“If all the world be worth thy winning. / Think, oh think it worth enjoying: / Lovely Thaïs sits beside thee, / Take the good the gods provide thee.”

Truth is the object of our understanding, as good is of our will; and the understanding can no more be delighted with a lie than the will can choose an apparent evil.

War seldom enters but where wealth allures.

Desire of greatness is a godlike sin.

He is a perpetual fountain of good sense.

For Art may err, but Nature cannot miss.

Secret guilt is by silence revealed.

Reason is a crutch for age, but youth is strong enough to walk alone.

I’m a little wounded, but I am not slain; I will lay me down to bleed a while. Then I’ll rise and fight again.

They that possess the prince possess the laws.

None, none descends into himself, to find The secret imperfections of his mind: But every one is eagle-ey’d to see Another’s faults, and his deformity.

Our souls sit close and silently within, And their own web from their own entrails spin; And when eyes meet far off, our sense is such, That, spider-like, we feel the tenderest touch.

Merit challenges envy.

Sculptors are obliged to follow the manners of the painters, and to make many ample folds, which are unsufferable hardness, and more like a rock than a natural garment.

For secrets are edged tools, And must be kept from children and from fools.

Here lies my wife: here let her lie! Now she’s at rest, and so am I.

Among our crimes oblivion may be set.