23 quotes
For evil news rides post, while good news baits.
Samson Agonistes (1671)
Yet beauty, tho' injurious, hath strange power,
After offence returning, to regain
Love once possess'd.
Samson Agonistes (1671)
Wisest men
Have erred, and by bad women been deceived;
And shall again, pretend they ne’er so wise.
Samson Agonistes (1671)
In argument with men a woman ever
Goes by the worse, whatever be her cause.
Samson Agonistes (1671)
These false pretexts and varnished colours failing,
Rare in thy guilt how foul must thou appear.
Samson Agonistes (1671)
He's gone, and who knows how he may report
Thy words by adding fuel to the flame?
Samson Agonistes (1671)
He's gone, and who knows how may he report
Thy words by adding fuel to the flame?
Samson Agonistes (1671)
What boots it at one gate to make defence,
And at another to let in the foe?
Samson Agonistes (1671)
But zeal moved thee;
To please thy gods thou didst it!
Samson Agonistes (1671)
Just are the ways of God,
And justifiable to men.
Samson Agonistes (1671)
An amber scent of odorous perfume
Her harbinger.
Samson Agonistes (1671)
It is not virtue, wisdom, valour, wit,
Strength, comeliness of shape, or amplest merit,
That woman's love can win, or long inherit;
But what it is, hard is to say,
Harder to hit.
Samson Agonistes (1671)
O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon,
Irrecoverably dark! total eclipse,
Without all hope of day.
Samson Agonistes (1671)
I on the other side
Us'd no ambition to commend my deeds;
The deeds themselves, though mute, spoke loud the doer.
Samson Agonistes (1671)
O loss of sight, of thee I most complain!
Blind among enemies, O worse than chains,
Dungeon, or beggary, or decrepit age!
Samson Agonistes (1671)
But O yet more miserable!
Myself my sepulchre, a moving grave.
Samson Agonistes (1671)
Thy boist'rous locks, no worthy match
For valour to assail, nor by the sword
* * * * * *
But by the barber's razor best subdued.
Samson Agonistes (1671)
Therefore God's universal law
Gave to the man despotic power
Over his female in due awe,
Not from that right to part an hour,
Smile she or lour.
Samson Agonistes (1671)
Fame, if not double fac'd, is double mouth'd,
And with contrary blast proclaims most deeds;
On both his wings, one black, the other white,
Bears greatest names in his wild aery flight.
Samson Agonistes (1671)
If weakness may excuse,
What murderer, what traitor, parricide,
Incestuous, sacrilegious, but may plead it?
All wickedness is weakness; that plea, therefore,
With God or man will gain thee no remission.
Samson Agonistes (1671)