52 quotes
Be always displeased at what thou art, if thou desire to attain to what thou art not; for where thou hast pleased thyself, there thou abidest.
And what’s a life? The flourishing array
Of the proud summer-meadow, which to-day
Wears her green plush, and is to-morrow hay.
Emblems (1634)
Shine Son of glory, and my sinnes are gone
Like twinkling Starres before the rising Sunne.
The Authour's Dreame (1629)
The goods we spend we keep; and what we save
We lose; and only what we lose we have.
This house is to be let for life or years;
Her rent is sorrow, and her income tears.
Cupid, 't has long stood void; her bills make known,
She must be dearly let, or let alone.
Emblems (1635)
What treasures here do Mammon's sons behold!
Yet know that all that which glitters is not gold.
Emblems (1638)
'Tis to bewail the sins thou didst commit;
And not commit those sins thou hast bewailed.
He that bewails, and not forsakes them too,
Confesses rather what he means to do.
Be wisely worldly, be not worldly wise.
Emblems (1635)
We spend our midday sweat, our midnight oil;
We tire the night in thought, the day in toil.
Emblems (1635)
Like to the falling of a star,
* * * *
Like to the damask rose you see,
Or like the blossom on the tree.
Argalus and Parthenia (1629)
Anger, when it is long in coming, is the stronger when it comes, and the longer kept.
Enchiridion (1640)
See, here's a shadow found; the human nature
Is made th' umbrella to the Deity,
To catch the sunbeams of thy just Creator;
Beneath this covert thou may'st safely lie.
And what's a life? A weary pilgrimage,
Whose glory in one day doth fill the stage
With childhood, manhood, and decrepit age.
'Tis vain to flee; till gentle Mercy show
Her better eye, the farther off we go,
The swing of Justice deals the mightier blow.
My soul, sit thou a patient looker-on;
Judge not the play before the play is done:
Her plot hath many changes; every day
Speaks a new scene; the last act crowns the play.
Epigram. Respice Finem (1635)
Let all thy joys be as the month of May
And all thy days be as a marriage day:
Let sorrow, sickness, and a troubled mind
Be stranger to thee.
If thou neglectest thy love to thy neighbor, in vain thou professest thy love to God; for by thy love to God, the love to thy neighbor is begotten, and by the love to thy neighbor, thy love to God is nourished.
Proportion thy charity to the strength of thy estate, lest God proportion thy estate to the weakness of thy charity. Let the lips of the poor be the trumpet of thy gift, lest in seeking applause thou lose thy reward. Nothing is more pleasing to God than an open hand and a close mouth.
Man is man's A, B, C. There's none that can
Read God aright, unless he first spell man.
We sack, we ransack to the utmost sands
Of native kingdoms, and of foreign lands:
We travel sea and soil; we pry, and prowl,
We progress, and we prog from pole to pole.