Since knowledge is but sorrow's spy,
It is not safe to know.

Notes from Wikiquote

Compare: "From ignorance our comfort flows", Matthew Prior, To the Hon. Charles Montague; "Where ignorance is bliss, ’T is folly to be wise", Thomas Gray, Eton College, Stanza 10.

More quotes by William Davenant

The assembled souls of all that men held wise.

Gondibert (1650)

But ask not bodies (doomed to die),
To what abode they go;
Since knowledge is but sorrow's spy,
It is not safe to know.

The monument of vanished mindes.

For angling-rod he took a sturdy oak;
For line, a cable that in storm ne'er broke;
His hook was such as heads the end of pole
To pluck down house ere fire consumes it whole;
This hook was bated with a dragon's tail,—
And then on rock he stood to bob for whale.

For angling-rod he took a sturdy oake;
For line, a cable that in storm ne'er broke;
His hooke was such as heads the end of pole
To pluck down house ere fire consumes it whole;
The hook was baited with a dragon's tale,—
And then on rock he stood to bob for whale.

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

Since knowledge is but sorrow's spy,It is not safe to know.

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Notes from Wikiquote

More quotes by William Davenant

Attribution

Since knowledge is but sorrow's spy,
It is not safe to know.