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Fame, like the river, is narrowest where it is bred, and broadest afar off.

William Davenant

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William Davenant
Age: 62 †
Born: 1606
Born: February 1
Died: 1668
Died: April 7
Playwright
Poet
Writer
River
Rivers
Fame
Like
Narrowest
Broadest
Bred
Afar

More quotes by William Davenant

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All slander must still be strangled in its birth, or time will soon conspire to make it strong enough to overcome the truth.
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All jealousy must be strangled in its birth.
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Ambition's monstrous stomach does increase By eating, and it fears to starve, unless It still may feed, and all it sees devour Ambition is not tir'd with toll nor cloy'd with power.
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Faith lights us through the dark to Deity.
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The assembled souls of all that men held wise.
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Go! dive into the Southern Sea, and when Th'ast found, to trouble the nice sight of men, A swelling pearl, and such whose single worth Boasts all the wonders which the seas bring forth, Give it Endymion's love, whose ev'ry tear Would more enrich the skilful jeweller.
William Davenant
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It is the wit and policy of sin to hate those we have abused.
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Had laws not been, we never had been blam'd For not to know we sinn'd is innocence.
William Davenant
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Since knowledge is but sorrow's spy, It is not safe to know.
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To be rich be diligent move on Like heav'ns great movers that enrich the earth Whose moment's sloth would show the world undone And make the spring straight bury all her birth. Rich are the diligent who can command Time--nature's stock.
William Davenant
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How beautiful is sorrow when it is dressed by virgin innocence! it makes felicity in others seem deformed.
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How much pleasure they lose (and even the pleasures of heroic poesy are not unprofitable) who take away the liberty of a poet, and fetter his feet in the shackles of a historian.
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Slow seems their speed whose thoughts before them run.
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Honor is the moral conscience of the great.
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Generous souls Are still most subject to credulity.
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Calamity is the perfect glass wherein we truly see and know ourselves.
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Actions rare and sudden do commonly proceed from fierce necessity, of else from some oblique design, which is ashamed to show itself in the public road.
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O harmless Death! whom still the valiant brave, The wise expect, the sorrowful invite, And all the good embrace, who know the grave A short dark passage to eternal light.
William Davenant
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What one cannot, another can.
William Davenant
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Anger is blood, poured and perplexed into froth but malice is the wisdom of our wrath.
William Davenant