Philip Sidney

"My true love hath my heart, and I have his, By just exchange, one for the other given."

"As in geometry, the oblique must be known, as well as the right; and in arithmetic, the odd as well as the even; so in actions of life, who seeth not the filthiness of evil, wanteth a great foil to perceive the beauty of virtue."

"And thou my minde aspire to higher things; Grow rich in that which never taketh rust."

"Thy necessity is yet greater than mine"

"High-erected thoughts seated in the heart of courtesy."

"They are never alone that are accompanied with noble thoughts."

"Open suspecting others comes of secret condemning themselves."

"Many-headed multitude."

"Who shoots at the mid-day sun, though he be sure he shall never hit the mark, yet as sure he is he shall shoot higher than who aims but at a bush."

"A fair woman shall not only command without authority but persuade without speaking."

"My dear, my better half"

"....But words came halting forth, wanting Invention's stay, Invention, Nature's child, fled step-dame Study's blows, And others' feet still seemed but strangers in my way. Thus great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes, Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite: "Fool," said my Muse to me, "look in thy heart and write.""

"Have I caught my heav'nly jewel."

"Come sleep, O sleep, the certain knot of peace, The baiting place of wit, the balm of woe, The poor man’s wealth, the prisoner’s release, The indifferent judge between the high and low."

"That sweet enemy, France."

"Stella, think not that I by verse seek fame, Who seek, who hope, who love, who live but thee; Thine eyes my pride, thy lips mine history: If thou praise not, all other praise is shame."

"Sweet food of sweetly uttered knowledge."

"There have been many most excellent poets that never versified, and now swarm many versifiers that need never answer to the name of poets."

"The historian…loaden with old mouse-eaten records, authorizing himself (for the most part) upon other histories, whose greatest authorities are built upon the notable foundation of hearsay; having much ado to accord differing writers and to pick truth out of partiality; better acquainted with a thousand years ago than with the present age, and yet better knowing how this world goeth than how his own wit runneth; curious for antiquities and inquisitive of novelties; a wonder to young folks and a tyrant in table talk, denieth, in a great chafe, that any man for teaching of virtue, and virtuous actions is comparable to him."

"With a tale forsooth he cometh unto you, with a tale which holdeth children from play, and old men from the chimney corner."

"Certainly, I must confess my own barbarousness, I never heard the old song of Percy and Douglas that I found not my heart moved more than with a trumpet."

"Poetry, a speaking picture... to teach and delight"

"The poet...nothing affirmeth, and therefore never lieth."

"This is that Sidney, whom, as Gods will was he should be therefore home into the world, even to shew unto our age a sample of ancient vertues: so his good pleasure was before any man looked for it to call for him againe, and take him out of the world as beeing more worthy of heaven then earth."

"Hard-hearted minds relent and rigor's tears abound, And envy strangely rues his end, in whom no fault was found. Knowledge her light hath lost, valor hath slain her knight, Sidney is dead, dead is my friend, dead is the world's delight."

"In the sweetly constituted mind of Sir Philip Sidney, it seems as if no ugly thought or unhandsome meditation could find a harbour. He turned all that he touched into images of honour and virtue."

"Sidney's force of patriotism and religious fervour were accompanied by much political sagacity, by high poetic and oratorical gifts, and by unusual skill in manly sports. Such versatility, allied to a naturally chivalric, if somewhat impetuous, temperament, generated a rare personal fascination, the full force of which was brought home to his many friends by his pathetic death, from a wound received in battle, at the early age of thirty-two. His achievements, when viewed in detail, may hardly seem to justify all the eulogies in verse and prose which his contemporaries bestowed upon his brief career; but the impression that it left in its entirety on his countrymen's imagination proved ineffaceable."

"Yf he had lived, I dowbt not but he would have bine a comfort to us both, and an ornament to his howse. What perfection he was growen unto, and how able to serve her majestie and his countrey, all men here almost wondred at."

"Gentle Sir Philip Sidney, thou knewest what belonged to a scholar; thou knewest what pains, what toil, what travail conduct to perfection. Well couldst thou give every virtue his encouragement, every art his due, every writer his desert, cause none more virtuous, witty, or learned than thyself. But thou art dead in thy grave, and hast left too few successors of thy glory, too few to cherish the sons of the muses, or water those budding hopes with their plenty, which thy bounty erst planted."

"Sidney, as he fought And as he fell and as he lived and loved Sublimely mild, a Spirit without spot."

"Once the poet has set himself the task of writing an amorous complaint, that deep melancholy which lay beneath the surface glamor of Elizabethan existence and which was so characteristic of Sidney himself, begins to fill the conventional form with a more than conventional weight. It surges through the magical adagio of the lines; they have that depth of reverberation, like the sound of gongs beaten under water, which is sometimes characteristic of Sidney as of no other Elizabethan, not even Shakespeare."