Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Rest
In the rest of Nirvana all sorrows surcease:
Only Buddha can guide to that city of Peace
Whose inhabitants have the eternal release.
Wm. R. Alger—Oriental Poetry. A Leader to Repose.
Silken rest
Tie all thy cares up!
Beaumont and Fletcher—Four Plays in One. Sc. 4. Triumph of Love.
O! quid solutis est beatius curis!
Cum mens onus reponit, ac peregrino
Labore fessi venimus larem ad nostrum
Desideratoque acquiescimus lecto.
Hoc est, quod unum est pro laboribus tantis.
O, what is more sweet than when the mind, set free from care, lays its burden down; and, when spent with distant travel, we come back to our home, and rest our limbs on the wished-for bed? This, this alone, repays such toils as these!
Catullus—Carmina. 31. 7.
Absence of occupation is not rest;
A mind quite vacant is a mind distress’d.
Cowper—Retirement. L. 623.
Rest is not quitting the busy career;
Rest is the fitting of self to its sphere.
John S. Dwight—True Rest. (From his translation of Goethe. Main part original.)
Sweet is the pleasure itself cannot spoil.
Is not true leisure one with true toil?
John S. Dwight—True Rest.
Amidst these restless thoughts this rest I find,
For those that rest, not here, there’s rest behind.
Thomas Gataker—B. D. Nat. 4. Sept., 1574.
On every mountain height
Is rest.
Goethe—Ein Gleiches.
Calm on the bosom of thy God,
Fair spirit! rest thee now!
Mrs. Hemans—Siege of Valencia. Dirge. Sc. 9.
For too much rest itself becomes a pain.
Homer—Odyssey. Bk. XV. L. 429. Pope’s trans.
Rest is sweet after strife.
Owen Meredith (Lord Lytton)—Lucile. Pt. I. Canto VI. St. 25.
Anything for a quiet life.
Thomas Middleton. Title of a Play.
Da requiem; requietus ager bene credita reddit.
Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.
Ovid—Ars Amatoria. II. 351.
Life’s race well run,
Life’s work well done,
Life’s victory won,
Now cometh rest.
Dr. Edward Hazen Parker—Funeral Ode on President Garfield. Claimed for him by his brother in Notes and Queries, May 25, 1901. P. 406. Claimed by Mrs. John Mills, for John Mills of Manchester, 1878. Appears in the Life of John Mills with account of origin. See Notes and Queries. Ser. 9. Vol. IV. P. 167. Also Vol. VII. P. 406.
Master, I’ve filled my contract, wrought in Thy many lands;
Not by my sins wilt Thou judge me, but by the work of my hands.
Master, I’ve done Thy bidding, and the light is low in the west,
And the long, long shift is over … Master, I’ve earned it—Rest.
Robert Service—Song of the Wage Slave.
Weariness
Can snore upon the flint, when resty sloth
Finds the down pillow hard.
Cymbeline. Act III. Sc. 6. L. 33.
Who, with a body filled and vacant mind,
Gets him to rest, cramm’d with distressful bread.
Henry V. Act IV. Sc. 1. L. 286.
Sleepe after toyle, port after stormie seas,
Ease after warre, death after life, does greatly please.
Spenser—Faerie Queene. Bk. I. Canto IX. St. 40.
Arcum intensio frangit, animum remissio.
Straining breaks the bow, and relaxation relieves the mind.
Syrus—Maxims.
And rest, that strengthens unto virtuous deeds,
Is one with Prayer.
Bayard Taylor—Temptation of Hassan Ben Khaled. St. 4.
The camel at the close of day
Kneels down upon the sandy plain
To have his burden lifted off
And rest again.
Anna Temple—Kneeling Camel.
Now is done thy long day’s work
Fold thy palms across thy breast,
Fold thine arms, turn to thy rest.
Let them rave.
Tennyson—A Dirge.
Thou hadst, for weary feet, the gift of rest.
William Watson—Wordsworth’s Grave. II. St. 3.
Father Abbot, I am come to lay my weary bones among you.
Wolsey. At Leicester Abbey, Nov. 26, 1529.