Samuel Daniel

"Custom, that is before all law; Nature, that is above all art."

"And you shall find the greatest enemy A man can have is his prosperity."

"But years hath done this wrong, To make me write too much, and live too long."

"Folly in youth is sin, in age 'tis madness."

"For 'tis some ease our sorrows to reveal, If they to whom we shall impart our woes, Seem but to feel a part of what we feel, And meet us with a sigh, but at the close."

"Princes in this case Do hate the traitor, though they love the treason."

"The absent danger greater still appears; Less fears he who is near the thing he fears."

"Pity is sworn servant unto love; And thus be sure, wherever it begin To make the way, it lets the master in."

"Man is a creature of a wilful head, And hardly driven is, but eas'ly led."

"Ah! 'tis the silent rhetoric of a look, That works the league betwixt the states of hearts."

"To spend the time luxuriously Becomes not men of worth."

"Love is a sickness full of woes, All remedies refusing; A plant that with most cutting grows, Most barren with best using. Why so? More we enjoy it, more it dies; If not enjoy’d, it sighing cries— Heigh ho!Love is a torment of the mind, A tempest everlasting; And Jove hath made it of a kind Not well, nor full nor fasting. Why so? More we enjoy it, &c."

"Sacred on earth; designed a saint above!"

"The fairest flower that ever saw the light."

"Men do not weigh the stalk for what it was, When once they find her flow’r, her glory, pass."

"I that have loved thee thus before thou fadest, My faith shall wax, when thou art in thy waning. The world shall find this miracle in me, That fire can burn when all the matter's spent."

"Thou may’st repent that thou hast scorn’d my tears, When Winter snows upon thy sable hairs."

"For women grieve to think they must be old."

"And sport, sweet maid, in season of these years, And learn to gather flowers before they wither"

"Care-Charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night, Brother to Death, in silent darkness born, Relieve my languish, and restore the light; With dark forgetting of my care return. And let the day be time enough to mourn The shipwreck of my ill adventured youth"

"Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night, Brother to Death, in silent darkness born."

"But her will must be obeyed,"

"Sweet, silent rhetoric of persuading eyes, Dumb eloquence, whose power doth move the blood More than the words or wisdom of the wise."

"Jewels, orators of Love."

"Shame leaves us by degrees."

"Minions too great argue a King too weak."

"When better choices are not to be had, We needs must take the seeming best of bad."

"Might, That makes a title where there is no right."

"The thing possessed is not the thing it seems."

"Who reproves the lame must go upright."

"The bounds once overgone that hold men in, They never stay; but on from bad to worse. Wrongs do not leave off there where they begin, But still beget new mischiefs in their course."

"He hath nothing done that doth not all."

"As that the walls worn thin, permit the mind To look out thorough, and his frailty find. 1"

"Devotion, mother of obedience."

"The stars that have most glory have no rest."

"O blessed letters that combine in one All ages past, and make one live with all, By you we do confer with who are gone, And the dead living unto counsel call: By you th'unborn shall have communion Of what we feel, and what doth us befall."

"Sacred religion! mother of form and fear."

"And for the few that only lend their ear, That few is all the world."

"This is the thing that I was born to do."

"And who (in time) knows whither we may vent The treasure of our tongue? To what strange shores This gain of our best glory shall be sent T' enrich unknowing nations with our stores? What worlds in the yet unformed Occident May come refin'd with th' accents that are ours?"

"For ever by Adversity are wrought The greatest Works of Admiration; And all the Fair Examples of Renown, Out of Distress and Misery are grown."

"He that of such a height hath built his mind, And rear'd the dwelling of his thoughts so strong, As neither fear nor hope can shake the frame Of his resolved powers; nor all the wind Of vanity or malice pierce to wrong His settled peace, or to disturb the same; What a fair seat hath he, from whence he may The boundless wastes and wilds of man survey? And with how free an eye doth he look down Upon these lower regions of turmoil? Where all the storms of passions mainly beat On flesh and blood: where honour, power, renown, Are only gay afflictions, golden toil; Where greatness stands upon as feeble feet, As frailty doth; and only great doth seem To little minds, who do it so esteem."

"Unless above himself he can Erect himself, how poor a thing is man!"

"Lieb' ist ein Siechtum, von Gott geschickt, // Das keine Arznei je bessert; // Ein Blümlein, das aufblüht, wenn mans knickt, // Und abstirbt, wenn mans wässert."