17th-century Poet Quotes

John Milton
Jean de La Fontaine
Alexander Pope
Pedro Calderón de la Barca
Juana Inés de la Cruz
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester

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.

From marrying in haste, and repenting at leisure;
Not liking the person, yet liking his treasure:
Libera nos.

The best may slip, and the most cautious fall; He's more than mortal that ne'er err'd at all.

Youth is the time to study wisdom; old age is the time to practice it.

I once knew a man out of courtesy help a lame dog over a stile, and he for requital bit his fingers.

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

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
How sweet is harmless solitude!
What can its joys control?
Tumults and noise may not intrude,
To interrupt the soul.

When the tempest rages,
In the Rock of Ages
I will safely hide;
Though the earth be shaking,
And all hearts be quaking,
Christ is at my side.

Great minds against themselves conspire, and shun the cure they most desire.

Then we shall rise
And view ourselves with clearer eyes
In that calm region where no night
Can hide us from each other's sight.

Henry King
Henry King
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!

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

Am I new minted by thy Stamp indeed?
Mine Eyes are dim; I cannot clearly see.
Be thou my Spectacles that I may read
Thine Image and Inscription stampt on mee.

Oh! make me Thine forever;
And should I fainting be,
Lord! let me never, never,
Outlive my love to Thee!

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

For the future I cease, Death approaches with little delay,
Since the dragons of Laune and Lane and Lee are destroyed;
I'll follow the heroes far from the light of day,
The princes my ancestors followed before Christ died.

Speak no evil of women; I tell thee the meanest of them deserves respect; for of women do we not all come?

Pedro Calderón de la Barca
Pedro Calderón de la Barca
So some unlucky Engineer Does all the fit Materials compound, That are in Art or Nature found; Will glorious Fire-Works prepare.

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!

The best Medicine: Joy and Temperance and Repose
Slam the door on the doctor's nose.

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
The universe and its beings are a complementarity of empty infinity, intimate interrelationships, and total uniqueness of each and every being.

To make a fortune some assistance from fate is essential. Ability alone is insufficient.

And an ingenious Spaniard says, that "rivers and the inhabitants of the watery element were made for wise men to contemplate and fools to pass by without consideration."

Charles Cotton
Charles Cotton