Quotes to inspire and reflect

All Kings, and all their favorites, All glory of honors, beauties, wits, The sun itself, which makes times, as they pass, Is elder by a year, now, than it was When thou and I first one another saw: All other things, to their destruction draw, Only our love hath no decay; This, no tomorrow hath, nor yesterday, Running, it never runs from us away, But truly keeps his first, last, everlasting day.

Oh do not die, for I shall hate All women so, when thou art gone.

Twice or thrice had I loved thee, Before I knew thy face or name.

When I died last, and dear, I die As often as from thee I go.

But think that we Are but turn’d aside to sleep.

Sweetest love, I do not go, For weariness of thee, Nor in hope the world can show A fitter love for me; But since that I Must die at last, ’tis best, To use my self in jest Thus by feign’d deaths to die.

Yesternight the sun went hence, And yet is here today.

I am two fools, I know, For loving, and for saying so In whining poetry.

Who are a little wise, the best fools be.

As well a well-wrought urn becomes The greatest ashes, as half-acre tombs.

The Phoenix riddle hath more wit By us, we two being one, are it. So to one neutral thing both sexes fit, We die and rise the same, and prove Mysterious by this love.

She is all states, and all princes, I, Nothing else is.

For God sake hold your tongue, and let me love.

Busy old fool, unruly Sun, Why dost thou thus, Through windows, and through curtains call on us? Must to thy motions lovers’ seasons run?

Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime, Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

And dare love that, and say so too, And forget the He and She.

But he who loveliness within Hath found, all outward loathes, For he who color loves, and skin, Loves but their oldest clothes.

Though she were true, when you met her, And last, till you write your letter, Yet she Will be False, ere I come, to two, or three.

I have done one braver thing Than all the Worthies did; And yet a braver thence doth spring, Which is, to keep that hid.

And swear No where Lives a woman true, and fair.

Go, and catch a falling star, Get with child a mandrake root, Tell me, where all past years are, Or who cleft the Devil’s foot. Teach me to hear mermaids singing.

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears, And true plain hearts do in the faces rest, Where can we find two better hemispheres Without sharp North, without declining West?

And now good morrow to our waking souls, Which watch not one another out of fear; For love, all love of other sights controls, And makes one little room, an everywhere. Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone, Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown, Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.

I wonder by my troth, what thou, and I Did, till we lov’d? were we not wean’d till then But suck’d on country pleasures, childishly? Or snorted we in the seven sleepers’ den?

Good friend, for Jesus’ sake forbear To dig the dust enclosed here; Blest be the man that spares these stones, And curst be he that moves my bones.

Wherever the bright sun of heaven shall shine, His honor and the greatness of his name Shall be, and make new nations.

Some come to take their ease And sleep an act or two.

Nor shall this peace sleep with her; but as when The bird of wonder dies, the maiden phoenix, Her ashes new-create another heir As great in admiration as herself.

To dance attendance on their lordships’ pleasures.

He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one; Exceeding wise, fair-spoken, and persuading; Lofty and sour to them that lov’d him not; But, to those men that sought him sweet as summer.

Men’s evil manners live in brass; their virtues We write in water.

So may he rest; his faults lie gently on him!

Of an unbounded stomach.

He gave his honors to the world again, His blessed part to heaven, and slept in peace.

An old man, broken with the storms of state, Is come to lay his weary bones among ye; Give him a little earth for charity.

Had I but serv’d my God with half the zeal 62 I serv’d my king, he would not in mine age Have left me naked to mine enemies.

Love thyself last: cherish those hearts that hate thee; Corruption wins not more than honesty. Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace, To silence envious tongues: be just, and fear not. Let all the ends thou aim’st at be thy country’s, Thy God’s, and truth’s; then if thou fall’st, O Cromwell! Thou fall’st a blessed martyr!

And sleep in dull cold marble.

Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition: By that sin fell the angels.

A load would sink a navy.

A peace above all earthly dignities, A still and quiet conscience.

Press not a falling man too far. 61

I have touch’d the highest point of all my greatness; And from that full meridian of my glory, I haste now to my setting: I shall fall Like a bright exhalation in the evening, And no man see me more.

And then to breakfast with What appetite you have.

’Tis well said again; And ’tis a kind of good deed to say well: And yet words are no deeds.

Orpheus with his lute made trees, And the mountain-tops that freeze, Bow themselves, when he did sing.

Heaven is above all yet; there sits a judge That no king can corrupt.

I would not be a queen For all the world.