17th-century Author Quotes

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

Oh, the gallant fisher's life,
It is the best of any
'Tis full of pleasure, void of strife,
And 'tis beloved of many.

One reproaches a lover, but can one reproach a husband, when his only fault is that he no longer loves?

Madame de La Fayette
Madame de La Fayette
Foolish eyes, thy streams give over,
Wine, not water, binds the lover:
At the table then be shining,
Gay coquette, and all designing.

What is it our mammas bewitches
To plague us little boys with breeches?

Though we all day with care our work attend,
Such is our fate, we know not when 'twill end.
When evening's come, you homeward take your way;
We, till our work is done, are forced to stay.

In loss itself I find assuagement: having lost the treasure, I've nothing to fear.

Juana Inés de la Cruz
Juana Inés de la Cruz
We are not indeed obliged always to speak what we think, but we must always think what we speak.

Anne-Thérèse de Marguenat de Courcelles
Anne-Thérèse de Marguenat de Courcelles
It is not very difficult, after all that has been said, to answer the famous question, whether there are true atheists in the world. We can answer with a short sentence: There are some who are so by their heart; but there cannot be any who are so by their spirit.

Jakob Abbadie
Jakob Abbadie
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.

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.

A year or two to come seems long, but twenty past as nothing.

Rachel Russell, Lady Russell
Rachel Russell, Lady Russell
Youth is the time to study wisdom; old age is the time to practice it.

The axe is laid to the root of the tree.... I will hew it down. And as I live, I will plague your Honor, Pomp, Greatness, Superfluity, and confound it into parity, equality, community.

… far greater Advantages would come to pass amongst Christians, if they would cease from Contention, Oppression, and (what tends and disposes them thereunto,) the killing of Beasts, and eating their Flesh and Blood; and in a short time humane murthers, and devilish feuds and cruelties among each other, would abate, and perhaps scarce have a being amongst them.

Darkness, thou first great parent of us all,
Thou art our great original!

Fear, guilt, despair, and moon-struck phrensy rush
On voluntary death: the wise and brave,
When the fierce storms of fortune round 'em roar,
Combat the billows with redoubled force:
Then, if they perish ere the port is gain'd,
They sink with decent pride; and from the deep
Honour retrieves them, bright as rising stars.

No one is satisfied with his fortune,
nor dissatisfied with his intellect

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.

Anne Killigrew
Anne Killigrew
Art is something which lies in the slender margin between the real and the unreal.

In this world, you must be a bit too kind in order to be kind enough.

Pierre de Marivaux
Pierre de Marivaux
Still-born Silence! thou that art
Floodgate of the deeper heart.

God's image man doth bear
Without it he is but a human shape,
Worse than the Devil.

Whoever has but a moment to live has nothing more to hide.

A Man that wants Money thinks none can be unhappy that has it...

Susannah Centlivre
Susannah Centlivre