“Court a mistress, she denies you; let her alone, she will court you.”

There is no greater hell than to be a prisoner of fear.

He was not of an age, but for all time!

I have been at my book; and am now past the craggy paths of study, and come to the flowery plains of honour and reputation

Vice Is like a fury to the vicious mind, And turns delight itself to punishment.

I have discovered that a famed familiarity in great ones is a note of certain usurpation on the less; for great and popular men feign themselves to be servants to others to make those slaves to them.

I feel my griefs too, and there scarce is ground Upon my flesh t’inflict another wound. Yet dare I not complain, or wish for death With holy Paul; lest it be thought the breath Of discontent; or that these prayers be For weariness of life, not love of thee.

Tis no sin love’s fruits to steal; But the sweet thefts to reveal; To be taken, to be seen, These have crimes accounted been.

Whom hatred frights, let him not dream of sovereignty.

It is the highest of earthly honors to be descended from the great and good. They alone cry out against a noble ancestry who have none of their own.

Ambition, like a torrent, ne’er looks back; And is a swelling, and the last affection A high mind can put off; being both a rebel Unto the soul and reason, and enforceth All laws, all conscience, treads upon religion, and offereth violence to nature’s self.

Many punishments sometimes, and in some cases, as much discredit a prince as many funerals a physician.

It holds for good polity ever, to have that outwardly in vilest estimation, which inwardly is most dear to us.

I now think, Love is rather deaf, than blind, For else it could not be, That she, Whom I adore so much, should so slight me, And cast my love behind.

Indeed there’s a woundy luck in names.

Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace Robes loosely flowing, hair as free Such sweet neglect more taketh me Than all the adulteries of art: They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.

For a man to write well, there are required three necessaries: to read the best authors, observe the best speakers, and much exercise of his own style.

Chess is a beautiful mistress.

Follow a shadow, it still flies you, Seem to fly, it will pursue: So court a mistress, she denies you; Let her alone, she will court you. Say are not women truly, then, Styled but the shadows of us men?

Well, once you’ve been in the Canyon and once you’ve sort of fallen in love with it, it never ends…it’s always been a fascinating place to me, in fact I’ve often said that if I ever had a mistress it would be the Grand Canyon.

Dread not infanticide; the crime is imaginary: we are always mistress of what we carry in our womb, and we do no more harm in destroying this kind of matter than in evacuating another, by medicines, when we feel the need.

A mistress never is nor can be a friend. While you agree, you are lovers; and when it is over, anything but friends.

The man that thinks he loves his mistress for her own sake is mightily mistaken.

Desserts are like mistresses. They are bad for you. So if you are having one, you might as well have two.

Music is my mistress and she plays second fiddle to no one.