Quote

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

William Davenant

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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

More quotes by William Davenant

Image
For in a dearth of comforts, we art taught To be contented with the least.
William Davenant
Image
All slander must still be strangled in its birth, or time will soon conspire to make it strong enough to overcome the truth.
William Davenant
Image
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.
William Davenant
Image
Calamity is the perfect glass wherein we truly see and know ourselves.
William Davenant
Image
Ambition is the mind's immodesty.
William Davenant
Image
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.
William Davenant
Image
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
Image
Generous souls Are still most subject to credulity.
William Davenant
Image
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.
William Davenant
Image
Small are the seeds fate does unheeded sow Of slight beginnings to important ends.
William Davenant
Image
All jealousy must be strangled in its birth.
William Davenant
Image
Faith lights us through the dark to Deity.
William Davenant
Image
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
Image
What one cannot, another can.
William Davenant
Image
Think not ambition wise, because 't is brave.
William Davenant
Image
Slow seems their speed whose thoughts before them run.
William Davenant
Image
How beautiful is sorrow when it is dressed by virgin innocence! it makes felicity in others seem deformed.
William Davenant
Image
The assembled souls of all that men held wise.
William Davenant
Image
Since knowledge is but sorrow's spy, It is not safe to know.
William Davenant
Image
Had laws not been, we never had been blam'd For not to know we sinn'd is innocence.
William Davenant