"When I consider life, 't is all a cheat. Yet fool'd with hope, men favour the deceit; Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay. To-morrow 's falser than the former day; Lies worse, and while it says we shall be blest With some new joys, cuts off what we possest. Strange cozenage! none would live past years again, Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain; And from the dregs of life think to receive What the first sprightly running could not give."

"'T is not for nothing that we life pursue; It pays our hopes with something still that's new."

"Your ignorance is the mother of your devotion to me."

"Burn daylight."

"I am resolved to grow fat, and look young till forty."

"What flocks of critics hover here to-day, As vultures wait on armies for their prey, All gaping for the carcase of a play! With croaking notes they bode some dire event, And follow dying poets by the scent."

"He's somewhat lewd; but a well-meaning mind; Weeps much; fights little; but is wond'rous kind."

"A brave man scorns to quarrel once a day; Like Hectors in at every petty fray."

"Let those find fault whose wit's so very small, They've need to show that they can think at all; Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow; He who would search for pearls, must dive below. Fops may have leave to level all they can; As pigmies would be glad to lop a man. Half-wits are fleas; so little and so light, We scarce could know they live, but that they bite."

"Give, you gods, Give to your boy, your Caesar, The rattle of a globe to play withal, This gewgaw world, and put him cheaply off; I'll not be pleased with less than Cleopatra."

"The wretched have no friends."

"Men are but children of a larger growth; Our appetites as apt to change as theirs, And full as craving, too, and full as vain."

"With how much ease believe we what we wish!"

"Whatever is, is in its causes just."

"His hair just grizzled, As in a green old age."

"Of no distemper, of no blast he died, But fell like autumn fruit that mellowed long — Even wondered at, because he dropped no sooner. Fate seemed to wind him up for fourscore years, Yet freshly ran he on ten winters more; Till like a clock worn out with eating time, The wheels of weary life at last stood still."

"She, though in full-blown flower of glorious beauty, Grows cold even in the summer of her age."

"It is almost impossible to translate verbally and well at the same time; for the Latin (a most severe and compendious language) often expresses that in one word which either the barbarity or the narrowness of modern tongues cannot supply in more. ... But since every language is so full of its own proprieties that what is beautiful in one is often barbarous, nay, sometimes nonsense, in another, it would be unreasonable to limit a translator to the narrow compass of his author's words; it is enough if he choose out some expression which does not vitiate the sense."

"There is a pleasure sure In being mad which none but madmen know."

"Lord of humankind."

"Like a led victim, to my death I'll go, And, dying, bless the hand that gave the blow."

"Second thoughts, they say, are best."

"He's a sure card."

"They say everything in the world is good for something."

"As sure as a gun."

"Nor can his blessed soul look down from heaven, Or break the eternal sabbath of his rest."

"Whate’er he did, was done with so much ease, In him alone 'twas natural to please."

"Plots, true or false, are necessary things, To raise up commonwealths and ruin kings."

"Great wits are sure to madness near allied, And thin partitions do their bounds divide."

"And all to leave, what with his toil he won To that unfeathered two-legged thing, a son."

"In friendship false, implacable in hate, Resolved to ruin, or to rule the state."

"And heaven had wanted one immortal song. But wild ambition loves to slide, not stand, And fortune's ice prefers to virtue's land."

"The people's prayer, the glad diviner's theme, The young men's vision, and the old men's dream!"

"All empire is no more than power in trust."

"Better one suffer, than a nation grieve."

"Self-defence is nature's eldest law"

"Not only hating David, but the king."

"But far more numerous was the herd of such, Who think too little, and who talk too much."

"A man so various, that he seem’d to be Not one, but all mankind’s epitome; Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong, Was everything by starts, and nothing long; But in the course of one revolving moon Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon."

"Every man with him was God or devil."

"His tribe were God Almighty's gentlemen."

"Thus in a pageant-show a plot is made; And peace itself is war in masquerade."

"Nor is the people's judgment always true: The most may err as grossly as the few."

"Never was patriot yet, but was a fool."

"Beware the fury of a patient man."

"Made still a blund'ring kind of melody; Spurred boldly on, and dashed through thick and thin, Through sense and nonsense, never out nor in. Free from all meaning, whether good or bad, And in one word, heroically mad."

"All human things are subject to decay, And, when fate summons, monarchs must obey."

"The rest to some faint meaning make pretense, But Shadwell never deviates into sense. Some beams of wit on other souls may fall, Strike through and make a lucid interval; But Shadwell's genuine night admits no ray, His rising fogs prevail upon the day."

"Leave writing plays, and choose for thy command Some peaceful province in acrostic land. There thou mayst wings display and altars raise, And torture one poor word ten thousand ways."

"A man is to be cheated into passion, but to be reasoned into truth."