Skip to content

Because they commonly make use of treasure found in books, as of other treasure belonging to the dead and hidden underground; for they dispose of both with great secrecy, defacing the shape and image of the one as much as of the other.

— William Davenant

Another quote →

More quotes by William Davenant

The assembled souls of all that men held wise.

Gondibert (1650)

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

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.

All William Davenant quotes →

Attribution

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.