Quotes by English Authors - Page 45

He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument.
William Shakespeare
AH the fat's in the fire.
John Marston
Where God gives opportunity for preaching it is more than likely that he has some people to convert. Usually the Word of God takes root among some, though often in but a few.
Thomas Goodwin
The long habit of living indisposeth us for dying.
Thomas Browne
The greatest sweetener of human life is Friendship.
Joseph Addison
Nothing is terrible except fear itself.
Francis Bacon
I have touch'd the highest point of all my greatness And from that full meridian of my glory I haste now to my setting.
William Shakespeare
Sir, he hath not fed of the dainties that are bred in a book; He hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink; his intellect is not replenished; he is only an animal, only sensible in the duller parts... (Act IV, Scene II)
William Shakespeare
The ways of heaven are dark and intricate;Puzzled in mazes, and perplext with errors.
Joseph Addison
The love of liberty is the love of others the love of power is the love of ourselves.
William Hazlitt
I was promised on a time To have reason for my rhyme From that time unto this season I received nor rhyme nor reason.
Edmund Spenser
The education of youth belongs to the priests, yet they do not take so much care of instructing them in letters, as in forming their minds and manners aright; they use all possible methods to infuse, very early, into the tender and flexible minds of children, such opinions as are both good in themselves and will be useful to their country, for when deep impressions of these things are made at that age, they follow men through the whole course of their lives, and conduce much to preserve the peace of the government, which suffers by nothing more than by vices that rise out of ill opinions.
Thomas More
First he wrought and afterwards he taught.
Geoffrey Chaucer
I must go down to the seas again to the lonely sea and the sky And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by.
John Masefield
The prince of darkness is a gentleman!
William Shakespeare
Love ceases to be a pleasure when it ceases to be a secret.
Aphra Behn
Could the straggling thoughts of individuals be collected, they would frequently form materials for wise and able men to improve into useful matter.
Thomas Paine
More than kisses letters mingle souls.
John Donne
The royal throne of kings this scepter'd isle This earth of majesty this seat of Mars This other Eden demi-paradise This fortress built by nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war This happy breed of men this little world This precious stone set in the silver sea.
William Shakespeare
For Art may err but Nature cannot miss.
John Dryden
...that in former ages they had been as wise as they are in this present, nay, wiser; for, said they, many in this age do think their forefathers have been fools, by which they prove themselves to be such.
Margaret Cavendish
The people are the city.
William Shakespeare
We all of us complain of the shortness of time, saith Seneca, and yet have much more than we know what to do with. Our lives, says he, are spent either in doing nothing at all, or in doing nothing to the purpose, or in doing nothing that we ought to do: we are always complaining our days are few, and acting as though there would no end of them."- On the Right Use of Time
Joseph Addison
Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.
William Shakespeare
God can pick sense out of a confused prayer.
Richard Sibbes
Better give a shilling than lend and lose half a crown.
Thomas Fuller
Weaving spiders, come not here, Hence, you long legged spinners, hence! Beetles black, approach not here, worm nor snail, do no offense.
William Shakespeare
Adversity's sweet milk philosophy.
William Shakespeare
That he is mad 'tis true 'tis true 'tis pity And pity 'tis 'tis true.
William Shakespeare
The story of Eve and the serpent, and of Noah and his ark, drops to a level with the Arabian Tales, without the merit of being entertaining, and the account of men living to eight and nine hundred years becomes as fabulous as the immortality of the giants of the Mythology.
Thomas Paine
If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide,By self-example mayst thou be denied.
William Shakespeare
Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be.
William Hazlitt
Few love to hear the sins they love to act.
William Shakespeare
A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue but moderation in principle is always a vice.
Thomas Paine
Whatever has a tendency to promote the civil intercourse of nations by an exchange of benefits is a subject as worthy of philosophy as of politics.
Thomas Paine
Silence is sometimes an argument of Consent
Thomas Hobbes
Such as we are made of such we be.
William Shakespeare
If you wish success in life make perseverance your bosom friend.
Joseph Addison
Henceforth an individual solace dear; Part of my Soul I seek thee, and thee claim My other half: with that thy gentle hand Seisd mine, I yielded, and from that time see How beauty is excelld by manly grace.
John Milton
Lord Polonius: What do you read, my lord? Hamlet: Words, words, words. Lord Polonius: What is the matter, my lord? Hamlet: Between who? Lord Polonius: I mean, the matter that you read, my lord.
William Shakespeare
Envy among other ingredients has a mixture of the love of justice in it. We are more angry at undeserved than at deserved good fortune.
William Hazlitt
Now, if the writers of these four books [Gospels] had gone into a court of justice to prove an alibi, (for it is of the nature of an alibi that is here attempted to be proved, namely, the absence of a dead body by supernatural means,) and had they given their evidence in the same contradictory manner as it is here given, they would have been in danger of having their ears cropt for perjury, and would have justly deserved it. Yet this is the evidence, and these are the books, that have been imposed upon the world as being given by divine inspiration, and as the unchangeable word of God.
Thomas Paine
Young men soon give and soon forget affronts Old age is slow in both.
Joseph Addison
How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!Here will we sit and let the sounds of musicCreep in our ears: soft stillness and the nightBecome the touches of sweet harmony.Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heavenIs thick inlaid with patines of bright gold:There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'stBut in his motion like an angel sings,Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins;Such harmony is in immortal souls;But whilst this muddy vesture of decayDoth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it."- Lorenzo, Acte V, Scene 1
William Shakespeare
But with respect to religion itself, without regard to names, and as directing itself from the universal family of mankind to the divine object of adoration, it is man bringing to his maker the fruits of his heart; and though these fruits may differ from each other like the fruits of the earth, the grateful tribute of everyone is accepted.
Thomas Paine
The great end of life is not knowledge but action.
Thomas Fuller
The change of the word does not alter the matter
Thomas More
Light God's eldest daughter is a principal beauty in a building.
Thomas Fuller
What is your substance, whereof are you made,That millions of strange shadows on you tend?Since everyone hath every one, one shade,And you, but one, can every shadow lend.Describe Adonis, and the counterfeitIs poorly imitated after you.On Helen’s cheek all art of beauty set,And you in Grecian tires are painted new.Speak of the spring and foison of the year;The one doth shadow of your beauty show,The other as your bounty doth appear,And you in every blessèd shape we know.In all external grace you have some part,But you like none, none you, for constant heart.
William Shakespeare
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him; The evil that men do lives after them, The good is oft interred with their bones
William Shakespeare
For, from the time that the Bishop of Rome had gotten to be acknowledged for bishop universal, by pretence of succession to St. Peter, their whole hierarchy, or kingdom of darkness, may be compared not unfitly to the kingdom of fairies; that is, to the old wives' fables in England concerning ghosts and spirits, and the feats they play in the night. And if a man consider the original of this great ecclesiastical dominion, he will easily perceive that the papacy is no other than the ghost of the deceased Roman Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof: for so did the papacy start up on a sudden out of the ruins of that heathen power.
Thomas Hobbes
We would be cowards if we had courage enough.
Thomas Fuller
All is best, though we oft doubt, what the unsearchable dispose, of highest wisdom brings about.
John Milton
To write a genuine familiar or truly English style, is to write as any one would speak in common conversation who had a thorough command and choice of words, or who could discourse with ease, force, and perspicuity, setting aside all pedantic and oratorical flourishes.
William Hazlitt
Unless philosophy can make a Juliet,Displant a town, reverse a prince’s doom,It helps not, it prevails not.
William Shakespeare
No man does anything from a single motive.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Fear comes from uncertainty. When we are absolutely certain whether of our worth or worthlessness we are almost impervious to fear.
William Congreve
Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.
William Shakespeare
Diseases desperate grown,By desperate appliance are relieved,Or not at all.
William Shakespeare
There is no deception on the part of the woman, where a man bewilders himself: if he deludes his own wits, I can certainly acquit the women. Whatever man allows his mind to dwell upon the imprint his imagination has foolishly taken of women, is fanning the flames within himself -- and, since the woman knows nothing about it, she is not to blame. For if a man incites himself to drown, and will not restrain himself, it is not the water's fault.
John Gower