Grocott & Ward, comps. Grocott’s Familiar Quotations, 6th ed. 189-?.
Fire
Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!
St. James, Gen. Ep. Chap. iii. Ver. 5.
Fire that’s closest kept burns most of all.
Shakespeare.—Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act I. Scene 2. (Lucetta.)
As from one fatal spark arise
The flames, aspiring to the skies,
And all the crackling wood consumes.
Wheelwright’s Pindar.—3rd Pythian Ode. Line 66.
A spark neglected makes a mighty fire.
Herrick.—Hesperides, Aphorisms, No. 152. Shakespeare.—King Henry VI., Part III. Act IV. Scene 8. (Clifford to Warwick.)
From little spark may burst a mighty flame.
Dante.—Paradiso, Canto I. Line 34. (Wright.)
From small fires comes oft no small mishap.
George Herbert.—The Temple Artillery.
Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand,
They rave, recite, and madden round the land.
Pope.—Prologue to Satires.
And where two raging fires meet together,
They do consume the thing that feeds their fury.
Shakespeare.—Taming of the Shrew, Act II. Scene 1. (Petruchio to his Father-in-law.)
The living ray of intellectual fire.
Falconer.—The Shipwreck, Line 104.