Quotes to inspire and reflect

Now hast thou but one bare hour to live, And then thou must be damned perpetually! Stand still, you ever-moving spheres of Heaven, That time may cease, and midnight never come.

Was this the face that launched a thousand ships, And burnt the topless towers of Ilium? 5 Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss. Her lips suck forth my soul; 6 see, where it flies!

Oh, thou art fairer than the evening air Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars.

Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed In one self place; for where we are is hell, And where hell is there must we ever be.

When all the world dissolves, And every creature shall be purified, All places shall be hell that is not Heaven.

Why this is hell, nor am I out of it: Think’st thou that I who saw the face of God, And tasted the eternal joys of Heaven, Am not tormented with ten thousand hells, In being deprived of everlasting bliss?

Unhappy spirits that fell with Lucifer, Conspired against our God with Lucifer, And are forever damned with Lucifer.

Like untuned golden strings all women are, Which long time lie untouched, will harshly jar. Vessels of brass oft handled brightly shine.

Live and die in Aristotle’s works.

Judge you the rest; being tired she bade me kiss; Jove send me more such afternoons as this!

Who ever loved that loved not at first sight? 4

My men, like satyrs grazing on the lawns, Shall with their goat feet dance the antic hay.

Friar Barnadine: Thou hast committed— Barabas: Fornication—but that was in another country; And besides, the wench is dead.

Excess of wealth is cause of covetousness.

Infinite riches in a little room. 3

I count religion but a childish toy, And hold there is no sin but ignorance.

And I will make thee beds of roses And a thousand fragrant posies. 2

By shallow rivers, to whose falls Melodious birds sing madrigals. 2

Come live with me, and be my love; And we will all the pleasures prove That valleys, groves, hills, and fields, 1 Woods or steepy mountain yields.

Tamburlaine, the Scourge of God, must die.

Nature that framed us of four elements, Warring within our breasts for regiment, Doth teach us all to have aspiring minds: Our souls, whose faculties can comprehend The wondrous Architecture of the world: And measure every wandering planet’s course, Still climbing after knowledge infinite, And always moving as the restless Spheres, Will us to wear ourselves and never rest, Until we reach the ripest fruit of all, That perfect bliss and sole felicity, The sweet fruition of an earthly crown.

Is it not passing brave to be a king, And ride in triumph through Persepolis?

Accurst be he that first invented war.

Our swords shall play the orators for us.

What then remains but that we still should cry For being born, and, being born, to die?

The world’s a bubble, and the life of man Less than a span.

Who then to frail mortality shall trust But limns on water, or but writes in dust.

For if he like a madman lived, At least he like a wise one died.

Back and side go bare, go bare, Both foot and hand go cold; But, belly, God send thee good ale enough, Whether it be new or old.

Sweetheart, come see if the rose Which at morning began to unclose Its damask gown to the sun Has not lost, now the day is done, The folds of its damasked gown And its colors so like your own.

Harvest, oh! harvest your hour While life is abloom with youth! For age with bitter ruth Will fade your beauty’s flower. 4

Live now, believe me, wait not till tomorrow; Gather the roses of life today. 2

When you are old, at evening candlelit, Beside the fire bending to your wool, Read out my verse and murmur, “Ronsard writ This praise for me when I was beautiful.” 1

Evermore at last they ring to even-song. 34

That the miller knoweth not of. 33

A friend is never known till a man have need.

A man may well bring a horse to the water, But he cannot make him drink without he will. 20

And while I at length debate and beat the bush, There shall step in other men and catch the birds. 8

And hanging likewise. 9

Let the world slide, 2 let the world go; A fig for care, and a fig for woe! If I can’t pay, why I can owe, And death makes equal the high and low.

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

Let the dozing soul remember, let the mind awake and revive by contemplating how our life goes by so swiftly and how our death comes near so silently; how quickly pleasure fades, and how when it is recalled it give us pain, how we seem always to think that times past must have been better than today.

All a green willow, willow, willow, All a green willow is my garland.

I know all except myself. 5

But pray God that he absolve us all! 4

In this faith I will to live and die.

There’s no good speech save in Paris. 3

But where are the snows of yesteryear? 2