Quote collection
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"For as a surfeit of the sweetest things The deepest loathing to the stomach brings, Or as tie heresies that men do leave Are hated most of those they did deceive, So thou, my surfeit and my heresy, Of all be hated, but the most of me!"
"They do not abuse the king that flatter him. For flattery is the bellows blows up sin; The thing the which is flattered, but a spark To which that blast gives heat and stronger glowing."
"The wind-shak'd surge, with high and monstrous main, Seems to cast water on the burning Bear, And quench the guards of the ever-fixed pole."
"Is not the truth the truth?"
"New customs, Though they be never so ridiculous (Nay, let em be unmanly), yet are followed."
"... by indirections find directions out."
"I had rather be a Kitten, and cry mew, Than one of these same Meeter Ballad-mongers: I had rather heare a Brazen Candlestick turn'd, Or a dry Wheele grate on the Axle-tree, And that would set my teeth nothing an edge, Nothing so much, as mincing Poetrie."
"Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs; Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.... [W]hat can we bequeath, Save our deposed bodies to the ground?... [N]othing can we call our own, but death... [L]et us sit upon the ground, And tell sad stories of the death of kings: - How some have been depos'd, some slain in war; Some haunted by the ghosts they have depos'd."
"'Tis thought the king is dead; we will not stay. The bay trees in our country are all wither'd."
"The little dogs and all, Tray, Blanch, and Sweetheart-see, they bark at me."
"He's all my exercise, my mirth, my matter."
"All impediments in fancy's course Are motives of more fancy."
"What should a man do but be merry? For look you how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died within's two hours."
"What many men desire--that 'many' may be meant By the fool multitude that choose by show, Not learning more than the fond eye doth teach, Which pries not to th' interior, but like the martlet Builds in the weather on the outward wall, Even in the force and road of casualty."
"Zounds! I was never so bethumped with words since I first called my brother's father dad."
"I can no longer live by thinking."
"The Foole doth thinke he is wise, but the wiseman knowes himselfe to be a Foole."
"To pore upon a book, to seek the light of truth."
"I always thought it was both impious and unnatural that such immanity and bloody strife should reign among professors of one faith."
"His worst fault is, he's given to prayer; he is something peevish that way."