16th-century Poet Quotes

It has always been more difficult for a man to keep than to get; for, in the one case, fortune aids, which often assists injustice; but, in the other case, sense is required. Therefore, we often see a person deficient in cleverness rise to wealth; and then, from want of sense, roll head over heels to the bottom.

Giambattista Basile

The proud daughter of that monarch to whom when it grows dark [elsewhere] the sun never sets.

Giovanni Battista Guarini

When one has one good day in the year, one is not wholly unfortunate.

Marguerite de Navarre

There wanted not some beams of light to guide men in the exercise of their Stocastick faculty.

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

Let man's soul be a sphere, and then, in this, The intelligence that moves, devotion is.

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.

Nor too much wealth nor wit come to thee,
So much of either may undo thee.

My faultless breast the furnace is, the fuel wounding thorns;
Love is the fire and sighs the smoke, the ashes shame and scorns;
The fuel Justice layeth on, and Mercy blows the coals;
The metal in this furnace wrought are men's defiled souls.

Robert Southwell

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

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

Thrice happy he, who by some shady grove, Far from the clamorous world; doth live his own; Though solitary, who is not alone, But doth converse with that eternal love.

William Drummond of Hawthornden

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

Not for no cold did freeze,
Nor any cloud beguile
Th'eternal flowering spring

As order is heavenly, where quiet is had, so error is hell, or a mischief as bad.

I loved thee once. I'll love no more,
Thine be the grief, as is the blame;
Thou art not what thou wast before,
What reason I should be the same?

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.

The labouring man, that tills the fertile soil,
And reaps the harvest fruit, hath not in deed
The gain, but pain; and if for all his toil
He gets the straw, the lord will have the seed.

Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford

My flocks feed not, my ewes breed not,
My rams speed not, all is amiss.

Richard Barnfield

It is your virtue, being men, to try;
And it is ours, by virtue to deny.

Michael Drayton

True 'tis, when unexpectedly we find
The beautiful, it charms the healthy mind.

Francesco Bracciolini

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

Phineas Fletcher

Love, a child, is ever crying:
Please him and he straight is flying,
Give him, he the more is craving,
Never satisfied with having.

Lady Mary Wroth

And bold and hard adventures t' undertake,
Leaving his country for his country's sake.

Charles Fitzgeffrey

We ought to esteem him alone an agreeable and good-natured man, who, in his daily intercourse with others, behaves in such a manner as friends usually behave to each other. For as a person of that rustic character appears, wherever he comes, like a mere stranger: so, on the contrary, a polite man, wherever he goes, seems as easy as if he were amongst his intimate friends and acquaintance.

Giovanni della Casa