Marvell Quotes & Sayings

Gather the flowers, but spare the buds. — Andrew Marvell

This indigested vomit of the Sea,Fell to the Dutch by Just Propriety. — Andrew Marvell

How vainly men themselves amaze To win the palm, the oak, or bays; And their uncessant labours see Crown'd from some single herb or tree. Whose short and narrow verged shade Does prudently their toils upbraid; While all flow'rs and all trees do close To weave the garlands of repose. — Andrew Marvell

And yonder all before us lie Deserts of vast eternity. — Andrew Marvell

Self-preservation, nature's first great law, all the creatures, except man, doth awe. — Andrew Marvell

No white nor red was ever seen So am'rous as this lovely green. Fond lovers, cruel as their flame, Cut in these trees their mistress' name. Little, alas, they know or heed How far these beauties hers exceed! Fair trees! where s'e'er your barks I wound, No name shall but your own be found. — Andrew Marvell

Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapt power. — Andrew Marvell

The sad fact is that I love Dickens and Donne and Keats and Eliot and Forster and Conrad and Fitzgerald and Kafka and Wilde and Orwell and Waugh and Marvell and Greene and Sterne and Shakespeare and Webster and Swift and Yeats and Joyce and Hardy, really, really love them. It's just that they don't love me back. — David Nicholls

He nothing common did, or mean, / Upon that memorable scene, / But with his keener eye / The axe's edge did try. — Andrew Marvell

Therefore the love which us doth bind,
But fate so enviously debars,
Is the conjunction of the mind,
And opposition of the stars. — Andrew Marvell

How fit he is to sway That can so well obey. — Andrew Marvell

Had we but world enough, and time — Andrew Marvell

How could such sweet and wholesome hours be reckoned, but in herbs and flowers? — Andrew Marvell

Had it lived long, is would have been
Lilies without, roses within. — Andrew Marvell

My love is of a birth as rare
As 'tis, for object, strange and high;
It was begotten by Despair
Upon Impossibility. — Andrew Marvell

And now, when I have summed up all my store, Thinking (so I myself deceive) So rich a chaplet thence to weave As never yet the King of Glory wore, Alas! I find the serpent old, That, twining in his speckled breast, About the flowers disguised does fold With wreaths of fame and interest. — Andrew Marvell

Music, the mosaic of the air — Andrew Marvell

Had we but world enough and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down, and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love's day. — Andrew Marvell

Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less, Withdraws into its happiness; The mind, that ocean where each kind Does straight its own resemblance find; Yet it creates, transcending these, Far other worlds, and other seas; Annihilating all that's made To a green thought in a green glade ... Such was that happy garden-state, ... — Andrew Marvell

Her mind was as destitute of beauty and mystery as the prairie school-house in which she had been educated; and her ideals seemed to Ralph as pathetic as the ornaments made of corks and cigar-bands with which her infant hands had been taught to adorn it. He was beginning to understand this, and learning to adapt himself to the narrow compass of her experience. — Edith Wharton

Ye country comets, that portend No war, nor prince's funeral, Shining unto no higher end Than to presage the grasses fall ... — Andrew Marvell

Now let us sport us while we may; And now, like amorous birds of prey, Rather at once our time devour, Than languish in his slow-chapped power. — Andrew Marvell

The same arts that did gain
A power, must it maintain. — Andrew Marvell

Art indeed is long, but life is short. — Andrew Marvell

Twas beyond a mortal's share To wander solitary there: Two paradises 'twere in one To live in paradise alone. — Andrew Marvell

What wondrous life in this I lead
Ripe apples drop about my head — Andrew Marvell

So much one man can do that does both act and know. — Andrew Marvell

Though I carry always some ill-nature about me, yet it is, I hope, no more than is in this world necessary for a preservative. — Andrew Marvell

Like the vain curlings of the watery maze,
Which in smooth streams a sinking weight does raise,
So Man, declining always, disappears
In the weak circles of increasing years;
And his short tumults of themselves compose,
While flowing Time above his head does close. — Andrew Marvell

Ye glow-worms, whose officious flame
To wand'ring mowers shows the way,
That in the night have lost their aim,
And after foolish fires do stray;
Your courteous lights in vain you waste,
Since Juliana here is come,
For she my mind hath so displac'd
That I shall never find my home. — Andrew Marvell

I have a garden of my own, But so with roses overgrown, And lilies, that you would it guess To be a little wilderness. — Andrew Marvell

But Fate does iron wedges drive,
And always crowds itself betwixt. — Andrew Marvell

And all the way, to guide their chime, With falling oars they kept their time. — Andrew Marvell

The grave, as has been pointed out, is a fine place, not to mention a private one. — Neil Gaiman

Thus, though we cannot make our sun Stand still, yet we will make him run — Andrew Marvell

You don't know why, but you know you have to go home. It's an eternal longing. It's Marvell's drop of dew wanting to go back to the sky. We're drawn by a force we don't understand, through worlds, through experience. — Frederick Lenz

But at my back I always hear Time's winged chariot hurrying near. — Andrew Marvell

For Juliana comes, and she, what I do to the grass, does to my thoughts and me. — Andrew Marvell

If these the Times, then this must be the Man.
[Andrew Marvell on Oliver Cromwell] — Andrew Marvell

Among the blind the one-eyed blinkard reigns — Andrew Marvell

Casting the body's vest aside, My soul into the boughs does glide. — Andrew Marvell

As lines, so loves oblique, may well Themselves in every angle greet; But ours, so truly parallel, Though infinite, can never meet. — Andrew Marvell

See how the Orient dew, Shed from the bosom of the morn Into the blowing roses, Yet careless of its mansion new; For the clear region where 'twas born Round in its self encloses: And in its little globes extent, Frames as it can its native element. — Andrew Marvell

And here face down beneath the sun
And here upon earth's noonward height
To feel the always coming on
The always rising of the night — Archibald MacLeish

The world in all doth but two nations bear- The good, the bad; and these mixed everywhere. — Andrew Marvell

Homer and Shakespeare and Milton and Marvell and Wordsworth are but the rustling of leaves and crackling of twigs in the forest, and there is not yet the sound of any bird. The Muse has never lifted up her voice to sing. — Henry David Thoreau

What wondrous life is this I lead!
Ripe apples drop about my head;
The luscious clusters of the vine
Upon my mouth do crush their wine;
The nectarine and curious peach
Into my hands themselves do reach;
Stumbling on melons, as I pass,
Ensnared with flowers, I fall on grass. — Andrew Marvell

My vegetable love will grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow. — Andrew Marvell

My mind was once the true survey Of all these meadows fresh and gay; And in the greenness of the grass Did see its hopes as in a glass. — Andrew Marvell

Annihilating all that's made, To a green thought in a green shade. — Andrew Marvell