Great Throughts Treasury

"For it is God's infinite power and every-where-presence (compassing, embracing, and piercing all things) that giveth to the sun power to draw up vapours, to vapours to be made clouds; clouds to contain rain, and rain to fall: so all second and instrumental causes, together with nature itself, without that operative faculty which God gave them, would become altogether silent, virtueless and dead."

"For whosoever commands the sea commands the trade; whosoever commands the trade of the world commands the riches of the world, and consequently the world itself."

"Fortune is nothing else but a power imaginary, to which the successes of human actions and endeavours were for their variety ascribed."

"Except thou desire to hasten thine end, take this for a general rule, that thou never add any artificial heat to thy body by wine or spice, until thou find that time hath decayed thy natural heat; and the sooner thou beginnest to help Nature, the sooner she will forsake thee, and leave thee to trust altogether to Art."

"Fain would I but I dare not; I dare, and yet I may not; I may, although I care not, for pleasure when I play not."

"Fain would I climb, yet fear I to fall."

"False love, desire, and beauty frail, adieu! Dead is the root whence all these fancies grew."

"Fain would I, but I dare not; I dare, and yet I may not; I may, although I care not, for pleasure when I play not."

"Flatterers are the worst kind of traitors for they will strengthen thy imperfections, encourage thee in all evils, correct thee in nothing, but so shadow and paint all thy vices and follies as thou shalt never, by their will, discern good from evil, or vice from virtue."

"God, whom the wisest men acknowledge to be a power uneffable, and virtue infinite; a light by abundant clarity invisible; an understanding which itself can only comprehend; an essence eternal and spiritual, of absolute pureness and simplicity; was and is pleased to make himself known by the work of the world: in the wonderful magnitude whereof, (all which he embraceth, filleth, and sustaineth,) we behold the image of that glory which cannot be measured, and withal, that one, and yet universal nature which cannot be defined. In the glorious lights of heaven we perceive a shadow of his divine countenance."

"God?s justice in the one, and his goodness in the other, is exercised for evermore, as the everlasting subjects of his reward and punishment."

"Goe sowle, the bodies gueste vpon a thankeles errant; feare not to touche the beste, the trueth shalbe thie warrant, goe, since I nedes muste die and tell them all they lie."

"From the vanity of the Greeks, the corrupters of all truth, who, without all ground of certainty, vaunt their antiquity, came the error first of all."

"Go, Soul, the body?s guest, upon a thankless arrant: fear not to touch the best, the truth shall be thy warrant: go, since I needs must die, and give the world the lie."

"Have ever more care that thou be beloved of thy wife, rather than thyself besotted on her; and thou shalt judge of her love by these two observations: first, if thou perceive she have a care of thy estate, and exercise herself therein; the other, if she study to please thee, and be sweet unto thee in conversation, without thy instruction; for love needs no teaching nor precept."

"God is absolutely good; and so, assuredly, the cause of all that is good: but of anything that is evil he is no cause at all."

"He that cannot refrain from much speaking is like a city without walls; therefore if thou observest this rule in all assemblies thou shalt seldom err; restrain thy choler, hearken much, and speak little, for the tongue is the instrument of the greatest good and greatest evil that is done in the world."

"He that hath pity on another man's sorrow shall be free from it himself; and he that delighteth in, and scorneth the misery of another shall one time or other fall into it himself."

"He that doth not as other men do, but endeavoureth that which ought to be done, shall thereby rather incur peril than preservation; for who so laboreth to be sincerely perfect and good shall necessarily perish, living among men that are generally evil."

"History hath triumphed over Time, which besides it, nothing but Eternity hath triumphed over."

"I can't write a book commensurate with Shakespeare, but I can write a book by me."

"His desire is a dureless content, and a trustless joy; he is won with a world of despair,and is lost with a toy."

"I do not understand those to be poor and in want, who are vagabonds and beggars, but such as are old and cannot travel, such poor widows and fatherless children as are ordered to be relieved, and the poor tenants that travail to pay their rents and are driven to poverty by mischance, and not by riot or careless expenses; on such have thou compassion, and God will bless thee for it."

"Historians desiring to write the actions of men, ought to set down the simple truth, and not say anything for love or hatred; also to choose such an opportunity for writing as it may be lawful to think what they will, and write what they think, which is a rare happiness of the time."

"I have lived a sinful life, in all sinful callings; for I have been a soldier, a captain, a sea-captain, and a courtier, which are all places of wickedness and vice."

"If she seem not chaste to me, what care I how chaste she be?"

"I wish I loved the Human Race; I wish I loved its silly face; I wish I liked the way it walks; I wish I liked the way it talks; And when I'm introduced to one I wish I thought What Jolly Fun!"

"I dare not think that any super-celestial heaven, or whatsoever else ... was increate and eternal. And as for the place of God before the world created, the finite wisdom of mortal men hath no perception of it; neither can it limit the seat of infinite power, no more than infinite power itself can be limited; for his place is in himself, whom no magnitude else can contain."

"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."

"If the heart be right, it matters not which way the head lies."

"If thou be bound for a stranger, thou art a fool; if for a merchant, thou puttest thy estate to learn to swim; if for a lawyer, he will find an evasion by a syllable or a word; if for a poor man, thou must pay it thyself; if for a rich man, he needs not; therefore, from suretyship, as from a manslayer or enchanter, bless thyself; for the best return will be this - if thou force him for whom thou art bound to pay it himself he will become thy enemy; if thou pay it thyself, thou wilt become a beggar."

"If she undervalue me, what care I how fair she be?"

"If thy friends be of better quality than thyself, thou mayest be sure of two things; the first, they will be more careful to keep thy counsel, because they have more to lose than thou hast; the second, they will esteem thee for thyself, and not for that which thou dost possess."

"If thou marry beauty, thou bindest thyself all thy life for that which, perchance, will neither last nor please thee one year."

"If thou be subject to any great vanity or ill, then therein trust no man; for every man's folly ought to be his greatest secret."

"If thou be subject to any great vanity or ill (from which I hope God will bless thee), then therein trust no man; for every man's folly ought to be his greatest secret."

"In a word, we may gather out of history a policy no less wise than eternal; by the comparison and application of other men's forepassed miseries with our own like errors and ill deservings."

"It hath so pleased God to provide for all living creatures wherewith he hath filled the world, that such inconveniences as we contemplate afar off are found, by the trial and witness of men?s travels, to be so qualified as there is no portion of the earth made in vain."

"It is plain there is not in nature a point of stability to be found; everything either ascends or declines; when wars are ended abroad, sedition begins at home; and when men are freed from fighting for necessity, they quarrel through ambition. It were better for a man to be subject to any vice than to drunkenness; for all other vanities and sins are recovered, but a drunkard will never shake off the delight of beastliness."

"It is the nature of men having escaped one extreme, which by force they were constrained long to endure, to run headlong into the other extreme, forgetting that virtue doth always consist in the mean."

"It was well said of Plotinus that the stars were significant, but not efficient."

"It were better for a man to be subject to any vice, than to drunkenness; for all other vanities and sins are recovered, but a drunkard will never shake off the delight of beastliness; for the longer it possesseth a man, the more he will delight in it, and the older he groweth the more he shall be subject to it; for it dulleth the spirits, and destroyeth the body as ivy doth the ola tree; or as the worm that engendereth in the kernel of the nut."

"Know that Love is a careless child, and forgets promises past; he is blind, he is deaf when he list, and in faith never fast."

"Jest not openly at those that are simple, but remember how much thou art bound to God, who hath made thee wiser. Defame not any woman publicly, though thou know her to be evil; for those that are faulty cannot endure to be taxed, but will seek to be avenged of thee; and those that are not guilty cannot endure unjust reproach."

"Less pains in the world a man cannot take than to bold his tongue."

"Let thy love be to the best, so long as they do well; but take heed that thou love God, thy country, thy prince, and thine own estate, before all others! for the fancies of men change, and he that loves to-day hateth to-morrow; but let reason be thy school-mistress, which shall ever guide thee aright."

"Love likes not the falling fruit, nor the withered tree."

"Let thy servants be such as thou mayest command, and entertain none about thee but those to whom thou givest wages; for those that will serve thee without thy hire will cost thee treble as much as they that know thy fare."

"Life is a tragedy."

"Men endure the losses that befall them by mere casualty with more patience than the damages they sustain by injustice."