Great Throughts Treasury

"There is little hope of equity where rebellion reigns."

"There is nothing truly evil, but what is within us; the rest is cither natural or accidental."

"There is nothing so great that I fear to do it for my friend; nothing so small that I will disdain to do it for him."

"There is no benefit so large that malignity will not lessen it; none so narrow that a good interpretation will not enlarge it."

"There needs not strength to be added to inviolate chastity; the excellency of the mind makes the body impregnable."

"Thou blind man's mark, thou fool's self-chosen snare, Fond Fancy's scum and dregs of scattered thought, Band of all evils, cradle of causeless care, Thou web of will whose end is never wrought; Desire! desire, I have too dearly bought With price of mangled mind thy worthless ware;"

"This is the right conceit of young men, who think then they speak wiseliest when they cannot understand themselves."

"We become willing servants to the good by the bonds their virtues lay upon us."

"Well, begone, begone, I say, Lest that Argus' eyes perceive you.' Oh, unjust Fortunes sway, Which can make me thus to leave you, And from louts to run away."

"Thy necessity is yet greater than mine."

"Thus, great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes, Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite: Fool, said my Muse to me, look in thy heart and write!"

"Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess? Do they call virtue there ungratefulness?"

"To be rhymed to death as is said to be done in Ireland."

"To the disgrace of men it is seen, that there are women both more wise to judge what evil is expected, and more constant to bear it when it is happened."

"True, that true beauty virtue is indeed, Whereof this beauty can be but a shade, Which elements with mortal mixture breed. True, that on earth we are but pilgrims made, And should in soul up to our country move. True, and yet true that I must Stella love."

"To those persons who have vomited out of their souls all remnants of goodness, there rests a certain pride in evil; and having else no shadow of glory left them, they glory to be constant in iniquity."

"Unlawful desires are punished after the effect of enjoying; but impossible desires are punished in the desire itself."

"Whatever comes out of despair cannot bear the title of valor, which should be lifted up to such a height, that holding all things under itself, it should be able to maintain its greatness, even in the midst of miseries."

"Whether your time calls you to live or die do both like a prince."

"What doth better become wisdom than to discern what is worthy the living?"

"Who will adhere to him that abandons himself?"

"Who doth desire that chaste his wife should be, first be he true, for truth doth truth deserve."

"Who shoots at the mid-day sun, though he be sure he shall never hit the mark, yet as sure he is he shall shoot higher than who aims but at a bush."

"What is birth to a man if it be a stain to his dead ancestors to have left such an offspring?"

"When it shall please God to bring thee to man's estate, use great providence and circumspection in choosing thy wife. For from thence will spring all thy future good or evil; and it is an action of life, like unto a stratagem of war, wherein a man can err but once!"

"What is mine, even to my life, is hers I love; but the secret of my friend is not mine."

"Wickedness may well be compared to a bottomless pit, into which it is easier to keep one's self from falling, than, being fallen, to give one's self any stay from falling infinitely."

"With a tale, for sooth, he comet unto you; with a tale which holdeth children from play, and old men from the chimney corner."

"With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the skies! How silently, and with how wan a face!"

"Yea, worse than death: death parts both woe and joy: From joy I part, still living in annoy."

"You will never live to my age without you keep yourself in breath with exercise."

"Without mounting by degrees, a man cannot attain to high things; and the breaking of the ladder still casteth a man back, and maketh the thing wearisome, which was easy."

"Youth ever thinks that good whose goodness or evil he sees not."

"You that do search for every purling spring Which from the ribs of old Parnassus flows, And every flower, not sweet perhaps, which grows Near thereabouts into your poesy wring; You that do dictionary's method bring Into your rhymes, running in rattling rows;"

"Youths will never live to age unless they keep themselves in breath by exercise, and in heart by joyfulness. Too much thinking doth consume the spirits; and oft it falls out, that while one thinks too much of doing, he fails to do the effect of his thinking."