Quotes to inspire and reflect

Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram, The marigold, that goes to bed wi’ the sun, And with him rises weeping: these are flowers Of middle summer, and I think they are given To men of middle age.

Jog on, jog on, the footpath way, And merrily hent the stile-a: A merry heart goes all the day, Your sad tires in a mile-a.

Then comes in the sweet o’ the year.

What’s gone and what’s past help Should be past grief.

I am a feather for each wind that blows.

The silence often of pure innocence Persuades when speaking fails.

It is a heretic that makes the fire, Not she which burns in ’t.

A sad tale’s best for winter. I have one of sprites and goblins.

He makes a July’s day short as December.

Paddling palms and pinching fingers.

Affection! thy intention stabs the center: Thou dost make possible things not so held, Communicat’st with dreams.

Two lads that thought there was no more behind But such a day tomorrow as today, And to be boy eternal.

We were as twinn’d lambs that did frisk i’ the sun, And bleat the one at the other: what we chang’d Was innocence for innocence.

For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright, Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.

Past cure I am, now Reason is past care, And frantic-mad with evermore unrest.

Poor soul, the center of my sinful earth.

So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men, And Death once dead, there’s no more dying then.

When my love swears that she is made of truth, I do believe her, though I know she lies.

Two loves I have of comfort and despair, Which like two spirits do suggest me still.

’Tis better to be vile than vile esteem’d, When not to be receives reproach of being.

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips’ red: If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

And ruin’d love, when it is built anew, Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.

O benefit of ill!

My nature is subdu’d To what it works in, like the dyer’s hand.

What potions have I drunk of Siren tears, Distill’d from limbecks foul as hell within.

Alas! ’tis true I have gone here and there, And made myself a motley to the view, Gor’d mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear, Made old offenses of affections new.

That is my home of love: if I have rang’d, Like him that travels, I return again.

O! never say that I was false of heart, Though absence seem’d my flame to qualify.

Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul Of the wide world dreaming on things to come, Can yet the lease of my true love control, Suppos’d as forfeit to a confin’d doom. The mortal moon hath her eclipse endur’d, And the sad augurs mock their own presage; Incertainties now crown themselves assur’d, And peace proclaims olives of endless age.

When in the chronicle of wasted time I see descriptions of the fairest wights, And beauty making beautiful old rime, In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights, Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty’s best, Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow, I see their antique pen would have express’d Even such a beauty as you master now.

To me, fair friend, you never can be old, For as you were when first your eye I ey’d, Such seems your beauty still.

From you have I been absent in the spring, When proud-pied April, dress’d in all his trim, Hath put a spirit of youth in everything.

Sweets grown common lose their dear delight.

The hardest knife ill-used doth lose his edge.

How like a winter hath my absence been.

Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds. 55

They are the lords and owners of their faces, Others but stewards of their excellence. The summer’s flower is to the summer sweet, Though to itself it only live and die.

Ah! do not, when my heart hath ’scap’d this sorrow, Come in the rearward of a conquer’d woe; Give not a windy night a rainy morrow, To linger out a purpos’d overthrow.

They that have power to hurt and will do none, That do not do the thing they most do show, Who, moving others, are themselves as stone, Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow.

In sleep a king, but, waking, no such matter.

Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing, And like enough thou know’st thy estimate.

Who is it that says most? which can say more Than this rich praise,—that you alone are you?

Clean starved for a look.

That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

No longer mourn for me when I am dead Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell Give warning to the world that I am fled From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell.

And art made tongue-tied by authority.

And simple truth miscall’d simplicity, And captive good attending captain ill.

Tir’d with all these, for restful death I cry.