“Plots, true or false, are necessary things, To raise up commonwealths and ruin kings.”

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.

Youth should watch joys and shoot them as they fly.

Love reckons hours for months, and days for years; and every little absence is an age.

Those who write ill, and they who ne’er durst write, Turn critics out of mere revenge and spite.

I never saw any good that came of telling truth.

You can’t fake anything. If you’re honest and true and you love something, and you put that energy into it, people can usually feel it on the other side.

One of the worst things you can give to your people is someone you’re not.

They’re all fake belts. To be honest, I think real belt is Tony Ferguson’s.

A wicked wife, a false friend, a saucy servant and living in a house with a serpent in it are nothing but death.

You can get by on charm for about 15 minutes. After that, you better know something.

Treachery, though at first very cautious, in the end betrays itself.

If you have written really well, people will swear that it happened to you.

Oh Thou, who Man of baser Earth didst make, And ev’n with Paradise devise the snake; For all the Sin wherewith the Face of Man Is blackened – Man’s forgiveness give and take!