35 quotes
Glories, like glow-worms, afar off shine bright,
But look'd too near have neither heat nor light.
The White Devil (1612)
I know death hath ten thousand several doors
For men to take their exits.
Duchess of Malfi (1623)
Cover her face; mine eyes dazzle: she died young.
Duchess of Malfi (1623)
Is not old wine wholesomest, old pippins toothsomest, old wood burn brightest, old linen wash whitest? Old soldiers, sweethearts, are surest, and old lovers are soundest.
Whether we fall by ambition, blood, or lust,
Like diamonds, we are cut with our own dust.
Duchess of Malfi (1623)
The evening shows the day, and death crowns life.
There’s nothing sooner dry than women’s tears.
The White Devil (1612)
Prosperity doth bewitch men, seeming clear;
But seas do laugh, show white, when rocks are near.
The White Devil (1612)
But keep the wolf far thence, that's foe to men,
For with his nails he'll dig them up again.
The White Devil (1612)
Yet stay, heaven gates are not so highly arch'd As princes' palaces; they that enter there, Must go upon their knees.
O, happy they that never saw the court,
Nor ever knew great men but by report!
Heaven-gates are not so highly arched
As princes' palaces; they that enter there
Must go upon their knees.
Duchess of Malfi (1623)
Gold that buys health can never be ill spent,
Nor hours laid out in harmless merriment.
Let guilty men remember, their black deeds
Do lean on crutches made of slender reeds.
He hath put a girdle 'bout the world
And sounded all her quicksands.
Unequal nature, to place women’s hearts
So far upon the left side.
The Duchess of Malfi (1623)
Call for the robin redbreast and the wren,
Since o'er shady groves they hover,
And with leaves and flowers do cover
The friendless bodies of unburied men.
The White Devil (1612)
'T is just like a summer bird-cage in a garden,—the birds that are without despair to get in, and the birds that are within despair and are in a consumption for fear they shall never get out.
The White Devil (1612)
Of what is't fools make such vain keeping?
Sin their conception, their birth, weeping:
Their life, a general mist of error,
Their death, a hideous storm of terror.
Duchess of Malfi (1623)
That's the greatest torture souls feel in hell,
In hell, that they must live, and cannot die.