Quotes by Courtiers

We may our ends by our beginnings know.
Sir John Denham
They are never alone that are accompanied with noble thoughts.
Sir Philip Sidney
I can't write a book commensurate with Shakespeare but I can write a book by me.
Sir Walter Raleigh
I can't write a book commensurate with Shakespeare but I can write a book by me.
Sir Walter Raleigh
Before I got married I had six theories about bringing up children now I have six children and no theories.
John Wilmot
Hope says to us constantly "Go on go on " and leads us thus to the grave.
Mme. de Maintenon
Just as dumb creatures are snared by food human beings would not be caught unless they had a nibble of hope.
Petronius
Doing good is the only certainly happy action of a man's life.
Sir Philip Sidney
Come Sleep! Oh Sleep the certain knot of peace The baiting-place of wit the balm of woe The poor man's wealth the prisoner's release The indifferent judge between the high and low.
Sir Philip Sidney
All men would be cowards if they durst.
Earl of Rochester
All men would be cowards if they durst.
John Wilmot
...the Moon, the enemy of poets...("Merchant's Two Sons")
Giambattista Basile
I hate the thing is called enjoyment: Besides it is a dull employment,It cuts off all that's life and fireFrom that which may be termed desire;Just like the bee whose sting is goneConverts the owner to a drone.
John Wilmot
So the starry sky turns round like a millstone, always bringing some trouble, and men being born or dying.
Petronius Arbiter
What power has law where only money rules?
Petronius Arbiter
How blest was the created stateOf man and woman, ere they fell,Compared to our unhappy fate:We need not fear another hell.
John Wilmot
God’s justice in the one, and his goodness in the other, is exercised for evermore, as the everlasting subjects of his reward and punishment.
Sir Walter Raleigh
A kind of losing loadum is their game,Where the worst writer has the greatest fame.
John Wilmot
Then the soul, freed from vice, purged by studies of true philosophy, versed in spiritual life, and practised in matters of the intellect, devoted to the contemplation of her own substance, as if awakened from deepest sleep, opens those eyes which all possess but few use, and sees in herself a ray of that light which is the true image of the angelic beauty communicated to her, and of which she then communicates a faint shadow to the body.
Baldassarre Castiglione
BOLLOXIMIAN:My pleasures for new cunts I will uphold,And have reserves of kindness for the old.I grant in absence dildo may be usedWith milk of goats, when once our seed’s infused.My prick no more to bald cunt shall resort—Merkins rub off, and often spoil the sport.POCKENELLO:Let merkin, sir, be banished from the court.PENE:'Tis like a dead hedge when the land is poor.
John Wilmot
Cupid and Bacchus my saints are,May drink and love still reign,With wine I wash away my cares,And then to cunt again.
John Wilmot
Then, if to make your ruin more,You'll peevishly be coy,Die with the scandal of a whoreAnd never know the joy.
John Wilmot
Now piercèd is her virgin zone;She feels the foe within it.She hears a broken amorous groan,The panting lover's fainting moan,Just in the happy minute.
John Wilmot
Before I got married I had six theories about raising children; now, I have six children and no theories.
John Wilmot
Do not conceale thy heavenly voice,Which makes the hearts of Gods rejoyce,Least Musicke hearing no such thing,The Nightingale forget to sing.
Sir Francis Kynaston
Outward beauty is a true sign of inner goodness. This loveliness, indeed, is impressed upon the body in varying degrees as a token by which the soul can be recognized for what it is, just as with trees the beauty of the blossom testifies to the goodness of the fruit.
Baldassarre Castiglione
God bless our good and gracious King,Whose promise none relies on;Who never said a foolish thing,Nor ever did a wise one.
John Wilmot
It's the old headpiece that makes a man, the rest is all rubbish.
Petronius Arbiter
After all, I was once like you are, but being the right sort I got where I am.
Petronius Arbiter
Can't you see that I'm only advising you to beg yourself not to be so dumb?
Petronius Arbiter
For Hell and the foul fiend that rulesGod's everlasting fiery jails(Devised by rogues, dreaded by fools),With his grim, grisly dog that keeps the door,Are senseless stories, idle tales,Dreams, whimseys, and no more.
John Wilmot
My mind to me a kingdom is,Such present joys therein I find,That it excels all other blissThat world affords or grows by kind.Though much I want which most would have,Yet still my mind forbids to crave.
Edward Dyer