The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Preface

Fretted the pigmy body to decay:
And o’er informed the tenement of clay.
A daring pilot in extremity;
Pleased with the danger, when the waves went high
He sought the storms; but for a calm unfit,
Would steer too nigh the sands to boast his wit.
Great wits are sure to madness near allied,
And thin partitions do their bounds divide.
‘Absalom and Achitophel’ (1681) pt. 1, l. 150
Why should he, with wealth and honour blest,
Refuse his age the needful hours of rest?
Punish a body which he could not please;
Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease?
And all to leave what with his toil he won
To that unfeathered two-legged thing, a son.
‘Absalom and Achitophel’ (1681) pt. 1, l. 165
In friendship false, implacable in hate:
Resolved to ruin or to rule the state.
‘Absalom and Achitophel’ (1681) pt. 1, l. 173
The people’s prayer, the glad diviner’s theme,
The young men’s vision and the old men’s dream!
‘Absalom and Achitophel’ (1681) pt. 1, l. 238
All empire is no more than power in trust.
‘Absalom and Achitophel’ (1681) pt. 1, l. 411
Better one suffer, than a nation grieve.
‘Absalom and Achitophel’ (1681) pt. 1, l. 416
But far more numerous was the herd of such
Who think too little and who talk too much.
‘Absalom and Achitophel’ (1681) pt. 1, l. 533
A man so various that he seemed to be
Not one, but all mankind’s epitome.
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong;
Was everything by starts, and nothing long:
But, in the course of one revolving moon,
Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon.
‘Absalom and Achitophel’ (1681) pt. 1, l. 545
In squandering wealth was his peculiar art:
Nothing went unrewarded, but desert.
Beggared by fools, whom still he found too late:
He had his jest, and they had his estate.