Great Throughts Treasury

"Love is better than spectacles to make everything seem great."

"Liking is not always the child of beauty, for whatsoever one liketh is beautiful."

"Men are almost always cruel on their neighbors' faults, and make the overthrow of others the badge of their own ill-masked virtue."

"Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show, That she, dear she, might take some pleasure of my pain, Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know, Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain, I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe:"

"Malice, in its false witness, promotes its tale with so cunning a confusion, so mingles truths with falsehoods, surmises with certainties, causes of no moment with matters capital, that the accused can absolutely neither grant nor deny, plead innocence nor confess guilt."

"Night hath closed all in her cloak, Twinkling stars love-thoughts provoke, Danger hence good care doth keep, Jealousy itself doth sleep."

"My dear, my better half."

"No sword bites so fiercely as an evil tongue."

"My true love hath my heart, and I have his, By just exchange, one for the other given. I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss, There never was a better bargain driven."

"O accursed reason, how many eyes thou hast to see thy evils, and how dim, nay blind, thou art in preventing them."

"O sweet woods, the delight of solitariness!"

"Nothing is achieved before it be thoroughly attempted"

"O take fast hold; let that light be thy guide In this small course which birth draws out to death,"

"Nothing sooner overthrows a weak head than opinion of authority; like too strong liquor for a frail glass."

"Oft have I mused, but now at length I find, Why those that die, men say they do depart."

"On Nature's sweetest light;"

"Open suspecting of others comes of secretly condemning ourselves"

"Our erected wit maketh us to know what perfection is."

"One that preferred truth before the maintaining of an opinion."

"Reason cannot show itself more reasonable than to leave reasoning on things above reason."

"Shallow brooks murmur most, deep and silent slide away."

"Poetry ... is ... a speaking picture, with this end: to teach and delight."

"Ring out your bells! Let mourning show be spread! For Love is dead."

"She never dies, but lasteth In life of lover's heart; He ever dies that wasteth In love his chiefest part."

"Sin the mother, and shame the daughter of lewdness."

"Some are unwisely liberal, and more delight to give presents than to pay debts"

"Take heed how you place your good will upon any other ground than proof of virtue. - Neither length of acquaintance, mutual secrecies, nor height of benefits can bind a vicious heart; no man being good to others who is not good in himself."

"Thank God for tea! What would the world do without tea! How did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea"

"That only disadvantage of honest hearts, credulity."

"Sweet food of sweetly uttered knowledge."

"The best legacy I can leave my children is free speech, and the example of using it."

"The Greeks named the poet [Greek], which name, as the most excellent, hath gone through other languages. It cometh of this word [Greek], to make; wherein, I know not whether by luck or wisdom, we Englishmen have met with the Greeks in calling him a maker."

"The highest point outward things can bring one unto is the contentment of the mind, with which no estate is miserable."

"The just, though they hate evil, yet give men a patient hearing; hoping that they will show proofs that they are not evil."

"The general goodness which is nourished in noble hearts, makes everyone think that strength of virtue to be in another whereof they find assured foundation in themselves."

"The many-headed multitude, whom inconstancy only by accident doth guide to well-doing! - Who can set confidence there, where company takes away shame, and each may lay the fault upon his fellow."

"The lightsome countenance of a friend giveth such an inward decking to the house where it lodgeth, as proudest palaces have cause to envy the gilding."

"The mind itself must, like other things, sometimes be unbent; or else it will be either weakened or broken."

"The only impregnable citadel of virtue is religion; for there is no bulwark of mere morality which some temptation may not overtop, or undermine and destroy."

"The most servile flattery is lodged the most easily in the grossest capacity; for their ordinary conceit draweth a yielding to their greaters, and then have they not wit to discern the right degree of duty."

"The truly great and good, in affliction, bear a countenance more princely than they are wont; for it is the temper of the highest hearts, like the palm tree, to strive most upwards when it is most burdened."

"The wand is will; thou, fancy, saddle art, Girt fast by memory; and while I spur My horse, he spurs with sharp desire my heart."

"The observances of the church concerning feasts and fasts are tolerably well kept, since the rich keep the feasts and the poor the fasts"

"The violence of sorrow is not at the first to be striven withal; being, like a mighty beast, sooner tamed with following than overthrown by withstanding."

"The trouble with cats is that they've got no tact."

"The wont of highest hearts, like the palm tree striving most upward when he is most burdened."

"Then farewell, world; thy uttermost I see; Eternal Love, maintain thy life in me."

"The worst kind of oligarchy is, when men are governed indeed by a few, and yet are not taught to know what those few be whom they should obey."

"There have been many most excellent poets that have never versified, and now swarm many versifiers that need never answer to the name of poets."

"Then will be the time to die nobly, when you cannot live nobly."