"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."

"Make ducks and drakes with shillings."

"Keep thy shop, and thy shop will keep thee. Light gains make heavy purses. 'Tis good to be merry and wise."

"Young men think old men are fools; but old men know young men are fools."

"Fortune, the great commandress of the world, Hath divers ways to advance her followers: To some she gives honour without deserving, To other some, deserving without honour; Some wit, some wealth,—and some, wit without wealth; Some wealth without wit; some nor wit nor wealth."

"How blinde is pride! what eagles we are still In matters that belong to other men, What beetles in our own!"

": What flowers are these? : The pansy this. : Oh, that's for lover's thoughts."

"I tell thee Love is Nature's second sun, Causing a spring of virtues where he shines."

"Exceeding fair she was not; and yet fair In that she never studied to be fairer Than Nature made her; beauty cost her nothing, Her virtues were so rare."

"Music, and mood, she loves, but love she hates (As curious ladies do, their public cates), This train, with meteors, comets, lightenings, The dreadful presence of our empress sings: Which grant for ever (O eternal Night) Till virtue flourish in the light of light."

"Great goddess, to whose throne in Cynthian fires, This earthly altar endless fumes expires; Therefore, in fumes of sighs and fires of grief, To fearful chances thou send'st bold relief, Happy, thrice happy type, and nurse of death, Who, breathless, feeds on nothing but our breath, In whom must virtue and her issue live, Or die for ever."

"Promise is most given when the least is said."

"Blood, though it sleep a time, yet never dies. The gods on murtherers fix revengeful eyes."

"Love me? Love my dog!"

"Let no man value at a little price A virtuous woman's counsel; her wing'd spirit Is feather'd oftentimes with heavenly words."

"For one heat, all know, doth drive out another, One passion doth expel another still."

"Virtue is not malicious; wrong done her Is righted even when men grant they err."

"Black is a pearl in a woman's eye."

"An ill weed grows apace."

"Danger (the spur of all great minds) is ever The curb to your tame spirits."

"He that to nought aspires, doth nothing need; Who breaks no law is subject to no king."

"And for the authentical truth of either person or actions, who (worth the respecting) will expect it in a poem, whose subject is not truth, but things like truth? Poor envious souls they are that cavil at truth's want in these natural fictions; material instruction, elegant and sententious excitation to virtue, and deflection from her contrary, being the soul, limbs, and limits of an authentical tragedy."

"We have watered our houses in Helicon."

"For your behaviour, let it be free and negligent, not clogged with ceremony or observance; give no man honour, but upon equal terms; for look how much thou giv'st any man above that, so much thou tak'st from thyself."

"And let a scholar all Earth’s volumes carry, He will be but a walking dictionary."

"Love is a golden bubble, full of dreams, That waking breaks, and fills us with extremes."

"O incredulity! the wit of fools, That slovenly will spit on all things fair, The coward’s castle, and the sluggard’s cradle."

"Berenice's ever-burning hair."

"None ever loved but at first sight they loved."

"Use makes things nothing huge, and huge things nothing."

"Obscurity in affection of words and indigested conceits is pedantical and childish."

"Poetry, unlike oratory, should not aim at clarity...but be dense with meaning, 'something to be chewed and digested'."

"My Minde to Me a Kindome Is; Such present joys therein I find, That it excels all other bliss That earth affords or grows by kind: Though much I want which most would have, Yet still my mind forbids to crave."

"Some have too much, yet still do crave; I little have, and seek no more: They are but poor, though much they have, And I am rich with little store: They poor, I rich; they beg, I give; They lack, I have; they pine, I live."

"If e'er thy breast with freedom glow'd, And spurn'd a tyrant's chain, Let not thy strong oppressive force A free-born mouse detain."

"Oh! hear a pensive captive's prayer, For liberty that sighs; And never let thine heart be shut Against the prisoner's cries."

"This dead of midnight is the noon of thought, And Wisdom mounts her zenith with the stars."

"With Thee in shady solitudes I walk, With Thee in busy, crowded cities talk, In every creature own Thy forming power, In each event Thy providence adore."

"I read his awful name, emblazon'd high With golden letters on th' illumin'd sky."

"Flowers, the sole luxury which nature knew, In Eden's pure and guiltless garden grew.[…] Gay without toil, and lovely without art, They spring to cheer the sense, and glad the heart."

"It is to hope, tho' hope were lost."

"O gently guide my pilgrim feet To find thy hermit cell; Where in some pure and equal sky Beneath thy soft indulgent eye The modest virtues dwell."

"Man is the nobler growth our realms supply, And souls are ripen'd in our northern sky."

"Child of mortality, whence comest thou? Why is thy countenance sad, and why are thine eyes red with weeping?"

"Let us confess a truth, humiliating perhaps to human pride;—a very small part only of the opinions of the coolest philosopher are the result of fair reasoning; the rest are formed by his education, his temperament, by the age in which he lives, by trains of thought directed to a particular track through some accidental association—in short, by prejudice."

"It is, in truth, the most absurd of all suppositions, that a human being can be educated, or even nourished and brought up, without imbibing numberless prejudices from every thing which passes around him."

"We may think all religions beneficial, and believe of one alone that it is true."

"If an author would have us feel a strong degree of compassion, his characters must not be too perfect."