All Quotes

"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."

"'Tis immortality to die aspiring, As if a man were taken quick to heaven."

"Give me a spirit that on this life's rough sea Loves t' have his sails fill'd with a lusty wind, Even till his sail-yards tremble, his masts crack, And his rapt ship run on her side so low That she drinks water, and her keel plows air."

"There is no danger to the man that knows What life and death is; there's not any law Exceeds his knowledge; neither is it lawful That he should stoop to any other law. He goes before them, and commands them all, That to himself is a law rational."

"O Innocence, the sacred amulet 'Gainst all the poisons of infirmity; Of all misfortune, injury, and death, That makes a man in tune still in himself; Free from the hell to be his own accuser, Ever in quiet, endless joy enjoying; No strife nor no sedition in his powers; No motion in his will against his reason, No thought 'gainst thought— But (all parts in him, friendly and secure, Fruitful of all best things in all worst seasons) He can with every wish be in their plenty; When the infectious guilt of one foul crime Destroys the free content of all our time."

"He is at no end of his actions blest Whose ends will make him greatest, and not best."

"If Homer could return from Elysium to read all the English renderings, he would surely find in Chapman his truest son, a man who has fed on lions' marrow."

"Achilles' baneful wrath resound, O Goddess, that imposed Infinite sorrows on the Greeks, and many brave souls loosed From breasts heroic, sent them far to that invisible cave That no light comforts, and their limbs to dogs and vultures gave; To all which Jove's will gave effect; from whom first strife begun Betwixt Atrides, king of men, and Thetis' godlike son."

"The lady of the light, the rosy-fingered Morn, Rose from the hills."

"What man can blame The Greekes and Trojans to endure, for so admired a Dame, So many miseries, and so long? In her sweet countenance shine Lookes like the Godesses."

"This said, he reached to take his son; who, of his arms afraid, And then the horse-hair plume, with which he was so overlaid, Nodded so horribly, he clinged back to his nurse, and cried. Laughter affected his great sire, who doffed and laid aside His fearful helm, that on the earth cast round about it light; Then took and kissed his loving son, and (balancing his weight In dancing him) these loving vows to living Jove he used, And all the other bench of gods: "O you that have infused Soul to this infant, now set down this blessing on his star: Let his renown be clear as mine; equal his strength in war.""

"As far as white Aurora's dews are sprinkled through the air."

"As when about the silver moon, when air is free from wind, And stars shine clear; to whose sweet beams, high prospects, and the brows Of all steep hills and pinnacles, thrust up themselves for shows; And even the lowly valleys joy, to glitter in their sight, When the unmeasured firmament bursts to disclose her light, And all the signs in heaven are seen that glad the shepherd's heart."

"Mourne not inevitable things; thy teares can spring no deeds To helpe thee, nor recall thy sonne: impacience ever breeds Ill upon ill, makes worst things worse."

"Then forth he came, his both knees falt'ring, both His strong hands hanging down, and all with froth His cheeks and nostrils flowing, voice and breath Spent to all use, and down he sunk to death. The sea had soaked his heart through; all his veins His toils had rack'd t'a labouring woman's pains. Dead weary was he."

"Nor could the foole abstaine, But drunke as often."

"As night the life-inclining stars best shows, So lives obscure the starriest souls disclose."

"A race Of proud-lined loiterers, that never sow, Nor put a plant in earth, nor use a plough."

"Where ambition of place goes before fitness Of birth, contempt and disgrace follow."

"Two eagles, That mounted on the wings, together still Their strokes extended."

"You shall die Twice now, where others, that mortality In her fair arms holds, shall but once decease."

"Friendship is the cement of two minds, As of one man the soul and body is; Of which one cannot sever but the other Suffers a needful separation."

"Swift men of foot, whose broad-set backs their trailing hair did hide."

"Men’s judgments sway on that side fortune leans."

"Soon as the white and red mix’d finger’d dame Had gilt the mountains with her saffron flame."

"The morning, on her throne of gold, Survey’d the vast world, by whose orient light The nymph adorn’d me with attires as bright."

"The isle Ææa, where the palace stands Of the early riser, with the rosy hands, Active Aurora; where she loves to dance."

"Yet hath the morning sprinkled through the clouds But half her tincture; and the sail of night Sticks still upon the bosom of the air."

"The seas retain Not only their outrageous esture there, But supernatural mischief they expire."

"Nothing so sweete is as our countrie’s earth, And joy of those from whom we claime our birth."