black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

So much more profitable and gracious is doctrine by example than by rule.

Edmund Spenser

A sweet attractive kind of grace, A full assurance given by looks, Continual comfort in a face, The lineaments of Gospel books– I trow that countenance cannot lye Whose thoughts are legible in the eye.
EDMUND SPENSER

Attraction Comfortable Eyes Grace Kind Sweet Thinking
Ah! when will this long weary day have end, And lende me leave to come unto my love? – Epithalamion
EDMUND SPENSER

Leaving Love Myself
What more felicity can fall to creature, than to enjoy delight with liberty?
EDMUND SPENSER

Creature Enjoyment Fall Liberty
No dainty flower or herbs that grows on ground, No arborett with painted blossoms drest And smelling sweet, but there it might be found To bud out fair, and throw her sweet smells all around.
EDMUND SPENSER

Flower Growth Herself Sweet
So let us love, dear Love, like as we ought; Love is the lesson which the Lord us taught.
EDMUND SPENSER

Lesson Love Teaching
How many perils doe enfold The righteous man to make him daily fall.
EDMUND SPENSER

Adversity Fall Flower Right
For whatsoever from one place doth fall, Is with the tide unto an other brought: For there is nothing lost, that may be found, if sought.
EDMUND SPENSER

Fall Lost Oneself Place
For easy things, that may be got at will, Most sorts of men do set but little store.
EDMUND SPENSER

Easy Man Willing
Who will not mercy unto others show, How can he mercy ever hope to have?
EDMUND SPENSER

Himself Hope Kindness Mercy
A circle cannot fill a triangle, so neither can the whole world, if it were to be compassed, the heart of man; a man may as easily fill a chest with grace as the heart with gold. The air fills not the body, neither doth money the covetous mind of man.
EDMUND SPENSER

Body Easy Gold Heart Man Mindset World
This iron world bungs down the stoutest hearts to lowest state; for misery doth bravest minds abate.
EDMUND SPENSER

Heart Mindset Misery World
Through knowledge we behold the world’s creation, How in his cradle first he fostered was; And judge of Nature’s cunning operation, How things she formed of a formless mass.
EDMUND SPENSER

Creation Form Herself Judgement Knowledge Nature Operation World
All sorts of flowers the which on earth do spring In goodly colours gloriously arrayed; Go to my love, where she is careless laid.
EDMUND SPENSER

Color Earth Flower Glory Goodness Herself Love Spring
Those that were up themselves, kept others low; Those that were low themselves, held others hard; He suffered them to ryse or greater grow; But every one did strive his fellow down to throw.
EDMUND SPENSER

Greatness Growth Hard Hold Low Oneself Suffering
Sweet breathing Zephyrus did softly play, A gentle spirit, that lightly did delay Hot Titan’s beams, which then did glister fair.
EDMUND SPENSER

Breathe Fair Light Play Soft Spirit Sweet
Ill can he rule the great that cannot reach the small.
EDMUND SPENSER

Greatness Myself Reach Rule

So much more profitable and gracious is doctrine by example than by rule.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

So much more profitable and gracious is doctrine by example than by rule.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Edmund Spenser Quotes