Walter Raleigh
An anthology is like all the plums and orange peel picked out of a cake.Collection: Book
There is nothing exempt from the peril of mutation; the earth, heavens, and whole world is thereunto subject.Collection: Change
... but the longest day hath its evening.Collection: Time
Who so desireth to know what will be hereafter, let him think of what is past, for the world hath ever been in a circular revolution; whatsoever is now, was heretofore; and things past or present, are no other than such as shall be again: Redit orbis in orbem.Collection: Past
Whosoever in writing a modern history shall follow the truth too near the heels it may haply strike out his teeth.Collection: Writing
Whoso taketh in hand to govern a multitude, either by way of liberty or principality, and cannot assure himself of those persons that are enemies to that enterprise, doth frame a state of short perseverance.Collection: Perseverance
Less pains in the world a man cannot take than to bold his tongue.Collection: Pain
Silence in love betrays more woe - Than words though ne'er so witty; A beggar that is dumb, you know, may challenge double pity.Collection: Witty
In a letter to a friend the thought is often unimportant, and the feeling, if it be only a desire to entertain him, every thing.Collection: Friendship
A professional man of letters, especially if he is much at war with unscrupulous enemies, is naturally jealous of his privacy; he will be silent on his more personal interests, or, if he must speak, will veil them under conventional forms.Collection: War
I can't write a book commensurate with Shakespeare, but I can write a book by me.Collection: Being Yourself
If thou marry beauty, thou bindest thyself all thy life for that which, perchance, will neither last nor please thee one year.Collection: Beauty
The gain of lying is nothing else but not to be trusted of any, nor to be believed when we say the truth.Collection: Lying
Use your youth so that you may have comfort to remember it when it has forsaken you, and not sigh and grieve at the account thereof.Collection: Grieving
The best time for marriage will be towards thirty, for as the younger times are unfit, either to choose or to govern a wife and family, so, if thou stay long, thou shalt hardly see the education of thy children, who, being left to strangers, are in effect lost; and better were it to be unborn than ill-bred; for thereby thy posterity shall either perish, or remain a shame to thy name.Collection: Children
War begets quiet, quiet idleness, idleness disorder, disorder ruin; likewise ruin order, order virtue, virtue glory, and good fortune.Collection: War
Our souls, piercing through the impurity of flesh, behold the highest heaven, and thence bring knowledge to contemplate the ever-during, glory and termless joy.Collection: Heaven
No one is wise or safe, but they that are honest.Collection: Wise
In a word, we may gather out of History a policy no less wise than I eternal; by the comparison and application of other mens fore-passed miseries with our own like errours and ill-deservings.Collection: Wise
If thy friends be of better quality than thyself, thou mayest be sure of two things; first, they will be more careful to keep thy counsel, because they have more to lose than thou hast; the second, they will esteem thee for thyself, and not for that which thou dost possess.Collection: Inspirational
O eloquent, just, and mighty Death! whom none could advise, thou hast persuaded; what none hath dared, thou hast done; and whom all the world hath flattered, thou only hath cast out of the world and despised. Thou hast drawn together all the far-stretched greatness, all the pride, cruelty, and ambition of man, and covered it all over with these two narrow words, Hic jacet!Collection: Death
Passions are likened best to floods and streams: The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb.Collection: Music
Hath triumphed over time, which besides it nothing but eternity hath triumphed over.Collection: Eternity
Above all things, be not made an ass to carry the burdens of other men if any friend desire thee to be his surety, give him a part of what thou has to spare if he presses thee further, he is not thy friend at all.Collection: Men
Be advised what thou dost discourse of, and what thou maintainest whether touching religion, state, or vanity; for if thou err in the first, thou shalt be accounted profane; if in the second, dangerous; if in the third, indiscreet and foolish.Collection: Vanity
Even such isTime, which takes in trust Our youth, our joys, and all we have, And pays us but with age and dust, Who in the dark and silent grave When we have wandered all our ways Shuts up the story of our days, And from which earth, and grave, and dust The Lord shall raise me up, I trust.Collection: Time
What is our life? A play of passion. Our mirth the music of division. Our mother's wombs the tyring houses be, Where we are drest for this short Comedy.Collection: Life
The flowers do fade, and wanton fields To wayward winter reckoning yields; A honey tongue, a heart of gall, Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall.Collection: Spring
Who so taketh in hand to frame any state or government ought to presuppose that all men are evil, and at occasions will show themselves so to be.Collection: Men
Our bodies are but the anvils of pain and disease and our minds the hives of unnumbered cares.Collection: Life
Let valour end my life!Collection: History
A wandering minstrel I A thing of shreds and patches Of ballads, songs and snatches And dreamy lullaby!Collection: Song
Whoso desireth to govern well and securely, it behoveth him to have a vigilant eye to the proceedings of great princes, and to consider seriously of their designs.Collection: Eye
It is plain there is not in nature a point of stability to be found; everything either ascends or declines; when wars are ended abroad, sedition begins at home; and when men are freed from fighting for necessity, they quarrel through ambition.Collection: War
There never was a man of solid understanding, whose apprehensions are sober, and by a pensive inspection advised, but that he hath found by an irresistible necessity one true God and everlasting being.Collection: God
Remember, that if thou marry for beauty, thou bindest thyself all thy life for that which, perchance, will never last nor please thee one year; and when thou hast it, it will be to thee of no price at all.Collection: Memories
I shall never be persuaded that God hath shut up all light of learning within the lantern of Aristotle's brain.Collection: Light
Hatreds are the cinders of affection.Collection: Hate
The difference between a rich man and a poor man is this--the former eats when he pleases, and the latter when he can get it.Collection: Men
All, or the greatest part of men that have aspired to riches or power, have attained thereunto either by force or fraud, and what they have by craft or cruelty gained, to cover the foulness of their fact, they call purchase, as a name more honest. Howsoever, he that for want of will or wit useth not those means, must rest in servitude and poverty.Collection: Mean
According to Solomon, life and death are in the power of the tongue; and as Euripides truly affirmeth, every unbridled tongue in the end shall find itself unfortunate; for in all that ever I observed in the course of worldly things, I ever found that men's fortunes are oftener made by their tongues than by their virtues, and more men's fortunes overthrown thereby, also, than by their vices.Collection: Men
Better were it to be unborn than to be ill bred.Collection: Manners
Our immortal souls, while righteous, are by God himself beautified with the title of his own image and similitude.Collection: Soul
I dare not think that any supercelestial heaven, or whatsoever else ... was increate and eternal. And as for the place of God before the world created, the finite wisdom of mortal men hath no perception of it; neither can it limit the seat of infinite power, no more than infinite power itself can be limited; for his place is in himself, whom no magnitude else can contain.Collection: Men
It is observed in the course of worldly things, that men's fortunes are oftener made by their tongues than by their virtues; and more men's fortunes overthrown thereby than by vices.Collection: Men
The first draught serveth for health, the second for pleasure, the third for shame, the fourth for madness.Collection: Drinking