Society and the World

And, like another Helen, fir’d another Troy.

Three poets, in three distant ages born, Greece, Italy, and England did adorn. The first in loftiness of thought surpass’d; The next, in majesty; in both the last. The force of Nature could no further go. To make a third, she joined the former two.

T’ abhor the makers, and their laws approve, Is to hate traitors and the treason love.

Of all the tyrannies on human kind The worst is that which persecutes the mind.

Of all the tyrannies on human kind The worst is that which persecutes the mind.

The trumpet’s loud clangor Excites us to arms.

For every inch that is not fool is rogue.

Nor is the people’s judgment always true: The most may err as grossly as the few.

So over violent, or over civil, That every man with him was God or Devil.

All empire is no more than power in trust.

Better one suffer, than a nation grieve.

In friendship false, implacable in hate, Resolved to ruin or to rule the state.

And all to leave what with his toil he won To that unfeather’d two-legg’d thing, a son.

Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease.

Your Cleopatra; Dolabella’s Cleopatra; every man’s Cleopatra.

In pious times, ere priestcraft did begin, Before polygamy was made a sin.

In pious times, ere priestcraft did begin, Before polygamy was made a sin.

The wretched have no friends.

I am as free as Nature first made man, Ere the base laws of servitude began, When wild in woods the noble savage ran.

God the first garden made, and the first city.

Well then; I now do plainly see This busy world and I shall ne’er agree; The very honey of all earthly joy Does of all meats the soonest cloy, And they (methinks) deserve my pity, Who for it can endure the stings, The crowd, and buzz and murmurings, Of this great hive, the city.

He that complies against his will Is of his own opinion still.

What makes all doctrines plain and clear? About two hundred pounds a year. And that which was proved true before, Prove false again? Two hundred more.

As the ancients Say wisely, have a care o’ th’ main chance, And look before you ere you leap; For as you sow, ye are like to reap.