A birthday:--and now a day that rose
With much of hope, with meaning rife--
A thoughtful day from dawn to close:
The middle day of human life.
- Jean Ingelow, A Birthday Walk
And show me your nest with the young ones in it,
I will not steal them away;
I am old! you may trust me, linnet, linnet--
I am seven time one to-day.
- Jean Ingelow,
Songs of Seven--Seven Times One
As this auspicious day began the race
Of ev'ry virtue join'd with ev'ry grace;
May you, who own them, welcome its return,
Till excellence, like yours, again is born.
The years we wish, will half your charms impair;
The years we wish, the better half will spare;
The victims of your eyes will bleed no more,
But all the beauties of your mind adore.
- Lord Francis Jeffrey,
Miscellanies--To a Lady on her Birthday
The day
For whose returns, and many, all these pray;
And so do I.
- Ben Jonson
Believing hear, what you deserve to hear:
Your birthday as my own to me is dear.
Blest and distinguish'd days! which we should prize
The first, the kindest bounty of the skies.
But yours gives most; for mine did only lend
Me to the world; yours gave to me a friend.
- Martial (Marcus Valerius Martialis),
Epigrams (bk. IX, ep. 53)
My birthday!--what a different sound
That word had in my youthful ears;
And how each time the day comes round,
Less and less white its mark appears.
- Thomas Moore, My Birthday
Oh! be thou blest with all that Heaven can send,
Long health, long youth, long pleasure--and a friend.
- Alexander Pope
Pleas'd to look forward, pleas'd to look behind,
And count each birthday with a grateful mind.
- Alexander Pope
Is that a birthday? 'tis, alas! too clear;
'Tis but the funeral of the former year.
- Alexander Pope, To Mrs. M.B. (l. 9)
And more such days as these to us befall!
- William Shakespeare
And send him many years of sunshine days!
- William Shakespeare
Heaven give you many, many merry days!
- William Shakespeare
This day shall change all griefs and quarrels into love.
- William Shakespeare
The birth of a child is the imprisonment of a soul.
- William Gilmore Simms
Also, if you do a search here on QL you will find many for your own birthday, or for those of friends and family - there's quite a list of them.
I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.
- Diane Ackerman, quoted in "Newsweek"
! Well, it's one of my best friend's birthday tomorrow, and I'd like to know any good birthday quotes. I know it's a little late to ask, but WOW time flew by and I didn't even realize her birthday was coming up. So, if you could give me some birthday quotes (no pressure, or rush, give me these quotes any day you'd like, I have more than one friend
)
