“Good is no good, but if it be spend, God giveth good for none other end.”

My Love is like to ice, and I to fire: How comes it then that this her cold so great Is not dissolved through my so hot desire, But harder grows the more I her entreat?

In vain he seeketh others to suppress, Who hath not learn’d himself first to subdue.

Ah! when will this long weary day have end, And lende me leave to come unto my love? – Epithalamion

The man whom nature’s self had made to mock herself, and truth to imitate.

And he that strives to touch the stars Oft stumbles at a straw.

For that which all men then did virtue call, Is now called vice; and that which vice was hight, Is now hight virtue, and so used of all: Right now is wrong, and wrong that was is right.

For evil deeds may better than bad words be borne.

Gather the rose of love whilst yet is time.

All sorts of flowers the which on earth do spring In goodly colours gloriously arrayed; Go to my love, where she is careless laid.

Full little knowest thou that hast not tried, What hell it is in suing long to bide: To loose good dayes, that might be better spent; To waste long nights in pensive discontent; To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow; To feed on hope, to pine with feare and sorrow.

How many perils doe enfold The righteous man to make him daily fall.

For next to Death is Sleepe to be compared; Therefore his house is unto his annext: Here Sleepe, ther Richesse, and hel-gate them both betwext.

Ill can he rule the great that cannot reach the small.

The gentle mind by gentle deeds is known, For a man by nothing is so well betrayed As by his manners.

Waking love suffereth no sleepe: Say, that raging love dothe appall the weake stomacke: Say, that lamenting love marreth the musicall.

All love is sweet Given or returned And its familiar voice wearies not ever.

You may win your heart’s desire, but in the end you’re cheated of it by death.

Life is hard for everyone. That’s why there’s such a nice reward at the end of it.

An endless, meaningless string of apologies signals a failure to change one’s own behavior. What matters is not whether the person was authentic or really meant it in those passionate expressions of remorse. All that counts is whether that person follows through so there is no repeat performance.

Meditation is like a single log of wood. Insight and investigation are one end of the log; calm and concentration are the other end. If you lift up the whole log, both sides come up at once. Which is concentration and which is insight? Just this mind.

Sometimes I think I was making music through the wrong end of a magnifying glass.

They say that only very good friends quarrel. But at the end of the day a quarrel is a fight between two people’s egos.

Take caution when declaring war because you may believe it will be easy, but war will always end in despair.

And at the other end of the spectrum, a base in European classical music as well.