Ethics and Morality

But all was false and hollow; through his tongue Dropp’d manna, and could make the worse appear The better reason.

Who overcomes By force hath overcome but half his foe.

And out of good still to find means of evil.

Love Virtue, she alone is free, She can teach ye how to climb Higher than the sphery chime; Or, if Virtue feeble were, Heav’n itself would stoop to her.

Praising the lean and sallow abstinence.

Tis Chastity, my brother, Chastity: She that has that, is clad in complete steel.

A servant with this clause Makes drudgery divine: Who sweeps a room, as for thy laws, Makes that and th’ action fine.

Nothing wears clothes, but Man; nothing doth need But he to wear them.

Man stole the fruit, but I must climb the tree.

For thirty pence he did my death devise, Who at three hundred did the ointment prize.

Dare to be true: nothing can need a lie: A fault, which needs it most, grows two thereby. 2

Drink not the third glass, which thou canst not tame When once it is within thee.

Other sins only speak; murder shrieks out.

Whilst that for which all virtue now is sold, And almost every vice—almighty gold.

If poisonous minerals, and if that tree, Whose fruit threw death on else immortal us, If lecherous goats, if serpents envious Cannot be damn’d; alas; why should I be?

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.

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

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

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!

Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot That it do singe yourself.

Do not give dalliance Too much the rein.

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

The silence often of pure innocence Persuades when speaking fails.

Poor soul, the center of my sinful earth.