Edmund Spenser Quotes

137 Sourced Quotes

Such is the power of love in gentle mind,
That it can alter all the course of kind.

Edmund Spenser
Why then should witless man so much misween, That nothing is, but that which he hath seene? What if in the Moones faire shining speheare? What if in every other starre unseene, Of other worldes he happily should heare? That nothing is, but that which he hath seene?

Edmund Spenser
The Patron of true Holinesse,
Foule Errour doth defeate:
Hypocrisie him to entrappe,
Doth to his home entreate.

Edmund Spenser
Joy may you have and gentle hearts content
Of your loves couplement:
And let faire Venus, that is Queene of love,
With her heart-quelling Sonne upon you smile

Edmund Spenser
And through the hall there walked to and fro A jolly yeoman, marshall of the same, Whose name was Appetite; he did bestow Both guestes and meate, whenever in they came, And knew them how to order without blame.

Edmund Spenser
My Love is like to ice, and I to fire:
How comes it then that this her cold so great
Is not dissolved through my so hot desire,
But harder grows the more I her entreat?

Edmund Spenser
Through knowledge we behold the world's creation, How in his cradle first he fostered was; And judge of Nature's cunning operation, How things she formed of a formless mass.

Edmund Spenser
Laws ought to be fashioned unto the manners and conditions of the people whom they are meant to benefit, and not imposed upon them according to the simple rule of right.

Edmund Spenser
All that in this world is great or gay,
Doth, as a vapor, vanish and decay.

Edmund Spenser
Sweet is the rose, but grows upon a brere;
Sweet is the juniper, but sharp his bough;
Sweet is the eglantine, but stiketh nere;
Sweet is the firbloome, but its braunches rough;
Sweet is the cypress, but its rynd is tough;
Sweet is the nut, but bitter is his pill;
Sweet is the broome-flowre, but yet sowre enough;
And sweet is moly, but his root is ill.

Edmund Spenser
From good to bad, and from bad to worse,
From worse unto that is worst of all,
And then return to his former fall.

Edmund Spenser
Those that were up themselves, kept others low;
Those that were low themselves, held others hard;
He suffered them to ryse or greater grow;
But every one did strive his fellow down to throw.

Edmund Spenser
Make haste therefore, sweet love, whilst it is prime,
For none can call again the passed time.

Edmund Spenser
Like to an almond tree mounted hye On top of greene Selinis all alone, With blossoms brave bedecked daintily; Whose tender locks do tremble every one, At everie little breath, that under heaven is blowne.

Edmund Spenser
At last, the golden orientall gate Of greatest heaven gan to open fayre, And Phoebus, fresh as brydegrome to his mate, Came dauncing forth, shaking his dewie hayre; And hurls his glistring beams through gloomy ayre.

Edmund Spenser
But angels come to lead frail minds to rest in chaste desires, on heavenly beauty bound. You frame my thoughts, and fashion me within; you stop my tongue, and teach my heart to speak.

Edmund Spenser
So Orpheus did for his owne bride,
So I unto my selfe alone will sing,
The woods shall to me answer and my Eccho ring.

Edmund Spenser