of man's reach, on the hill. God only, who made us rich, can make us poor.”
Source: Poetical works
“A good garden may have some weeds.”
“In practical matters the end is not mere speculative knowledge of what is to be done, but rather the doing of it. It is not enough to know about Virtue, then, but we must endeavor to possess it, and to use it, or to take any other steps that may make.”
Source: The Nicomachean ethics
“Happiness is thought to depend on leisure; for we are busy that we may have leisure, and make war that we may live in peace.”
Source: Complete Works of Aristotle, Volume 2: The Revised Oxford Translation