What needs my Shakespeare for his honour'd bones? Milton.
What of books? Hast thou not already a Bible 15 to write and publish in print that is eternal, namely, a Life to lead? Carlyle.
What once were vices are now the manners of the day. Sen.
What people call her (England's) history is not hers at all; but that of her kings (though the history of them is worth reading), or the tax-gatherers employed by them, which is as if people were to call Mr. Gladstone's history or Mr. Lowe's, yours or mine. Ruskin.
What perils on a woman's life may throng, / Sitting lonely with her thoughts, that chafe and murmur like the surf! Dr. Walter Smith.
What persons are by starts, they are by nature. You see them at such times off their guard. Habit may restrain vice, and virtue may be obscured by passion, but intervals best discover the man. Sterne.
What profit is it for men now to live in heaviness, 20 and after death to look for punishment? Apocrypha.
What proves the hero truly great, / Is never, never to despair. Thomson.
What quite infinite worth lies in Truth! how all-pervading, omnipotent, in man's mind is the thing we name Belief! Carlyle.
What rage for fame attends both great and small! / Better be damned than mentioned not at all. John Wolcot.