Grocott & Ward, comps. Grocott’s Familiar Quotations, 6th ed. 189-?.
Voice
And after the fire a still small voice.
1 Kings, Chap. xix. Ver. 12.
With voices sweet entuned, and so small,
That methought it the sweetest melody
That ever I heard in my life.
Chaucer.—Flower and Leaf.
At every close she made, th’ attending throng
Reply’d, and love the burden of the song:
So just, so small, yet in so sweet a note,
It seem’d the music melted in the throat.
Dryden.—His version of Chaucer’s Flower and Leaf.
The world can’t hear the still small voice,
Such is its bustle and its noise.
Green.—On Barclay’s Apology.
The still small voice of gratitude.
Gray.—For Music, Stanza 5.
The still small voice is wanted.
Cowper.—The Task, Book V. Line 685.
I hear a voice you cannot hear,
Which says, I must not stay;
I see a hand you cannot see,
Which beckons me away.
Tickell.—Colin and Lucy, Verse 4.
The stranger at my fireside cannot see
The forms I see, nor hear the sounds I hear.
Longfellow.—Birds of Passage. (The Haunted House.)
The Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping.
Psalm vi. Ver. 8. (Prayer Book Version.)
O, he was gentle, mild, and virtuous!
Shakespeare.—King Richard III., Act I. Scene 2. (Anne to Gloster.)
Her voice was ever soft,
Gentle, and low; an excellent thing in woman.
Shakespeare.—King Lear, Act V. Scene 3. (Lear referring to the Death of Cordelia.)
The people’s voice is odd,
It is, and it is not, the voice of God.
Pope.—To Augustus, Book II. Epi. I. Line 89.
[Vox populi vox Dei is quoted as a proverb in the twelfth century. Riley’s Dict. of Classical Quotations, 506.]