Quotes

Quotes about Wit


Whanne that April with his shoures sote
The droughte of March hath perced to the rote.

Geoffrey Chaucer

And smale foules maken melodie,
That slepen alle night with open eye,
So priketh hem nature in hir corages;
Than longen folk to gon on pilgrimages.

Geoffrey Chaucer

I hold a mouses wit not worth a leke,
That hath but on hole for to sterten to.

Geoffrey Chaucer

Therefore behoveth him a ful long spone,
That shall eat with a fend.

Geoffrey Chaucer

Fie on possession,
But if a man be vertuous withal.

Geoffrey Chaucer

The loss of wealth is loss of dirt,
As sages in all times assert;
The happy man's without a shirt.

John Heywood

Beaten with his owne rod.

John Heywood

So many heads so many wits.

John Heywood

We both be at our wittes end.

John Heywood

Reckeners without their host must recken twice.

John Heywood

To hold with the hare and run with the hound.

John Heywood

A man may well bring a horse to the water,
But he cannot make him drinke without he will.

John Heywood

There is no fire without some smoke.

John Heywood

Hee must have a long spoone, shall eat with the devill.

John Heywood

Some have too much, yet still do crave;
I little have, and seek no more:
They are but poor, though much they have,
And I am rich with little store:
They poor, I rich; they beg, I give;
They lack, I have; they pine, I live.

Sir Edward Dyer

I cannot eat but little meat,
My stomach is not good;
But sure I think that I can drink
With him that wears a hood.

Bishop (John) Still

Was never eie did see that face,
Was never eare did heare that tong,
Was never minde did minde his grace,
That ever thought the travell long;
But eies and eares and ev'ry thought
Were with his sweete perfections caught.

Mathew Roydon

My merry, merry, merry roundelay
Concludes with Cupid's curse:
They that do change old love for new,
Pray gods, they change for worse!

George Peele

If all the world and love were young,
And truth in every shepherd's tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee, and be thy love.

Sir Walter Raleigh

Silence in love bewrays more woe
Than words, though ne'er so witty:
A beggar that is dumb, you know,
May challenge double pity.

Sir Walter Raleigh

Even such is time, that takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, our all we have,
And pays us but with age and dust;
Who in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wandered all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days.
But from this earth, this grave, this dust,
My God shall raise me up, I trust!

Sir Walter Raleigh

Note 1.Altissima quæque flumina minimo sono labi (The deepest rivers flow with the least sound).--Q. Curtius, vii. 4. 13.

Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep.--William Shakespeare: 2 Henry VI. act iii. sc. i.

Sir Walter Raleigh

Note 3.If she be not so to me,
What care I how fair she be?
George Wither: The Shepherd's Resolution.

Sir Walter Raleigh

As when in Cymbrian plaine
An heard of bulles, whom kindly rage doth sting,
Doe for the milky mothers want complaine,
And fill the fieldes with troublous bellowing.

Edmund Spenser

No daintie flowre or herbe that growes on grownd,
No arborett with painted blossoms drest
And smelling sweete, but there it might be fownd
To bud out faire, and throwe her sweete smels al arownd.

Edmund Spenser

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