As it is a great point of art, when our matter requires it, to enlarge and veer out all sail, so to take it in and contract it is of no less praise when the argument doth ask it.
I know no disease of the soul but ignorance, a pernicious evil, the darkener of man’s life, the disturber of his reason, and common confounder of truth.
Still to be neat, still to be drest, As you were going to a feast, Still to be powder’d, all perfum’d. Lady, it is to be presumed, Though art’s hid causes are not found, All is not sweet, all is not sound.
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.
Chance will not do the work. Chance sends the breeze; But if the pilot slumber at the helm, The very wind that wafts us tow’rds the port May dash us on the shoals. The steersman’s part Is vigilance, or blow it rough or smooth.
