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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.

William Davenant

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William Davenant
Age: 62 †
Born: 1606
Born: February 1
Died: 1668
Died: April 7
Playwright
Poet
Writer
Away
Pleasures
Take
Heroic
Even
Poet
Poesy
Much
Lose
Fetter
Feet
Unprofitable
Loses
Fetters
Liberty
Shackles
Pleasure
Historian

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Had laws not been, we never had been blam'd For not to know we sinn'd is innocence.
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Honor is the moral conscience of the great.
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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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Ambition is the mind's immodesty.
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Think not ambition wise, because 't is brave.
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Be not with honor's gilded baits beguil'd, Nor think ambition wise, because 'tis brave For though we like it, as a forward child, 'Tis so unsound, her cradle is the grave.
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It is the wit and policy of sin to hate those we have abused.
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Since knowledge is but sorrow's spy, It is not safe to know.
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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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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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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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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.
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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.
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The assembled souls of all that men held wise.
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What one cannot, another can.
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Fame, like the river, is narrowest where it is bred, and broadest afar off.
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Anger is blood, poured and perplexed into froth but malice is the wisdom of our wrath.
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Generous souls Are still most subject to credulity.
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Small are the seeds fate does unheeded sow Of slight beginnings to important ends.
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Calamity is the perfect glass wherein we truly see and know ourselves.
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