Oh that thou hadst like others been all words, And no performance.
Gold – the picklock that never fails.
Greatness, with private men Esteem’d a blessing, is to me a curse; And we, whom, for our high births, they conclude The happy freemen, are the only slaves. Happy the golden mean!
Ill news are swallow-winged, but what is good walks on crutches.
Pleasures of worse natures Are gladly entertained, and they that shun us Practice in private sports the stews would blush at.
What can innocence hope for, When such as sit her judges are corrupted!
Though the desire of fame be the last weakness Wise men put off.
My dancing days are past.
I had not to this time subsisted, but that I was supported by your frequent courtesies and favours.
He that would govern others, first should be the master of himself.
Malice scorned, puts out itself; but argued, give a kind of credit to a false accusation.
Ambition, in a private man is a vice, is in a prince the virtue.
Patience, the beggar’s virtue, shall find no harbor here.
Thou art figured blind, and yet we borrow our best sight from thee.
This is the Jew that Shakespeare drew.
What pity ’tis, one that can speak so well, Should in his actions be so ill!
Such as ne’er saw swans May think crows beautiful.
But married once, a man is stak’d or pown’d, and cannot graze beyond his own hedge.
Death hath a thousand doors to let out life.
Revenge, that thirsty dropsy of our souls, makes us covet that which hurts us most.