Quotes by English Authors - Page 10

A fox should not be on the jury at a goose's trial.
Thomas Fuller
The only vice that cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy. The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocrisy.
William Hazlitt
The creative process is a cocktail of instinct, skill, culture and a highly creative feverishness. It is not like a drug; it is a particular state when everything happens very quickly, a mixture of consciousness and unconsciousness, of fear and pleasure, it's a little like making love, the physical act of love.
Francis Bacon
Modern literature is a north-east wind--a blight of the human soul. I take credit to myself for having helped to make it so. The way to produce fine fruit is to blight the flower. You call this a paradox. Marry, so be it.
Thomas Love Peacock
Murder most foul as in the best it is But this most foul strange and unnatural.
William Shakespeare
What's done, is done
William Shakespeare
Let us embrace, and from this very moment vow an eternal misery together.
Thomas Otway
Don't let your will roar when your power only whispers.
Thomas Fuller
For when the wine is in the wit is out.
Thomas Becon
The goal of all learning is to repair the ruin of our first parents.
John Milton
If thy daughter marry well thou hast found a son if not thou hast lost a daughter.
Francis Quarles
We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow
William Shakespeare
The same reason makes a man a religious enthusiast that makes a man an enthusiast in any other way ... an uncomfortable mind in an uncomfortable body.
William Hazlitt
And in this he showed me a little thing, the quantity of a hazel nut, lying in the palm of my hand, as it seemed. And it was as round as any ball. I looked upon it with the eye of my understanding, and thought, ‘What may this be?’ And it was answered generally thus, ‘It is all that is made.’ I marveled how it might last, for I thought it might suddenly have fallen to nothing for littleness. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasts and ever shall, for God loves it. And so have all things their beginning by the love of God.In this little thing I saw three properties. The first is that God made it. The second that God loves it. And the third, that God keeps it.
Julian of Norwich
Of all knowledge, the wise and good seek mostly to know themselves.
William Shakespeare
Let Fortune empty her whole quiver on me, I have a soul that, like an ample shield, Can take in all, and verge enough for more; Fate was not mine, nor am I Fate's: Souls know no conquerors.
John Dryden
HIPPOLYTABut all the story of the night told over,And all their minds transfigured so together,More witnesseth than fancy’s imagesAnd grows to something of great constancy,But, howsoever, strange and admirable.
William Shakespeare
I prithee send me back my heart,Since I cannot have thine;For if from yours you will not part,Why, then, shouldst thou have mine?Yet now I think on't, let it lie,To find it were in vain;For thou hast a thief in either eyeWould steal it back again.Why should two hearts in one breast lie,And yet not lodge together?O Love! where is thy sympathy,If thus our breasts thou sever?But love is such a mystery,I cannot find it out;For when I think I'm best resolved,I then am in most doubt.Then farewell care, and farewell woe;I will no longer pine;For I'll believe I have her heart,As much as she hath mine.
John Suckling
thus with a kiss I die
William Shakespeare
Grace is the absence of everything that indicates pain or difficulty hesitation or incongruity.
William Hazlitt
And now Nineteen persons having been hang'd, and one prest to death, and Eight more condemned, in all Twenty and Eight, of which above a third part were Members of some of the Churches of N. England, and more than half of them of a good Conversation in general, and not one clear'd; about Fifty having confest themselves to be Witches, of which not one Executed; above an Hundred and Fifty in Prison, and Two Hundred more accused; the Special Commision of Oyer and Terminer comes to a period.—Robert Calef 1692
Robert Calef
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 might have been.
William Hazlitt
None but those who are happy in themselves can make others so.
William Hazlitt
Sermons in stones and good in every thing.
William Shakespeare
Never can true reconcilement grow where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep...
John Milton
His forward voice now is to speak well of his friend. His backward voice is to utter foul speeches and to detract.
William Shakespeare
Good-nature, or what is often considered as such, is the most selfish of all the virtues: it is nine times out of ten mere indolence of disposition.
William Hazlitt
Where no hope is left is left no fear.
John Milton
Confidence imparts a wonderful inspiration to its possessor.
John Milton
Until sin be bitter, Christ will not be sweet.
Thomas Watson
A cat may look at a king.
John Heywood
Now is the winter of our discontent Made glorious summer by this sun of York.
William Shakespeare
What's mine is yours and what is yours is mine.
William Shakespeare
No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace as I have seen in one autumnal
John Donne
Stars hide your fires; let not light see my black and deep desires: The eyes wink at the hand; yet let that be which the eye fears, when it is done, to see
William Shakespeare
HERMIAGod speed fair Helena! whither away?HELENACall you me fair? that fair again unsay.Demetrius loves your fair: O happy fair!Your eyes are lode-stars; and your tongue's sweet airMore tuneable than lark to shepherd's ear,When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.Sickness is catching: O, were favour so,Yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go;My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye,My tongue should catch your tongue's sweet melody.Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated,The rest I'd give to be to you translated.O, teach me how you look, and with what artYou sway the motion of Demetrius' heart.HERMIAI frown upon him, yet he loves me still.HELENAO that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill!HERMIAI give him curses, yet he gives me love.HELENAO that my prayers could such affection move!HERMIAThe more I hate, the more he follows me.HELENAThe more I love, the more he hateth me.HERMIAHis folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.HELENANone, but your beauty: would that fault were mine!
William Shakespeare
Calumny requires no proof. The throwing out of malicious imputations against any character leaves a stain which no after-refutation can wipe out. To create an unfavourable impression it is not necessary that certain things should be true but that they have been said.
William Hazlitt
Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted ...but to weigh and consider.
Francis Bacon
Each moment of the happy lover's hour is worth an age of dull and common life.
Aphra Behn
MARCUS ANDRONICUS: Now is a time to storm; why art thou still?TITUS ANDRONICUS: Ha, ha, ha!MARCUS ANDRONICUS: Why dost thou laugh? it fits not with this hour.TITUS ANDRONICUS: Why, I have not another tear to shed:
William Shakespeare
There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,Rough-hew them how we will
William Shakespeare
Diseases desperate grown,By desperate appliance are relieved,Or not at all.
William Shakespeare
Where the bright seraphim in burning rowTheir loud uplifted angel trumpets blow.
John Milton
Now came still evening on, and twilight grayHad in her sober livery all things clad;Silence accompany'd; for beast and bird,They to their grassy couch, these to their nests,Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale;She all night long her amorous descant sung;Silence was pleas'd. Now glow'd the firmamentWith living sapphires; Hesperus, that ledThe starry host, rode brightest, till the moon,Rising in clouded majesty, at lengthApparent queen unveil'd her peerless light,And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.
John Milton
We are such stuff As dreams are made on and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.
William Shakespeare
The mind is its own place and in itself Can make a heaven of hell a hell of heaven.
John Milton
Tis best to weigh the enemy more mighty than he seems.
William Shakespeare
Justice is the insurance which we have on our lives and property. Obedience is the premium which we pay for it.
William Penn
It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.
William Ernest Henley