Playwrights From England

"Come spurre away, I have no patience for a longer stay; But must go downe, And leave the chargeable noise of this great Towne. I will the country see, Where old simplicity, Though hid in gray, Doth looke more gay Than foppery in plush and scarlet clad. Farewell you City-wits that are Almost at Civil war; Tis time that I grow wise, when all the world grows mad.More of my dayes I will not spend to gaine an Idiots praise; Or to make sport For some slight Punie of the Innes of Court. Then worthy Stafford say How shall we spend the day, With what delights, Shorten the nights? When from this tumult we are got secure; Where mirth with all her freedome goes, Yet shall no finger loose; Where every word is thought, and every thought is pure.There from the tree We’ll cherries plucke, and pick the strawbery. And every day Go see the wholesome Country Girles make hay, Whose browne hath lovelier grace, Than any painted face, That I doe know Hyde-Parke can show. Where I had rather gaine a kisse than meet (Though some of them in greater state Might court my love with plate,) The beauties of the Cheape, and wives of Lumbardstreet.But thinke upon Some other pleasures, these to me are none; Why do I prate Of women, that are things against my fate? I never meane to wed, That torture to my bed; My Muse is shee My Love shall bee. Let Clownes get wealth, and heires; when I am gone, And the great Bugbear grisly death Shall take this idle breath, If I a Poem leave, that Poem is my Sonne.Of this no more; We’ll rather taste the bright Pomona’s store. No fruit shall scape Our palates, from the damson, to the grape; Then full we’ll seek a shade, And heare what musique’s made; How Philomell Her tale doth tell: And how the other Birds doe fill the quire; The Thrush and Blackbird lend their throats Warbling melodious notes; We will all sports enjoy, which others but desire.Ours is the skie, Where at what fowle we please our Hawke shall fly; Nor will we spare To hunt the crafty foxe, or timorous hare, But let our hounds runne loose In any ground they’ll choose; The buck shall fall, The stag and all: Our pleasures must from their owne warrants bee, For to my Muse, if not to mee, I’m sure all game is free; Heaven, Earth, are all but parts of her great Royalty.And when we meane To taste of Bacchus blessings now and then, And drinke by stealth A cup or two to noble Barkleys health, I’ll take my pipe and try The Phrygian melody; Which he that heares Lets through his eares A madnesse to distemper all the braine. Then I another pipe will take And Dorique musique make, To Civilize with graver notes our wits again."

"Love, give me leave to serve thee, and be wise To keepe thy torch in, but restore blind eyes. I will a flame into my bosome take, That Martyrs Court when they embrace the stake: Not dull, and smoakie fires, but heat divine, That burnes not to consume, but to refine. I have a Mistresse for perfections rare In every eye, but in my thoughts most faire. Like Tapers on the Altar shine her eyes; Her breath is the perfume of Sacrifice. And where soe’re my fancy would begin, Still her perfection lets religion in. I touch her like my Beads with devout care; And come unto my Courtship as my Praier. Wee sit, and talke, and kisse away the houres, As chastly as the morning dews kisse flowers. Goe wanton Lover spare thy sighs and teares, Put on the Livery which thy dotage weares, And call it Love, where heresie gets in Zeal’s but a coale to kindle greater sin. Wee weare no flesh, but one another greet, As blessed soules in separation meet. Wer’t possible that my ambitious sin, Durst commit rapes upon a Cherubin, I might have lustfull thoughts to her, of all Earths heav’nly Quire the most Angelicall. Looking into my brest, her forme I find That like my Guardian-Angell keeps my mind From rude attempts; and when affections stirre, I calme all passions with one thought of her. Thus they whose reasons love, and not their sence, The spirits love: thus one Intelligence Reflects upon his like, and by chast loves In the same spheare this and that Angell moves. Nor is this barren Love; one noble thought Begets an other, and that still is brought To bed of more; vertues and grace increase, And such a numerous issue ne’re can cease. Where Children, though great blessings, only bee Pleasures repriv’d to some posteritie. Beasts love like men, if men in lust delight, And call that Love which is but appetite. When essence meets with essence, and soules joyne In mutuall knots, thats the true Nuptall twine: Such Lady is my Love, and such is true; All other Love is to your Sexe, not You."

"Friendship's an abstract of this noble flame, 'Tis love refined and purged from all its dross, The next to angel's love, if not the same, As strong as passion is, though not so gross: It antedates a glad eternity And is an heaven in epitome."

"Essential honour must be in a friend, Not such as every breath fans to and fro; But born within, is its own judge and end, And dares not sin, though sure that none should know. Where friendship's spoke, honesty's understood; For none can be a friend that is not good."

"Thinke that is just; 'tis not enough to doe, Unless thy very thoughts are upright too."

"SHEPHERD: Men are more eloquent then women made: NYMPH: But women are more powerfull to persuade."

"First thinke, and if thy thoughts approve thy will, Then speake, and after what thou speakst fulfill."

"Reprove not in their wrath incensèd men, Good councell comes cleane out of season then. But when his fury is appeas'd and past, He will conceive his fault and mend at last."

"Be just before you're generous."

"I've got no bodies inside me All of me is me, I will not eat no body else So I am what you see. I do not plan to eat young sheep I will not eat a hen, I'm so proud of what I am I must say once again."

"There's no vegan who is the greatest Because all you vegans are great, Just like the peace dove You symbolise love, And there is no death on your plate."

"If the young vegan kids of our nation Are at school and can't get vegan bites, Then the school staff need food education Because safe food are one of our rights."

"I have always loved playing around with words. I didn’t know it was called poetry. I was just an innocent kid messing around with words when an adult said ‘You’re a poet, be published or be damned’."

"…Sometimes I’ll do these things for a couple of days then suddenly one day the poem comes out, just like that, in a couple of minutes. I might rewrite it later, a kind of fine tuning, or sometimes I’ll tell the audience it’s a new poem and just perform it to see if it works."

"I thought, OBE me? Up yours, I thought. I get angry when I hear that word "empire"; it reminds me of slavery, it reminds of thousands of years of brutality, it reminds me of how my foremothers were raped and my forefathers brutalised."

"As the only black kid in my primary school playground, animals had become my friends. By 15 I was vegan, although I didn't give up honey until 16. For a while my mother thought it was just "a rasta phase"."

"Someone said that Capitalism will eat itself, and I think that’s like the meat industry, the meat industry itself will become dead meat and compassion will reign supreme."

"I can honestly say I've not been tempted to give up veganism in 27 years. I sometimes smell a chip shop and like the smell but then feel guilty because fish might be part of it. But I'll go home and make vegan chips. After all these years, my favourite food is my mother's butter bean stew with whole potatoes, yam and dasheen. I don't think I've ever made a meal for her, to be honest. I think she would consider it a failing of her motherhood and say "Boy, get out the kitchen.""

"One day when I was 11, I asked my mother where did meat come from and she said from the butcher and I said where did the butcher get it from and she said the farmer and I said where did the farmer get it from and she said the cow and I said where did the cow get it from and she said – it is the cow! A shudder went through me! … I read a book about how humans drink milk that was meant for the animals’ young and I decided I wanted to disturb the animal kingdom as little as possible. But it was sometimes difficult to explain why. One day a kid gave me an ice cream and I said I didn’t want it because it had milk in it and milk belonged to babies. ‘You’re a vegan’, he said – and I thought he was calling me a nigger or something so I went to beat him up. He was yelling, ‘No, no, it’s a good thing!’ I was quite proud then because I was the only vegetarian or vegan I knew. … I passionately love life and I understand now how important love is to me. I really think about the true meaning of the word – that and compassion. If I have just one sentence on my tombstone to be remembered by it would be, ‘He tried to love every body’, with everybody as two separate words."

"…So to me it’s not about black, white, Asian, whatever. To me, it’s about literature for everybody, you know. There’s a lot of literature and it should represent us, basically – male, female, whatever kind of nationality or racial background you come from: that’s the kind of literature I want to see in the world and hopefully I’m making my own little contribution."

"When I start, I have a story that tends to have a lesson to be learnt. A lot of the time my novels are called novels for young adults and I think one of the reasons they are popular with young adults is because they read them and understand it…"

"Further, it should be clear that meat in itself as protein is not much superior to eggs or nuts and could not alter the evolution of the brain – if this were so, this miracle food would have continued to enlarge humans’ brain size in succeeding years when much greater amounts of meat were consumed."

"With an effort Ewing turned his gaze away from the far end of the bar. Slowly he spread out his hands on the table and examined them. Then he looked up at Wayne. His left eyelid had begun to quiver slightly like a leaf in a gentle breeze as he put the question, but the expression of his face remained unchanged. "Who's the new customer?" Ewing asked indolently."

"As he sat alone at his corner table drinking a gin and Dubonnet, Ewing watched the stranger sitting on the barstool and examined his appearance for a while because there was no one else interesting or attractive to watch in Wayne's bar that evening."

"We have the richest language that ever a people has accreted, and we use it as if it were the poorest. We hoard up our infinite wealth of words between the boards of dictionaries and in speech dole out the worn bronze coinage of our vocabulary. We are the misers of philological history. And when we can save our pennies and pass the counterfeit coin of slang, we are as happy as if we heard a blind beggar thank us for putting a pewter sixpence into his hat."

"My love is hopeless! I know it. But it will feed me to my dying day."

"The more truth you can get into any business, the better. Let the other side know the defects of yours, let them know how you are to be satisfied, let there be as little to be found as possible (I should say nothing), and if your business be an honest one, it will be best tended in this way."

"Friendship is often outgrown; and his former child’s clothes will no more fit a man than some of his former friendships."

"Tact is the result of refined sympathy."

"The most enthusiastic man in a cause is rarely chosen as the leader."

"How often we should stop in the pursuit of folly, if it were not for the difficulties that continually beckon us onwards."

"Do not mistake energy for enthusiasm; the softest speakers are often the most enthusiastic of men."

"Our knowledge of human nature is for the most part empirical; and it would often be better, if, instead of endeavouring to say some new things ourselves, we were to confirm without more words the sayings of another."

"No man ever praised two persons equally—and pleased them both."

"The knowledge of others which experience gives us, is of slight value when compared with that which we obtain from having proved the inconstancy of our own desires."

"Even the most careless people have a sort of aversion to signing things which they have never considered."

"Reading is sometimes an ingenious device for avoiding thought."

"You must work for yourself; for what you reject may be as important for you to have seen and thought about, as what you adopt."

"Ah, what a blessing this smoking is! perhaps the greatest that we owe to the discovery of America."

"Soothe the present as much as we may; look forward as hopefully as we can to the future, still the dreadful past must overshadow us."

"There is nothing so easily made offensive as good reasoning; and men of clear logical minds, if not gifted at the same time with tact, make more enemies than men with bad hearts and unsound understandings."

"Some persons, instead of making a religion for their God, are content to make a god of their religion."

"The envious man desires some good which another possesses; the jealous man would often be content to be without the good so that that other did not possess it."

"A very useful book might be written with the sole object of advising what parts of what books should be read. It should not be a book of elegant extracts, but should merely refer to the passages which are advised to be read. It might also indicate what are the chief works upon any given subject. For example, take rent; the important passages in Adam Smith, Ricardo, Jones, Mill, and other writers, should be referred to."

"The greatest luxury of riches is that they enable you to escape so much good advice. The rich are always advising the poor; but the poor seldom return the compliment."

"Self-indulgence takes many forms; and we should bear in mind that there may be a sullen sensuality as well as a gay one."

"There is one statesman of the present day, of whom I always say that he would have escaped making the blunders that he has made if he had only ridden more in omnibuses."

"It has always appeared to me that there is so much to be done in this world, that all self-inflicted suffering which cannot be turned to good account for others, is a loss—a loss, if you may so express it, to the spiritual world."

"The unfortunate Ladurlad did not desire the sleep that for ever fled his weary eyelids with more earnestness than most people seek the deep slumber of a decided opinion."

"There is hardly a more common error than that of taking the man who has one talent, for a genius."