Edmund Spenser Quotes

137 Sourced Quotes

Good is no good, but if it be spend,
God giveth good for none other end.

Edmund Spenser
For easy things, that may be got at will, Most sorts of men do set but little store.

Edmund Spenser
Yet neither spinnes, nor cards, ne cares nor fretts, But to her mother Nature all her care she letts.

Edmund Spenser
What man so wise, what earthly wit so ware,
As to descry the crafty cunning train,
By which deceit doth mask in visor fair,
And cast her colours dyed deep in grain,
To seem like truth, whose shape she well can feign,
And fitting gestures to her purpose frame,
The guiltless man with guile to entertain?

Edmund Spenser
Good Hobbinoll, what garres thee greete?
What! hath some wolfe thy tender lambes ytorne?
Or is thy bagpype broke, that soundes so sweete?
Or art thou of thy loved lasse forlorne?

Edmund Spenser
He oft finds med'cine, who his griefe imparts; But double griefs afflict concealing harts, As raging flames who striveth to supresse.

Edmund Spenser
Working her formall rowmes in wexen frame, The grieslie Tode-stoole growne there mought I se And loather Paddocks lording on the same.

Edmund Spenser
Lastly came Winter cloathed all in frize, Chattering his teeth for cold that did him chill; Whilst on his hoary beard his breath did freese, And the dull drops, that from his purpled bill As from a limebeck did adown distill: In his right hand a tipped staffe he held, With which his feeble steps he stayed still; For he was faint with cold, and weak with eld; That scarce his loosed limbes he hable was to weld.

Edmund Spenser
Go little book, thy self present, As child whose parent is unkent: To him that is the president Of noblesse and of chivalry, And if that Envy bark at thee, As sure it will, for succour flee.

Edmund Spenser
For next to Death is Sleepe to be compared;
Therefore his house is unto his annext:
Here Sleepe, ther Richesse, and hel-gate them both betwext.

Edmund Spenser
For that which all men then did virtue call, Is now called vice; and that which vice was hight, Is now hight virtue, and so used of all: Right now is wrong, and wrong that was is right

Edmund Spenser
Man's wretched state, That floures so fresh at morne, and fades at evening late.

Edmund Spenser
There learned arts do flourish in great honour
And poets's wits are had in peerless price;
Religion hath lay power, to rest upon her,
Advancing virtue, and suppressing vice.
For end all good, all grace there freely grows,
Had people grace it gratefully to use:
For God His gifts there plenteously bestows,
But graceless men them greatly do abuse.

Edmund Spenser
For take thy ballaunce if thou be so wise, And weigh the winds that under heaven doth blow; Or weigh the light that in the east doth rise; Or weigh the thought that from man's mind doth flow.

Edmund Spenser
The paynefull smith, with force of fervent heat, The hardest yron soone doth mollify, That with his heavy sledge he can it beat, And fashion it to what he it list apply.

Edmund Spenser
In vain he seeketh others to suppress, Who hath not learn'd himself first to subdue.

Edmund Spenser
For if good were not praised more than ill,
None would chuse goodness of his own free will.

Edmund Spenser
Foul jealousy! that turnest love divine to joyless dread, and makest the loving heart with hateful thoughts to languish and to pine.

Edmund Spenser
Like as the culver on the bared bough
Sits mourning for the absence of her mate

Edmund Spenser
The merry cuckow, messenger of Spring, His trumpet shrill hath thrice already sounded.

Edmund Spenser
A sweet attractive kind of grace,
A full assurance given by looks,
Continual comfort in a face,
The lineaments of Gospel books--
I trow that countenance cannot lye
Whose thoughts are legible in the eye.

Edmund Spenser
Waking love suffereth no sleepe:
Say, that raging love dothe appall the weake stomacke:
Say, that lamenting love marreth the musicall.

Edmund Spenser
Unhappie Verse, the witnesse of my unhappie state,
Make thy selfe fluttring wings of thy fast flying
Thought

Edmund Spenser
How many great ones may remember'd be,
Which in their days most famously did flourish,
Of whom no word we hear, nor sign now see,
But as things wip'd out with a sponge do perish,
Because the living cared not to cherish
No gentle wits, through pride or covetize,
Which might their names forever memorize!

Edmund Spenser
It often falls, in course of common life, that right long time is overborne of wrong.

Edmund Spenser
Death is an equall doome
To good and bad, the common In of rest.

Edmund Spenser
All sorts of flowers the which on earth do spring
In goodly colours gloriously arrayed;
Go to my love, where she is careless laid

Edmund Spenser
Like as a fearful partridge, that is fled From the sharpe hauke which her attacked neare, And falls to ground to seeke for succor theare, Whereas the hungry spaniells she does spye, With greedy jaws her ready for to teare.

Edmund Spenser
And thus of all my harvest-hope I have Nought reaped but a weedye crop of care.

Edmund Spenser
So let us love, dear Love, like as we ought;
Love is the lesson which the Lord us taught.

Edmund Spenser