The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Preface

We’d see truth dawn together?—truth that peeps
Over the glasses’ edge when dinner’s done,
And body gets its sop and holds its noise
And leaves soul free a little.
‘Bishop Blougram’s Apology’ (1855) l. 15
Just when we are safest, there’s a sunset-touch,
A fancy from a flower-bell, some one’s death,
A chorus-ending from Euripides,—
And that’s enough for fifty hopes and fears
As old and new at once as nature’s self,
To rap and knock and enter in our soul,
Take hands and dance there, a fantastic ring,
Round the ancient idol, on his base again,—
The grand Perhaps!
‘Bishop Blougram’s Apology’ (1855) l. 182
All we have gained then by our unbelief
Is a life of doubt diversified by faith,
For one of faith diversified by doubt:
We called the chess-board white,—we call it black.
‘Bishop Blougram’s Apology’ (1855) l. 209
Our interest’s on the dangerous edge of things,
The honest thief, the tender murderer,
The superstitious atheist, demirep
That loves and saves her soul in new French books—
We watch while these in equilibrium keep
The giddy line midway.
‘Bishop Blougram’s Apology’ (1855) l. 395
You, for example, clever to a fault,
The rough and ready man who write apace,
Read somewhat seldomer, think perhaps even less.
‘Bishop Blougram’s Apology’ (1855) l. 420
No, when the fight begins within himself,
A man’s worth something.
‘Bishop Blougram’s Apology’ (1855) l. 693
He said true things, but called them by wrong names.
‘Bishop Blougram’s Apology’ (1855) l. 996
And have I not Saint Praxed’s ear to pray
Horses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts,
And mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs?
—That’s if ye carve my epitaph aright.