All wit does but divert men from the road
In which things vulgarly are understood,
And force Mistake and Ignorance to own
A better sense than commonly is known.

Butler.

Some, to whom Heaven in wit has been profuse,
Want as much more to turn it to its use;

For wit and judgment often are at strife,

Though meant each other's aid, like man and wife.
Pope: Essay on Criticism.

True wit is nature to advantage dress'd,

What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd,
Something whose truth, convinc'd at sight, we find,
That gives us back the image of our mind.

Pope: Essay on Criticism.

Woman, Womanhood, Womankind; see Mother.
She's beautiful; and therefore to be wooed:
She is a woman; therefore to be won.

Shakespeare: 1 Henry VI.

Woman! thou loveliest gift that here below
Man can receive, or Providence bestow.

Praed: Woman.

Yet when I approach

Her loveliness, so absolute she seems,
And in herself complete; so well to know
Her own, that what she wills to do or say,
Seems wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best.

Milton: Paradise Lost.

O fairest of creation! last and best

Of all God's works! creature in whom excell'd
Whatever can to sight or thought be form'd
Holy, divine, good, amiable, or sweet!

Milton: Paradise Lost.

Nothing lovelier can be found

In woman, than to study household good,
And good works in her husband to promote.

Milton: Paradise Lost.

Auld nature swears, the lovely dears
Her noblest work she classes, O;
Her 'prentice han' she tried on man,
And then she made the lasses, O.

Burns: Green Grow the Rashes.

Oh, woman! in our hours of ease,
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,
And variable as the shade

By the light quivering aspen made;
When pain and anguish wring the brow,
A ministering angel thou!

Scott: Marmion.

O woman! whose form and whose soul

Are the spell and the light of each path we pursue; Whether sunn'd in the tropics, or chill'd at the pole, If woman be there, there is happiness too.

Seek to be good, but aim not to be great,
A woman's noblest station is retreat;
Her fairest virtues fly from public sight.

Moore.

Lyttelton: Advice to a Lady.

A woman's rank

Lies in the fullness of her womanhood:

Therein alone she is royal.

George Eliot: Armgart.

-A daughter of the gods, divinely tall,
And most divinely fair.

Tennyson: A Dream of Fair Women.

Earth's noblest thing, a woman perfected.

Lowell: Irené.

Love be true to her; Life be dear to her;
Health stay close to her; Joy draw near to her.

Mary Elizabeth Blake.

A noble type of good

Heroic womanhood.

Longfellow: Santa Filomena.

When she had passed, it seemed like the ceasing of

exquisite music.

Longfellow: Evangeline.

As pure and sweet, her fair brow seemed

Eternal as the sky:

And like the brook's low song, her voice,

A sound which could not die.

Sweet promptings unto kindest deeds

Were in her very look;

We read her face, as one who reads

A true and holy book.

Whittier: Gone.

The woman's cause is man's: they rise or sink
Together, dwarf'd or godlike, bond or free:

If she be small, slight-natured, miserable,
How shall men grow?

-We will let her make herself her own
To give or keep, to live and learn and be
All that not harms distinctive womanhood.
For woman is not undevelopt man,

But diverse: could we make her as the man,
Sweet Love were slain: his dearest bond is this,
Not like to like, but like in difference.
Yet in the long years liker must they grow;
The man be more of woman, she of man;
Til at the last she set herself to man,

Like perfect music unto noble words;

And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time,
Sit side by side, full-summ'd in all their

powers,

Distinct in individualities,

But like each other ev'n as those who love.

Work; see Action and Labor.

Tennyson: The Princess.

We live not to ourselves, our work is life.

Work is my recreation,

Bailey: Festus.

The play of faculty; a delight like that
Which a bird feels in flying, or a fish
In darting through the water,-

Nothing more.

Longfellow: Michael Angelo.

All service is the same with God

With God, whose puppets, best and worst,

Are we: there is no last nor first.

Browning: Pippa Passes.

No man is born into the world whose work
Is not born with him. There is always work.

Lowell: A Glance Behind the Curtain.

Beloved, let us love so well,

Our work shall still be better for our love,
And still our love be sweeter for our work,
And both, commended, for the sake of each,
By all true workers and true lovers born.

Elizabeth B. Browning: Aurora Leigh.

World; see Society.

You have too much respect upon the world:
They lose it that do buy it with much care.

Shakespeare: Merchant of Venice.

All the world's a stage;

And all the men and women merely players.

Shakespeare: As You Like It.

How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable

Seem to me all the uses of this world!

Fye on't! oh, fye! 'tis an unweeded garden,

That grows to seed; things rank, and gross in

nature,

Possess it merely.

Shakespeare: Hamlet.

This world is all a fleeting show,

For man's illusion given;

The smiles of joy, the tears of woe,

Deceitful shine, deceitful flow

There's nothing true but Heaven.

Moore: This World is all a Fleeting Show.