Thomas Hood famous quotes

No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees, No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds - November!
-- Thomas Hood

#Flower #Butterfly #Autumn

I saw old autumn in the misty morn Stand shadowless like silence, listening To silence.
-- Thomas Hood

#Fall #Autumn #Silence

I remember, I remember, The house where I was born, The little window where the sun Came peeping in at morn.
-- Thomas Hood

#House #Littles #Sun

Oh, if it be to choose and call thee mine, love, thou art every day my Valentine!
-- Thomas Hood

#Famous Love #Art #Valentine

Some minds improve by travel, others, rather, resemble copper wire, or brass, which get the narrower by going farther.
-- Thomas Hood

#Mind #Wire #Brass

Half of the failures in life come from pulling one's horse when he is leaping.
-- Thomas Hood

#Horse #Fear #Failure

O bed! O bed! delicious bed! That heaven upon earth to the weary head.
-- Thomas Hood

#Insomnia #Heaven #Bed

When was ever honey made with one bee in a hive?
-- Thomas Hood

#Teamwork #Bees #Honey

The lily is all in white, like a saint, And so is no mate for me.
-- Thomas Hood

#White #Saint #Lilies

The moon, the moon, so silver and cold, Her fickle temper has oft been told, Now shade--now bright and sunny-- But of all the lunar things that change, The one that shows most fickle and strange, And takes the most eccentric range, Is the moon--so called--of honey!
-- Thomas Hood

#Moon #Fickle #Shade

My brain is dull, my sight is foul, I cannot write a verse, or read-- Then, Pallas, take away thine Owl, And let us have a lark instead.
-- Thomas Hood

#Sex #Writing #Sight

Mother of light! how fairly dost thou go Over those hoary crests, divinely led! Art thou that huntress of the silver bow Fabled of old? Or rather dost thou tread Those cloudy summits thence to gaze below, Like the wild chamois from her Alpine snow, Where hunters never climbed--secure from dread?
-- Thomas Hood

#Mother #Art #Moon

With fingers weary and worn, With eyelids heavy and red, A woman sat in unwomanly rags, Plying her needle and thread.
-- Thomas Hood

#Inspirational #Red #Rags

Jasmine is sweet, and has many loves.
-- Thomas Hood

#Sweet #Jasmine

Apothegms form a short cut to much knowledge.
-- Thomas Hood

#Cutting #Form

When Eve upon the first of Men The apple press'd with specious cant, Oh! what a thousand pities then That Adam was not Adamant!
-- Thomas Hood

#Men #Apples #Firsts

A moment's thinking is an hour in words.
-- Thomas Hood

#Wisdom #Thinking #Moments

He lies like a hedgehog rolled up the wrong way, Tormenting himself with his prickles.
-- Thomas Hood

#Lying #Hedgehogs #Way

For my part, getting up seems not so easy By half as lying.
-- Thomas Hood

#Lying #Half #Easy

The Quaker loves an ample brim, A hat that bows to no salaam; And dear the beaver is to him As if it never made a dam.
-- Thomas Hood

#Love #Bows #Hats

No sun, no moon, no morn, no noon, No dawn, no dusk, no proper time of day, . . . . . . No road, no street, no t' other side the way, . . . . . . No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees, No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no buds.
-- Thomas Hood

#Flower #Butterfly #Moon

Whilst breezy waves toss up their silvery spray.
-- Thomas Hood

#Ocean #Toss #Wave

Well, something must be done for May, The time is drawing nigh-- To figure in the Catalogue, And woo the public eye. Something I must invent and paint; But oh my wit is not Like one of those kind substantives That answer Who and What?
-- Thomas Hood

#Eye #Drawing #Done

What is mind? No matter. What is matter? Never mind. What is the soul? It is immaterial.
-- Thomas Hood

#Soul #Mind #Matter

Experience enables me to depose to the comfort and blessing that literature can prove in seasons of sickness and sorrow.
-- Thomas Hood

#Blessing #Sorrow #Literature

There is not a string attuned to mirth but has its chord of melancholy.
-- Thomas Hood

#Mirth #Melancholy #Strings

Well for the drones of the social hive that there are bees of an industrious turn, willing, for an infinitesimal share of the honey, to undertake the labor of its fabrication.
-- Thomas Hood

#Honey #Bees #Drones

Fuss is the froth of business.
-- Thomas Hood

Coquetry is the champagne of love.
-- Thomas Hood

#Coquetry #Coquette #Champagne

Comfort and indolence are cronies.
-- Thomas Hood

#Comfort #Indolence #Cronies

Some sigh for this and that; My wishes don't go far; The world may wag at will, So I have my cigar.
-- Thomas Hood

#Wish #World #May

Pity it is to slay the meanest thing.
-- Thomas Hood

#Pity

When he is forsaken, Withered and shaken, What can an old man do but die?
-- Thomas Hood

#Men #Age #Old Man

A man that's fond precociously of stirring , :;:; Must be a spoon.
-- Thomas Hood

#Men #Spoons #Action

What is a modern poet's fate? / To write his thoughts upon a slate; / The critic spits on what is done, / Gives it a wipe - and all is gone.
-- Thomas Hood

#Writing #Fate #Giving

My tears must stop, for every drop Hinders needle and thread.
-- Thomas Hood

#Tears #Thread #Hinder

Father of rosy day, No more thy clouds of incense rise; But waking flow'rs, At morning hours, Give out their sweets to meet thee in the skies.
-- Thomas Hood

#Sweet #Morning #Father

For man may pious texts repeat, And yet religion have no inward seat
-- Thomas Hood

#Men #Religion #Inward

She stood breast-high amid the corn Clasp'd by the golden light of morn, Like the sweetheart of the sun, Who many a glowing kiss had won.
-- Thomas Hood

#Kissing #Glowing #Light

The best of friends fall out, and so his teeth had done some years ago.
-- Thomas Hood

#Fall #Years #Teeth

To attempt to advise conceited people is like whistling against the wind.
-- Thomas Hood

#Conceited #Wind #People

There is a silence where hath been no sound, There is a silence where no sound may be,- In the cold grave, under the deep, deep sea, Or in the wide desert where no life is found.
-- Thomas Hood

#Sea #Silence #Desert

And ye, who have met with Adversity's blast, And been bow'd to the earth by its fury; To whom the Twelve Months, that have recently pass'd Were as harsh as a prejudiced jury - Still, fill to the Future! and join in our chime, The regrets of remembrance to cozen, And having obtained a New Trial of Time, Shout in hopes of a kindlier dozen.
-- Thomas Hood

#New Year #Regret #Adversity

Oh! God! That bread should be so dear, and flesh and blood so cheap!
-- Thomas Hood

#Struggle #Blood #Flesh

It was not in the winter Our loving lot was cast! It was the time of roses, We plucked them as we passed!
-- Thomas Hood

#Flower #Winter #Rose

Some dreams we have are nothing else but dreams, Unnatural and full of contradictions; Yet others of our most romantic schemes, Are something more than fictions.
-- Thomas Hood

#Dream #Most Romantic #Fiction

O men with sisters dear, O men with mothers and wives, It is not linen you 're wearing out, But human creatures' lives!
-- Thomas Hood

#Mother #Men #Wife

It was a childish ignorance, But now 'tis little joy To know I'm further off from heaven Than when I was a boy.
-- Thomas Hood

#Ignorance #Boys #Joy

No blessed leisure for love or hope, But only time for grief.
-- Thomas Hood

#Grief #Blessed #Leisure

I resolved that, like the sun, as long as my day lasted, I would look on the bright side of everything.
-- Thomas Hood

#Optimism #Long #Sun

The biggest bore of all is he who is overflowing with congratulations
-- Thomas Hood

#Congratulations #Bores

How bless'd the heart that has a friend. A sympathizing ear to lend.
-- Thomas Hood

#Sympathy #Condolences #Heart

There are three things which the public will always clamor for, sooner or later: namely, novelty, novelty, novelty.
-- Thomas Hood

#Novelty #Three #Clamor

I love thee - I love thee, 'Tis all that I can say, It is my vision in the night, My dreaming in the day.
-- Thomas Hood

#I Love You #Dream #Night

Bells are musics laughter.
-- Thomas Hood

#Christmas #Laughter #Bells

I saw old Autumn in the misty morn Stand shadowless like silence, listening To silence, for no lonely bird would sing Into his hollow ear from woods forlorn, Nor lowly hedge nor solitary thorn;- Shaking his languid locks all dewy bright With tangled gossamer that fell by night, Pearling his coronet of golden corn.
-- Thomas Hood

#Lonely #Autumn #Night

The Autumn is old; The sere leaves are flying; He hath gather'd up gold, And now he is dying;- Old age, begin sighing!
-- Thomas Hood

#Autumn #Flying #Dying

Tis like the birthday of the world, When earth was born in bloom; The light is made of many dyes, The air is all perfume: There's crimson buds, and white and blue, The very rainbow showers Have turned to blossoms where they fell, And sown the earth with flowers.
-- Thomas Hood

#Spring #Flower #Air

What joy have I in June's return? My feet are parched-my eyeballs burn, I scent no flowery gust; But faint the flagging zephyr springs, With dry Macadam on its wings, And turns me 'dust to dust.'
-- Thomas Hood

#Spring #Dust #Wings

Peace and rest at length have come, All the day's long toil is past; And each heart is whispering, "Home, Home at last!"
-- Thomas Hood

#Home #Heart #Past

Ben Battle was a soldier bold, and used to war's alarms, But a cannon-ball took off his legs, so he laid down his arms.
-- Thomas Hood

#War #Soldier #Battle

The year's in wane; There is nothing adorning; The night has no eve, And the day has no morning; Cold winter gives warning!
-- Thomas Hood

#Morning #Winter #Autumn

Frost is the greatest artist in our clime - he paints in nature and describes in rime.
-- Thomas Hood

#Artist #Frost #Paint

So mayst thou live, dear! many years, In all the bliss that life endears
-- Thomas Hood

#Birthday #Years #Bliss

And there is even a happiness That makes the heart afraid.
-- Thomas Hood

#Heart

I remember, I remember The roses, red and white, The violets, and the lily-cups, Those flowers made of light! The lilacs, where the robin built, And where my brother set The laburmum on his birthday,- The tree is living yet.
-- Thomas Hood

#Birthday #Brother #Flower

Gold! gold! gold! gold! Bright and yellow, hard and cold!
-- Thomas Hood

#Yellow #Gold #Jewelry

But evil is wrought by want of thought, As well as want of heart!
-- Thomas Hood

#Heart #Evil #Want

Our very hopes belied our fears, Our fears our hopes belied; We thought her dying when she slept, And sleeping when she died.
-- Thomas Hood

#Fear #Sleep #Dying

We watch'd her breathing through the night, Her breathing soft and low, As in her breast the wave of life Kept heaving to and fro.
-- Thomas Hood

#Life #Night #Breathing

A certain portion of the human race has certainly a taste for being diddled.
-- Thomas Hood

#Race #Taste #Certain

Extremes meet', as the whiting said with its tail in its mouth.
-- Thomas Hood

#Mouths #Tails #Said

The cowslip is a country wench.
-- Thomas Hood

#Country #Wenches

I remember, I remember The fir-trees dark and high; I used to think their slender tops Were close against the sky; It was a childish ignorance, But now 't is little joy To know I'm farther off from heaven Than when I was a boy.
-- Thomas Hood

#Ignorance #Dark #Boys

Oh would I were dead now, Or up in my bed now, To cover my head now, And have a good cry!
-- Thomas Hood

#Bed #Cry

How widely its agencies vary,- To save, to ruin, to curse, to bless,- As even its minted coins express, Now stamp'd with the image of Good Queen Bess, And now of a Bloody Mary.
-- Thomas Hood

#Queens #Agency #Ruins

Boughs are daily rifled By the gusty thieves, And the book of Nature Getteth short of leaves.
-- Thomas Hood

#Book #Thieves

Lives of great men oft remind us as we o'er their pages turn, That we too may leave behind us - Letters that we ought to burn.
-- Thomas Hood

#Men #Letters #May

Whoe'er has gone thro' London street, Has seen a butcher gazing at his meat, And how he keeps Gloating upon a sheep's Or bullock's personals, as if his own; How he admires his halves And quarters--and his calves, As if in truth upon his own legs grown.
-- Thomas Hood

#Sheep #Gazing #Gone

Such a blush In the midst of brown was born, Like red poppies grown with corn.
-- Thomas Hood

#Red #Corn #Poppies

Spontaneously to God should turn the soul, Like the magnetic needle to the pole; But what were that intrinsic virtue worth, Suppose some fellow, with more zeal than knowledge, Fresh from St. Andrew's College, Should nail the conscious needle to the north?
-- Thomas Hood

#College #Soul #Nails

A name, it has more than nominal worth, And belongs to good or bad luck at birth
-- Thomas Hood

#Names #Luck #Birth

Dear bells! how sweet the sound of village bells When on the undulating air they swim!
-- Thomas Hood

#Sweet #Air #Swim

While the steeples are loud in their joy, To the tune of the bells' ring-a-ding, Let us chime in a peal, one and all, For we all should be able to sing Hullah baloo.
-- Thomas Hood

#Joy #Bells #Able

There's a double beauty whenever a swan Swims on a lake with her double thereon.
-- Thomas Hood

#Lakes #Swans #Swim

My books kept me from the ring, the dog-pit, the tavern, and the saloon.
-- Thomas Hood

#Dog #Book #Taverns

How bravely Autumn paints upon the sky The gorgeous fame of Summer which is fled!
-- Thomas Hood

#Summer #Autumn #Sky

Alas for the rarity Of Christian charity Under the sun!
-- Thomas Hood

#Christian #Sun #Charity

Sweet are the little brooks that run O'er pebbles glancing in the sun, Singing in soothing tones.
-- Thomas Hood

#Running #Sweet #Singing