“Sweet is pleasure after pain.”

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

Since a true knowledge of nature gives us pleasure, a lively imitation of it, either in poetry or painting, must produce a much greater; for both these arts are not only true imitations of nature, but of the best nature.

Love and Time with reverence use, Treat them like a parting friend: Nor the golden gifts refuse Which in youth sincere they send: For each year their price is more, And they less simple than before.

Keen appetite And quick digestion wait on you and yours.

Not sharp revenge, nor hell itself can find, A fiercer torment than a guilty mind, Which day and night doth dreadfully accuse, Condemns the wretch, and still the charge renews.

Griefs assured are felt before they come.

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.