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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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William Davenant
Age: 62 †
Born: 1606
Born: February 1
Died: 1668
Died: April 7
Playwright
Poet
Writer
Laws
Law
Never
Sinn
Innocence

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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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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.
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Since knowledge is but sorrow's spy, It is not safe to know.
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Anger is blood, poured and perplexed into froth but malice is the wisdom of our wrath.
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The assembled souls of all that men held wise.
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Faith lights us through the dark to Deity.
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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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What one cannot, another can.
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Honor is the moral conscience of the great.
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For in a dearth of comforts, we art taught To be contented with the least.
William Davenant
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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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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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Fame, like the river, is narrowest where it is bred, and broadest afar off.
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It is the wit and policy of sin to hate those we have abused.
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Calamity is the perfect glass wherein we truly see and know ourselves.
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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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Ambition is the mind's immodesty.
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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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Slow seems their speed whose thoughts before them run.
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Small are the seeds fate does unheeded sow Of slight beginnings to important ends.
William Davenant