Thomas Gray > Quotes

“Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.”
― Thomas Gray, An Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

“Where ignorance is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise.

- Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College”
― Thomas Gray, Gray and Collins: Poetical Works

“Poetry is thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.”
― Thomas Gray, Selected Poems

“Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen
And waste its sweetness on the desert air"


A good many flowers bloom and fade away in deserted places, seen by no one.
In its context in Thomas Gray's "Elegy" it is actually a metaphor for common folk who do heroic things that are never reported in the news or recorded in history. Like a precious stone unmined at the bottom of the ocean or a beautiful flower blooming in the deep woods, their work may not be seen or known, but it is nevertheless heroic. Rubies and roses are beautiful, Gray would say, whether anyone ever sees them or not.”
― Thomas Gray

“The paths of glory lead but to the grave.”
― Thomas Gray, An Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

“The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow’r,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave
Awaits alike the inevitable hour:
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.”
― Thomas Gray

“Yet, ah! why should they know their fate,
Since sorrow never comes too late,
And happiness too swiftly flies?
Thought would destroy their Paradise.
No more;—where ignorance is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise.”
― Thomas Gray, The complete English poems of Thomas Gray

“Ignorance is bliss”
― Thomas Gray

“A FLOWER THAT SMILES TODAY , TOMORROW DIES. ALL THAT WE WISH TO STAY, TEMPTS AND THEN FILES”
― Thomas Gray

“Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.”
― Thomas Gray, An Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

“Here rests his head upon the lap of earth
A youth to fortune and to fame unknown.
Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth,
And Melancholy marked him for her own.”
― Thomas Gray, An Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

“From hence, ye Beauties, undeceiv'd,
Know one false step is ne'er retriev'd,
And be with caution bold.
Not all that tempts your wand'ring eyes
And heedless hearts, is lawful prize;
Nor all, that glisters, gold.”
― Thomas Gray, Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes

“The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,/
The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea,/
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,/
And leaves the world to darkness and to me./”
― Thomas Gray

“Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth
A youth to Fortune and Fame unknown.”
― Thomas Gray

“Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learned to stray;
Along the cool sequestered vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.”
― Thomas Gray, An Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

“The generous spark extinct revive,
Teach me to love and to forgive,
Exact my own defects to scan,
What others are, to feel, and to know myself a Man.

- Hymn to Adversity”
― Thomas Gray, Gray and Collins: Poetical Works

“Ah, happy hills, ah, pleasing shade,
Ah, fields belov'd in vain,
Where once my careless childhood stray'd,
A stranger yet to pain!
I feel the gales, that from ye blow,
A momentary bliss bestow,
As waving fresh their gladsome wing,
My weary soul they seem to soothe,
And, redolent of joy and youth,
To breathe a second spring.”
― Thomas Gray, An Elegy In A Country Churchyard: And Ode On A Distant Prospect Of Eton College

“Let not Ambition mock their useful toil”
― Thomas Gray, An Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

“Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the poor....

Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of his fields withstood;
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood.”
― Thomas Gray

“Ignorance is bliss.”
― Thomas Gray

“On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
some pious drops the closing eye requires;
even from the tomb the voice of nature cries,
even in our ashes live their wonted fires.”
― Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard

“Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,
Muttering his wayward fancies he would rove;
Now drooping, woeful-wan, like one forlorn,
Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless love.”
― Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

“I MUST not close my letter without giving you one principal event of my history ; which was that, in the course of my late tour, I set out one morning before five o'clock, the moon shining through a dark and misty autumnal air, and got to the sea coast time enough to be at the sun's levee. I saw the clouds and dark vapours open gradually to right and left, rolling over one another in great smoky wreaths, and the tide, as it flowed gently in upon the sands, first whitening, then slightly tinged with gold and blue ; and all at once a little line of in- sufferable brightness that, before I can write these five words, was grown to half an orb, and now to a whole one, too glorious to be distinctly seen. It is very odd it makes no figure on paper ; yet I shall remember it as long as the sun, or at least as I endure. I wonder whether any body ever saw it before ; I hardly believe it.”
― Thomas Gray, Letters Of Thomas Gray

“Poetry is thoughts that breathe and words that burn.”
― Thomas Gray