Thomas Chatterton quotes

" It is my PRIDE, my damned, native, unconquerable Pride, that plunges me into Distraction. You must know that 19 - 20th of my Composition is Pride. I must either live a Slave, a Servant; to have no Will of my own, no Sentiments of my own which I may freely declare as such; --or DIE --perplexing alternative! " # Pride # Happiness # Death and Dying

" There is a time for all things -- except marriage my dear. " # Marriage # Time and Time Management # Love

" Liste! now the thunder's rattling clymmynge sound Cheves slowlie on, and then embollen clangs, Shakes the hie spyre, and losst, dispended, drown'd, Still on the gallard eare of terroure hanges; The windes are up; the lofty elmen swanges; Again the levynne and the thunder poures, And the full cloudes are braste attenes in stonen showers. " # Nature # Love # Dance and Dancing

" Mie love ys dedde, Gon to hys death-bedde, Al under the wyllowe tree. Waterre wytches, crownede wythe reytes, Bere mee to yer leathalle tyde. I die; I comme; mie true love waytes. Thos the damselle spake, and dyed. " # Law and Lawyers # Death and Dying # Life and Living

" Almighty Framer of the Skies! O let our pure devotion rise, Like Incense in thy Sight! Wrapt in impenetrable Shade, The Texture of our Souls were made, Till thy Command gave Light. " # Catholicism # Friends and Friendship # Love

" How shall we celebrate the day, When God appeared in mortal clay, The mark of worldly scorn; When the Archangel's heavenly Lays, Attempted the Redeemer's Praise, And hail'd Salvation's Morn! " # Angels # Love # Praise

" Happy (if mortals can be) is the man, Who, not by priest but Reason, rules his span: Reason, to its possessor a sure guide, Reason, a thorn in Revelation’s side. " # Happiness # Reason # Genius

" Chatterton, the marvellous boy, The sleepless soul that perished in his pride. " # Pride

" He was an instance that a complete genius and a complete rogue can be formed before a man is of age. " # Genius

" I cannot find in Chatterton's works any thing so extraordinary as the age at which they were written. They have a facility, vigour, and knowledge, which were prodigious in a boy of sixteen, but which would not have been so in a boy of twenty. He did not show extraordinary powers of genius, but extraordinary precocity. Nor do I believe he would have written better, had he lived. He knew this himself, or he would have lived. Great geniuses, like great kings, have too much to think of to kill themselves. " # Genius # Age and Aging # Knowledge