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Full little knowest thou that hast not tried,
What hell it is in suing long to bide:
To loose good dayes, that might be better spent;
To waste long nights in pensive discontent;
To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow;
To feed on hope, to pine with feare and sorrow.

— Edmund Spenser

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Romance

More quotes by Edmund Spenser

For of the soule the bodie forme doth take;
For the soule is forme, and doth the bodie make.

Fowre Hymnes (1596)

The gentle minde by gentle deeds is knowne.
For a man by nothing is so well bewrayd,
As by his manners.

The Faerie Queene (1589)

For all that faire is, is by nature good;
That is a signe to know the gentle blood.

Fowre Hymnes (1596)

I learned have, not to despise,
What ever thing seemes small in common eyes.

Complaints (1591)

Ill can he rule the great, that cannot reach the small.

The Faerie Queene (1589)

All Edmund Spenser quotes →

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The surest way to hit a woman’s heart is to take aim kneeling.

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Edmund Spenser (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.