"For close designs and crooked counsels fit, Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit, Restless, unfixed in principles and place, In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace; A fiery soul, which, working out its way, Fretted the pigmy-body to decay And o'er informed the tenement of clay. A daring pilot in extremity, Pleased with the danger, when the waves went high, He sought the storms; but, for a calm unfit, Would steer too nigh the sands to boast his wit. Great wits are sure to madness near allied And thin partitions do their bounds divide; Else, why should he, with wealth and honour blest, Refuse his age the needful hours of rest? Punish a body which he could not please, Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease? And all to leave what with his toil he won To that unfeathered two-legged thing, a son, Got, while his soul did huddled notions try, And born a shapeless lump, like anarchy. In friendship false, implacable in hate, Resolved to ruin or to rule the state."
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PrisonersPoliticians from EnglandAcademics from EnglandCritics of religionWhig (British political party) politicians
Original Language: English
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John Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel, 1681
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Anthony_Ashley_Cooper%2C_1st_Earl_of_Shaftesbury
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Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury
Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury (22 July 1621 – 21 January 1683), known as Sir Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 2nd Baronet, from 1631 to 1661 and as The Lord Ashley from 1661 to 1672, was a prominent English politician during the Interregnum and during the reign of King Charles II. A founder of the Whig party, he is also remembered as the patron of John Locke.
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