56 quotes
[History] hath triumphed over time, which besides it nothing but eternity hath triumphed over.
The History of the World (1614)
Yet stab at thee who will,
No stab the soul can kill!
Better were it to be unborn than ill-bred.
Instructions to his Son and to Posterity (1632)
Fain would I climb, yet fear I to fall.
Whoso desireth to govern well and securely, it behoveth him to have a vigilant eye to the proceedings of great princes, and to consider seriously of their designs.
The Cabinet Council (1658)
It is the nature of men, having escaped one extreme, which by force they were constrained long to endure, to run headlong into the other extreme, forgetting that virtue doth always consist in the mean.
The Cabinet Council (1658)
No mortal thing can bear so high a price,
But that with mortal thing it may be bought.
If all the world and love were young,
And truth in every shepherd's tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee and be thy Love. But fading flowers in every field,
To winter floods their treasures yield;
A honey'd tongue, a heart of gall,
Is Fancy's spring, but Sorrow's fall.
The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd (1599)
Hatreds are the cinders of affection.
A prince of mean force ought not in any wise to adventure his estate upon one day's fight: for if he be victorious he gaineth nothing but glory; but if he lose, he is utterly ruined.
When we have wandered all our ways,
shut up the story of our days,
but from this earth, this grave this dust,
my God shall raise me up, I trust.
Methought I saw the grave where Laura lay.
Whoso taketh in hand to govern a multitude, either by way of liberty or principality, and cannot assure himself of those persons that are enemies to that enterprise, doth frame a state of short perseverance.
The Cabinet Council (1658)
All histories do shew, and wise politicians do hold it necessary that, for the well-governing of every Commonweal, it behoveth man to presuppose that all men are evil, and will declare themselves so to be when occasion is offered.
The Cabinet Council (1658)
He that doth not as other men do, but endeavoureth that which ought to be done, shall thereby rather incur peril than preservation; for whoso laboureth to be sincerely perfect and good shall necessarily perish, living among men that are generally evil.
The Cabinet Council (1658)
Nature, it is urged, is cruel, and careless of the happiness of her millions of subjects. The woods where the poet found refreshment are a battlefield and a slaughter-house for other creatures. [That] pain and fear and bloodshed are a part of the law of life.
Wordsworth (1903)
Fain would I, but I dare not; I dare, and yet I may not;
I may, although I care not, for pleasure when I play not.
Use thy youth so that thou mayest have comfort to remember it when it hath forsaken thee, and not sigh and grieve at the account thereof. Use it as the spring-time which soon departeth, and wherein thou oughtest to plant and sow all provisions for a long and happy life.
Go, Soul, the body’s guest,
Upon a thankless arrant:
Fear not to touch the best;
The truth shall be thy warrant:
Go, since I needs must die,
And give the world the lie. Say to the court, it glows.
And shines like rotten wood;
Say to the church, it shows
What’s good, and doth no good:
If church and court reply,
Then give them both the lie.
The Lie (1608)
Our mothers’ wombs the tyring-houses be
Where we are drest for this short comedy
Orlando Gibbons’ First Set of Madrigals (1612)