17th-century Author Quotes

Molière

Jonathan Swift

John Milton

Charles Perrault

Jean Racine

Jean de La Fontaine

Pierre Corneille

Negligence is the rust of the soul that corrodes through all her best resolves.

It is a hard and nice subject for a man to speak of himself: it grates his own heart to say anything of disparagement, and the reader's ear to hear anything of praise from him.

Once upon a time there was a widow who had two daughters. The elder was so much like her, both in looks and character, that whoever saw the daughter saw the mother.

Charles Perrault

A quiet mediocrity is still to be preferred before a troubled superfluity.

Tis a question whether adversity or prosperity makes the most poets.

George Farquhar

We are not masters of our own affections; our inclinations dailyalter: now we love pleasure, and anon we shall dote on business. Human frailty will have it so, and who can help it?

George Etherege

Thou that swing'st upon the waving haire Of some well-filled Oaten Beard, Drunke ev'ry night with a Delicious teare, Dropt thee from Heav'n, where now th'art! The joys of Earth and Ayre are thine intire, That with thy feet and wings dost hop and flye; And when thy Poppy workes, thou dost retire To thy carv'd Acorn-bed to lye.

Richard Lovelace

By the power of eloquence old truth receives a new habit; though its essence be the same, yet its visage is so altered that it may currently pass and be accepted as a novelty.

Michael Wigglesworth

Some write their wrongs in marble: he more just,
Stoop'd down serene and wrote them in the dust,—
Trod under foot, the sport of every wind,
Swept from the earth and blotted from his mind.
There, secret in the grave, he bade them lie,
And grieved they could not 'scape the Almighty eye.

The picture, placed the busts between,
Adds to the thought much strength:
Wisdom and Wit are little seen,
But Folly's at full length.

Julio, in those libraries of death
study the bodies of those bones—an assured evil;
and learn from those characters
that they form the abecedary of death!

Hernando Domínguez Camargo

The bloody Wolf, the Wolf does not pursue;
The Boar, though fierce, his Tusk will not embrue
In his own kind, Bears, not on Bears do prey:
Thou art then, Man, more savage far than they.

Hark! She is called, the parting hour is come. Take thy farewell, poor world! Heaven must go home....

Richard Crashaw

E'er time and place were, time and place were not, When Primitive Nothing something straight begot, Then all proceeded from the great united — What.

John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester

What though the sea be calm? trust to the shore, Ships have been drown'd, where late they danc'd before.

The reconciling grave swallows distinction first, that made us foes; there all lie down in peace together.

Thomas Southerne

How many brave Men, courageous Women, and innocent Children did I see butcher'd, to do God good Service?... I went to the Irish Rebellion, where I saw more than three hundred thousand Souls murder'd in cold Blood.crying, Nits will become Lice, destroy Root and Branch: with a thousand other Barbarities, too tedious as well as too dreadful to repeat, beside what has been transacted abroad.

As the Creator and Preserver of men, Thou art gloriously manifest; butO! how much more gloriously art Thou revealed as reconciling ungrateful enemies to Thyself by the blood of Thy eternal Son. Here Thy beneficence displays its brightest splendor; here Thou dost fully display Thy most magnificent titles; THE LORD, THE LORD GOD, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness. How unsearchable are Thy ways, and Thy paths past finding out!

There is more evil in a drop of sin than in a sea of affliction.

The cry of the whole people is loud for bread; God knows what will be the consequence; many are starved, and I am afraid many more will be.

Comment in 1720

When I behold the heavens as in their prime,
And then the earth (though old) still clad in green,
The stones and trees, insensible of time,
Nor age nor wrinkle on their front are seen

Anne Bradstreet

He that will live in this World, must be endu'd with the three rare Qualities of Dissimulation, Equivocation, and mental Reservation.

The radiant sun sends from above ten thousand blessings down, nor is he set so high for show alone.

George Granville, 1st Baron Lansdowne

When Spring came on with fresh delight
To cheer the soul, and charm the sight
While every easy breezes, softer rain
And warmer suns salute the plain

The sea never resting, but perpetually winning land in one place and losing in another, doth show what may be done in length of time by a continual operation, not subject unto ceasing or intermission.

Gabriel Plattes