Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

William Cartwright

English Dramatist and Churchman, Successor to Ben Jonson

"The fool inherits, but the wise must get."

"I was that silly thing that once was wrought to practise this thin love; I climbed from sex to soul, from soul to thought; but thinking there to move, headlong I rolled from thought to soul, and then from soul I lighted at the sex again."

"Fancy can save or kill; it hath clos'd up Wounds when the balsam could not, and without The aid of salves:--to think hath been a cure. For witchcraft then, that's all done by the force Of mere imagination."

"Love makes those young whom age doth chill, and whom he finds young keeps young still."

"Brave spirits are a balsam to themselves, There is a nobleness of mind that heals Wounds beyond salves."

"There are two births: the one when light first strikes the new awakened sense; the other when two souls unite, and we must count our life from thence, when you loved me and I loved you, then both of us were born anew."

"Tell me not of joy: there's none now my little sparrow's gone; He, just as you, would toy and woo, He would chirp and flatter me, He would hang the wing awhile, till at length he saw me smile, Lord! how sullen he would be!"