Quotes
Quotes about Wit
For all that Nature by her mother-wit
Could frame in earth.
Full little knowest thou that hast not tride,
What hell it is in suing long to bide:
To loose good dayes, that might be better spent;
To wast long nights in pensive discontent;
To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow;
To feed on hope, to pine with feare and sorrow.
. . . . . . . . .
To fret thy soule with crosses and with cares;
To eate thy heart through comfortlesse dispaires;
To fawne, to crowche, to waite, to ride, to ronne,
To spend, to give, to want, to be undonne.
Unhappie wight, borne to desastrous end,
That doth his life in so long tendance spend!
What more felicitie can fall to creature
Than to enjoy delight with libertie,
And to be lord of all the workes of Nature,
To raine in th' aire from earth to highest skie,
To feed on flowres and weeds of glorious feature.
Behold, whiles she before the altar stands,
Hearing the holy priest that to her speakes,
And blesseth her with his two happy hands.
Cupid and my Campaspe play'd
At cards for kisses: Cupid paid.
He stakes his quiver, bow, and arrows,
His mother's doves, and team of sparrows:
Loses them too. Then down he throws
The coral of his lip, the rose
Growing on's cheek (but none knows how);
With these, the crystal of his brow,
And then the dimple on his chin:
All these did my Campaspe win.
At last he set her both his eyes:
She won, and Cupid blind did rise.
O Love! has she done this to thee?
What shall, alas! become of me?
The finest edge is made with the blunt whetstone.
He reckoneth without his Hostesse. Love knoweth no lawes.
I mean not to run with the Hare and holde with the Hounde.
Goe to bed with the Lambe, and rise with the Larke.
He cometh unto you with a tale which holdeth children from play, and old men from the chimney-corner.
I never heard the old song of Percy and Douglas that I found not my heart moved more than with a trumpet.
They are never alone that are accompanied with noble thoughts.
Fortune, the great commandress of the world,
Hath divers ways to advance her followers:
To some she gives honour without deserving,
To other some, deserving without honour.
Let no man value at a little price
A virtuous woman's counsel; her wing'd spirit
Is feather'd oftentimes with heavenly words.
Give me a spirit that on this life's rough sea
Loves t' have his sails fill'd with a lusty wind,
Even till his sail-yards tremble, his masts crack,
And his rapt ship run on her side so low
That she drinks water, and her keel plows air.
Make ducks and drakes with shillings.
With that she dasht her on the lippes,
So dyed double red:
Hard was the heart that gave the blow,
Soft were those lips that bled.
And who (in time) knows whither we may vent
The treasure of our tongue? To what strange shores
This gain of our best glory shall be sent
T' enrich unknowing nations with our stores?
What worlds in the yet unformed Occident
May come refin'd with th' accents that are ours?
I 'm armed with more than complete steel,--
The justice of my quarrel.
Come live with me, and be my love;
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dales and fields,
Woods or steepy mountain yields.
Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships,
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss!
Her lips suck forth my soul: see, where it flies!
Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight,
And burnèd is Apollo's laurel bough,
That sometime grew within this learnèd man.
Knowing I lov'd my books, he furnish'd me
From mine own library with volumes that
I prize above my dukedom.
Fill all thy bones with aches.
There's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple:
If the ill spirit have so fair a house,
Good things will strive to dwell with 't.
