Quotes by English Authors

Oh, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!It seems she hangs upon the cheek of nightLike a rich jewel in an Ethiope’s ear,Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear.So shows a snowy dove trooping with crowsAs yonder lady o'er her fellows shows.The measure done, I’ll watch her place of stand,And, touching hers, make blessèd my rude hand.Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight!For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.
William Shakespeare
She's beautiful and therefore to be woo'd: She is a woman therefore to be won.
William Shakespeare
Learning is the knowledge of that which none but the learned know.
William Hazlitt
He that doth the ravens feed. Yea providently caters for the sparrow. Be comfort to my age!
William Shakespeare
The jealous are troublesome to others but torment to themselves.
William Penn
Those who are fond of setting things to rights have no great objection to setting them wrong.
William Hazlitt
A man surprised is half beaten.
Thomas Fuller
They lard their lean books with the fat of others' works.
Henry Burton
Those only deserve a monument who do not need one.
William Hazlitt
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
Are you good men and true?
William Shakespeare
Unbidden guests Are often welcomest when they are gone.
William Shakespeare
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea The ploughman homeward plods his weary way And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
Thomas Gray
Better is half a loaf than no bread.
John Heywood
Who goeth a borrowing Goeth a sorrowing.
Thomas Tusser
What can you conceive more silly and extravagant than to suppose a man racking his brains and studying night and day how to fly?
William Law
Old foxes want no tutors.
Thomas Fuller
No longer mourn for me when I am deadthan you shall hear the surly sullen bell give warning to the world that I am fled from this vile world with vilest worms to dwell: nay, if you read this line, remember not the hand that writ it, for I love you so, that I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,if thinking on me then should make you woe. O! if, I say, you look upon this verse when I perhaps compounded am with clay, do not so much as my poor name rehearse; but let your love even with my life decay; lest the wise world should look into your moan, and mock you with me after I am gone.
William Shakespeare
The sweat of industry would dry and die, But for the end it works to.
William Shakespeare
But first whom shall we sendIn search of this new world, whom shall we findSufficient? Who shall tempt, with wand'ring feetThe dark unbottomed infinite abyssAnd through the palpable obscure find outHis uncouth way, or spread his aery flightUpborne with indefatigable wingsOver the vast abrupt, ere he arriveThe happy isle?
John Milton
They changed their minds, Flew off, and into strange vagaries fell.
John Milton
When we our betters see bearing our woes,We scarcely think our miseries our foes.
William Shakespeare
As God loves me, when I consider this, then every modern society seems to me to be nothing but a conspiracy of the rick, who while protesting their interest in the common good pursue their own interests and stop at no trick and deception to secure their ill-gotten possessions, to pay as little as possible for the labor that produces their wealth and so force its makers to accept the nearest thing to nothing. They contrive rules for securing and assuring these tidy profits for the rich in the name of the common good, including of course the poor, and call them laws!
Thomas More
Perhpas if I call out to Rat he might hear," said the Mole to himself, but without much hope.Rat! Ratty! O Rat, please hear me!" he called out as loudly as he could, holding up his lantern as he did so, waving it about/ But the wind rushed and roared around him even more, and snatched his weak words away the moment they were they were uttered, and scattered them wildly and uselessly as if they were flakes of snow,Even worse, the light of the lantern began to gutter, and then, quiet suddenly, an extra strong gust of wind blew it out.Well then," said the daunted but resolute Mole, putting the spent lantern on the ground, "there's nothing else for it! Frozen rivers are dangerous thinngs, no doubt, but I must try to cross, despite the dangers."--The Willows in the Winter
William Horwood
doctors & druggists wash each other's hands
Geoffrey Chaucer
Strike as thou didst at Caesar; for I know / When though didst hate him worst, thou loved’st him better / Than ever thou loved’st Cassius.
William Shakespeare
My love is as a fever, longing stillFor that which longer nurseth the disease;Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,The uncertain sickly appetite to please.My reason, the physician to my love,Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,Hath left me, and I desperate now approve,Desire his death, which physic did except.Past cure I am, now reason is past care,And frantic-mad with evermore unrest;My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are,At random from the truth vainly express'd;For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.
William Shakespeare
Foul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is but foul breath, and foul breath is noisome; therefore I will depart unkissed.
William Shakespeare
Women may fail when there is no strength in man
William Shakespeare
You are full of pretty answers. Have you not been acquainted with goldsmiths' wives and conned them out of rings?
William Shakespeare
Of all matches never was the like.
William Shakespeare
For all that beauty that doth cover theeIs but the seemly raiment of my heart,Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me.How can I then be elder than thou art?
William Shakespeare
I’ll prove the prettier fellow of the two and wear my dagger with the braver grace
William Shakespeare
Then the conceit of this inconstant staySets you rich in youth before my sight,Where wasteful Time debateth with Decay,To change your day of youth to sullied night;And all in war with Time for love of you,As he takes from you I engraft you new.
William Shakespeare
How true a twain Seemeth this concordant one! Love hath reason, Reason none, If what parts, can so remain.
William Shakespeare
-Gardener: ...Go thou, and like an executioner,Cut off the heads of too fast growing sprays,That look too lofty in our commonwealth:All must be even in our government.You thus employ'd, I will go root awayThe noisome weeds, which without profit suckThe soil's fertility from wholesome flowers.+Servant:Why should we in the compass of a paleKeep law and form and due proportion,Showing, as in a model, our firm estate,When our sea-walled garden, the whole land,Is full of weeds, her fairest flowers choked up,Her fruit-trees all upturned, her hedges ruin'd,Her knots disorder'd and her wholesome herbsSwarming with caterpillars?-Gardener:Hold thy peace! He that hath suffer'd this disorder'd springHath now himself met with the fall of leaf.,,
William Shakespeare
Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.
William Shakespeare
This goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?
William Shakespeare
Tis time to die, when 'tis a shame to live.
Thomas Middleton
Immediate necessity makes many things convenient, which if continued would grow into oppressions. Expedience and right are different things.
Thomas Paine
I have spoken of Jonah, and of the story of him and the whale. — A fit story for ridicule, if it was written to be believed; or of laughter, if it was intended to try what credulity could swallow; for, if it could swallow Jonah and the whale it could swallow anything.
Thomas Paine
O God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains!" - Cassio (Act II, Scene iii)
William Shakespeare
I profess myself an enemy to all other joys, which the most precious square of sense possesses, and find I am alone felicitate in your dear highness love.
William Shakespeare
There are braying men in the world as well as braying asses; for what's loud and senseless talking and swearing, any other than braying?
Sir Roger L'Estrange
Conversion turns the bias of the WILL both as to means and end. The intentions of the will are altered. Now the man has new ends and designs. He now intends God above all, and desires and designs nothing in all the world, so much as that Christ may be magnified in him. He counts himself more happy in this than in all that the earth could yield, that he may be serviceable to Christ, and bring Him glory. This is the mark he aims at, that the name of Jesus may be great in the world.
Joseph Alleine
As I love the name of honour more than I fear death.
William Shakespeare
I would forget it fain,But oh, it presses to my memory,Like damnèd guilty deeds to sinners' minds.
William Shakespeare
Beshrew your eyes,They have o'erlook'd me and divided me;One half of me is yours, the other half yours,Mine own, I would say; but if mine, then yours,And so all yours.
William Shakespeare
Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell.
William Shakespeare
Danger, the spur of all great minds.
George Chapman
The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
William Shakespeare
Throw away thy rod, throw away thy wrath; O my God, take the gentle path.
George Herbert
He embraces all things that are lovely: he seals up the sum of all loveliness. Things that shine as single stars with a particular glory, all meet in Christ as a glorious constellation. Col. 1:19, "It pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell." Cast your eyes among all created beings, survey the universe: you will observe strength in one, beauty in a second, faithfulness in a third, wisdom in a fourth; but you shall find none excelling in them all as Christ does. Bread has one quality, water another, raiment another, medicine another; but none has them all in itself as Christ does. He is bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, a garment to the naked, healing to the wounded; and whatever a soul can desire is found in him, 1 Cor. 1:30
John Flavel
It was evidently quite obvious to a powerful intellect like his that the one essential condition for a healthy society was equal distribution of goods - which I suspect is impossible under capitalism. For, when everyone's entitled to get as much for himself as he can, all available property, however much there is of it, is bound to fall into the hands of a small minority, which means that everyone else is poor.
Thomas More
And thus it passed on from Candlemass until after Easter, that the month of May was come, when every lusty heart beginneth to blossom, and to bring forth fruit; for like as herbs and trees bring forth fruit and flourish in May, in like wise every lusty heart that is in any manner a lover, springeth and flourisheth in lusty deeds. For it giveth unto all lovers courage, that lusty month of May, in something to constrain him to some manner of thing more in that month than in any other month, for divers causes. For then all herbs and trees renew a man and woman, and likewise lovers call again to their mind old gentleness and old service, and many kind deeds that were forgotten by negligence. For like as winter rasure doth alway arase and deface green summer, so fareth it by unstable love in man and woman. For in many persons there is no stability; for we may see all day, for a little blast of winter's rasure, anon we shall deface and lay apart true love for little or nought, that cost much thing; this is no wisdom nor stability, but it is feebleness of nature and great disworship, whosomever useth this. Therefore, like as May month flowereth and flourisheth in many gardens, so in like wise let every man of worship flourish his heart in this world, first unto God, and next unto the joy of them that he promised his faith unto; for there was never worshipful man or worshipful woman, but they loved one better than another; and worship in arms may never be foiled, but first reserve the honour to God, and secondly the quarrel must come of thy lady: and such love I call virtuous love.But nowadays men can not love seven night but they must have all their desires: that love may not endure by reason; for where they be soon accorded and hasty heat, soon it cooleth. Right so fareth love nowadays, soon hot soon cold: this is no stability. But the old love was not so; men and women could love together seven years, and no licours lusts were between them, and then was love, truth, and faithfulness: and lo, in like wise was used love in King Arthur's days. Wherefore I liken love nowadays unto summer and winter; for like as the one is hot and the other cold, so fareth love nowadays; therefore all ye that be lovers call unto your remembrance the month of May, like as did Queen Guenever, for whom I make here a little mention, that while she lived she was a true lover, and therefore she had a good end.
Thomas Malory
The British boy suffers the greatest restraint during the period when the call of nature, the instincts of play and adventure, are most urgent. Naturally, he looks eagerly forward to the time of escape, which he fondly imagines will be when his boyhood is over and he is free of masters.
William Henry Hudson
The mind is a universe and can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.
John Milton
There now remain only a few books, which they call books of the lesser prophets; and as I have already shown that the greater are impostors, it would be cowardice to disturb the repose of the little ones. Let them sleep, then, in the arms of their nurses, the priests, and both be forgotten together.
Thomas Paine
Let's be about leaving this world better than we find it each and every day. Our life is a testimony and through us divine loving is becoming more manifest. Greater good is calling upon us here in this world to be done this day. One of my rallying calls is let's go out and do some good. This is who we are. This is what we are about.
John Morton
A broad and ample road, whose dust is gold,And pavement stars—as starts to thee appearSoon in the galaxy, that milky wayWhich mightly as a circling zone thou seestPowder'd wiht stars.
John Milton