16th-century Author Quotes

William Shakespeare
Miguel de Cervantes
Luís de Camões
Lope de Vega
John Donne
Ben Jonson
Torquato Tasso

For we must consider that we shall be a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us, so that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword through the world.

John Winthrop
John Winthrop
Thou art the cause, and most accursed effect.

William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
In short, virtue cannot live where envy reigns, nor liberality subsist with niggardliness.

Miguel de Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes
Even so the Blood (bred of good nourishment) By divers Pipes to all the body sent, Turns here to Bones there changes into Nerves; Here is made Marrow, there for Muscles serves.

We can be stabbed without being flattered, but we're rarely flattered without being stabbed.

Francisco de Quevedo
Francisco de Quevedo
Alas, so all things now do hold their peace:
Heaven and earth disturbed in no thing:
The beasts, the air, the birds their song do cease;
The nightes chare the stars about doth bring.

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey
Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey
O God! O God! that it were possible To undo things done; to call back yesterday! That Time could turn up his swift sandy glass, To untell the days, and to redeem these hours.

But now I see well the old proverb is true: That parish priest forgetteth that ever he was a clerk!

Sutch as the cause of every thing is, sutch wilbe the effect.

I cannot eat but little meat,
My stomach is not good;
But sure I think that I can drink
With him that wears a hood.
Though I go bare, take ye no care,
I nothing am a-cold;
I stuff my skin so full within
Of jolly good ale and old.

Lustful Desire (although 'twere rather fit To some brute creature to attribute it) Shall be presented in the second place, Because it shrouds a vile deformed face Beneath love's vizard, and assumes that name, Hiding its own fault with the other's blame.

George Wither
George Wither
In working well, if travail you sustain, Into the wind shall lightly pass the pain; But of the deed the glory shall remain, And cause your name with worthy wights to reign. In working wrong, if pleasure you attain, The pleasure soon shall fade, and void as vain; But of the deed throughout the life the shame Endures, defacing you with foul defame.

Well says the proverb, that it is better to live with wild beasts in caves, than in the same house with a cross-grained and quarrelsome woman.

Agnolo Firenzuola
Agnolo Firenzuola
Some have too much, yet still do crave;
I little have, and seek no more:
They are but poor, though much they have,
And I am rich with little store:
They poor, I rich; they beg, I give;
They lack, I have; they pine, I live.

The first men that our Saviour dear
Did choose to wait upon him here,
Blest fishers were; and fish the last
Food was, that he on earth did taste:
I therefore strive to follow those
Whom he to follow him hath chose.

I'll imitate the pities of old Surgeons To this lost limb, who, ere they show their art, Cast one asleep, then cut the diseas'd part.

The walks put on their summer liveries,
And all things else did hold like similes:
The trees with leaves, with fruits, with flowers clad,
Embrac'd each other, seeming to be glad.

And look upon you with ten thousand eyes
Till heaven wax'd blind, and till the world were done.

Joshua Sylvester
Joshua Sylvester
Architecture, can want no commendation, where there are Noble Men, or Noble minds...

Henry Wotton
Henry Wotton
In your deep floods
Drown all my faults and fears;
Not let His eye
See sin, but through my tears.

When the ground is soft
It may be worked with any kind of tool.

Now let the judging Reader mark what Rex
The Idol Gold (which all the World ador'th)
Plays both in Poor and Rich: by Money's Thurst
All Laws and Tyes (Divine, and Humane) burst.

Luís de Camões
Luís de Camões
Before
We end our pilgrimage, 'tis fit that we
Should leave corruption, and foul sin, behind us,
But with wash'd feet and hands, the heathens dar' not
Enter their profane temples; and for me
To hope my passage to eternity
Can be made easy, till I have shook off
The burthen of my sins in free confession,
Aided with sorrow, and repentance for them,
Is against reason.

Philip Massinger
Philip Massinger
I know I could enchain him with a smile:
And lead him captive with a gentle word,
I scorn my look should ever man beguile,
Or other speech, than meaning to afford.

In dancing the Alman the young men sometimes steal the damsels from their partners and he who has been robbed seeks to obtain another damsel. But I do not hold with this behaviour because it may lead to quarrels and heart burning.