George Chapman

"Poetry, unlike oratory, should not aim at clarity...but be dense with meaning, 'something to be chewed and digested'."

"Obscurity in affection of words and indigested conceits is pedantical and childish."

"Use makes things nothing huge, and huge things nothing."

"None ever loved but at first sight they loved."

"Berenice's ever-burning hair."

"O incredulity! the wit of fools, That slovenly will spit on all things fair, The coward’s castle, and the sluggard’s cradle."

"Love is a golden bubble, full of dreams, That waking breaks, and fills us with extremes."

"And let a scholar all Earth’s volumes carry, He will be but a walking dictionary."

"For your behaviour, let it be free and negligent, not clogged with ceremony or observance; give no man honour, but upon equal terms; for look how much thou giv'st any man above that, so much thou tak'st from thyself."

"We have watered our houses in Helicon."

"And for the authentical truth of either person or actions, who (worth the respecting) will expect it in a poem, whose subject is not truth, but things like truth? Poor envious souls they are that cavil at truth's want in these natural fictions; material instruction, elegant and sententious excitation to virtue, and deflection from her contrary, being the soul, limbs, and limits of an authentical tragedy."

"He that to nought aspires, doth nothing need; Who breaks no law is subject to no king."

"Danger (the spur of all great minds) is ever The curb to your tame spirits."

"An ill weed grows apace."

"Black is a pearl in a woman's eye."

"Virtue is not malicious; wrong done her Is righted even when men grant they err."

"For one heat, all know, doth drive out another, One passion doth expel another still."

"Let no man value at a little price A virtuous woman's counsel; her wing'd spirit Is feather'd oftentimes with heavenly words."

"Love me? Love my dog!"

"Blood, though it sleep a time, yet never dies. The gods on murtherers fix revengeful eyes."

"Promise is most given when the least is said."

"Great goddess, to whose throne in Cynthian fires, This earthly altar endless fumes expires; Therefore, in fumes of sighs and fires of grief, To fearful chances thou send'st bold relief, Happy, thrice happy type, and nurse of death, Who, breathless, feeds on nothing but our breath, In whom must virtue and her issue live, Or die for ever."

"Music, and mood, she loves, but love she hates (As curious ladies do, their public cates), This train, with meteors, comets, lightenings, The dreadful presence of our empress sings: Which grant for ever (O eternal Night) Till virtue flourish in the light of light."

"Exceeding fair she was not; and yet fair In that she never studied to be fairer Than Nature made her; beauty cost her nothing, Her virtues were so rare."

"I tell thee Love is Nature's second sun, Causing a spring of virtues where he shines."

": What flowers are these? : The pansy this. : Oh, that's for lover's thoughts."

"How blinde is pride! what eagles we are still In matters that belong to other men, What beetles in our own!"

"Fortune, the great commandress of the world, Hath divers ways to advance her followers: To some she gives honour without deserving, To other some, deserving without honour; Some wit, some wealth,—and some, wit without wealth; Some wealth without wit; some nor wit nor wealth."

"Young men think old men are fools; but old men know young men are fools."

"Keep thy shop, and thy shop will keep thee. Light gains make heavy purses. 'Tis good to be merry and wise."

"Make ducks and drakes with shillings."

"Only a few industrious Scots perhaps, who indeed are dispersed over the face of the whole earth. But as for them, there are no greater friends to Englishmen and England, when they are out on 't, in the world, than they are. And for my own part, I would a hundred thousand of them were there [Virginia]; for we are all one countrymen now, ye know, and we should find ten times more comfort of them there than we do here."

"Enough 's as good as a feast."

"Fair words never hurt the tongue."

"Let pride go afore, shame will follow after."

"I will neither yield to the song of the siren nor the voice of the hyena, the tears of the crocodile nor the howling of the wolf."

"As cedars beaten with continual storms, So great men flourish; and do imitate Unskilful statuaries, who suppose, In forging a Colossus, if they make him Straddle enough, strut, and look big, and gape, Their work is goodly: so men merely great In their affected gravity of voice, Sourness of countenance, manners' cruelty, Authority, wealth, and all the spawn of fortune, Think they bear all the kingdom's worth before them, Yet differ not from those colossic statues, Which, with heroic forms without o'erspread, Within are naught but mortar, flint and lead."

"Man is a torch borne in the wind; a dream But of a shadow, summ'd with all his substance."

"And as great seamen, using all their wealth And skills in Neptune's deep invisible paths, In tall ships richly built and ribbed with brass, To put a girdle round about the world."

"His deeds inimitable, like the sea That shuts still as it opes, and leaves no tracts Nor prints of precedent for poor men's facts."

"So our lives In acts exemplary, not only win Ourselves good names, but doth to others give Matter for virtuous deeds, by which we live."

"This was a sleight well mask'd. O, what is man, Unless he be a Politician?"

"Speed his plough."

"There is a deep nick in Fortune's restless wheel For each man's good."

"Who to himself is law no law doth need, Offends no law, and is a king indeed."

"Archers ever Have two strings to a bow; and shall great Cupid (Archer of archers both in men and women), Be worse provided than a common archer?"

"Each natural agent works but to this end,— To render that it works on like itself."

"Man is a name of honour for a king."

"Terror of darkness! O, thou king of flames!"

"Oh my fame, Live in despite of murder! Take thy wings And haste thee where the grey eyed Morn perfumes Her rosy chariot with Sabaean spices! Fly, where the Evening from th’Iberian vales Takes on her swarthy shoulders Hecate, Crowned with a grove of oaks; fly where men feel The burning axletree, and those that suffer Beneath the chariot of the snowy Bear."