Edmund Waller Quotes

49 Sourced Quotes

Seeming devotion does but gild a knave,
That's neither faithful, honest, just, nor brave;
But where religion does with virtue join,
It makes a hero like an angel shine.

Edmund Waller
Lampoons, like squibs, may make a present blaze; but time and thunder pay respect to bays.

Edmund Waller
Under the tropic is our language spoke,
And part of Flanders hath received our yoke.

Edmund Waller
Poets lose half the praise they should have got,
Could it be known what they discreetly blot.

Edmund Waller
Could we forbear dispute, and practice love,
We should agree as angels do above.
Where love presides, not vice alone does find
No entrance there, hut virtues stay behind:
Both faith, and hope, and all the meaner train
Of mortal virtues, at the door remain.
Love only enters as a native there,
For born in heav'n, it does but sojourn here.

Edmund Waller
So all we know Of what they do above Is that they happy are, and that they love.

Edmund Waller
Guarded with ships, and all our sea our own.

Edmund Waller
Music so softens and disarms the mind That not an arrow does resistance find.

Edmund Waller
Poets that lasting marble seek
Must carve in Latin or in Greek.

Edmund Waller
So was the huntsman by the bear oppressed,
Whose hide he sold—before he caught the beast!

Edmund Waller
Thrice happy is that humble pair, Beneath the level of all care! Over whose heads those arrows fly, Of sad distrust and jealousy.

Edmund Waller
In such green palaces the first kings reign'd,
Slept in their shades, and angels entertain'd;
With such old counsellors they did advise,
And by frequenting sacred groves grew wise.

Edmund Waller
Why came I so untimely forth
Into a world which, wanting thee,
Could entertain us with no worth,
Or shadow of felicity?

Edmund Waller
The Muses' friend, Tea, does our fancy aid,
Repress the vapours which the head invade,
And keeps the palace of the soul serene.

Edmund Waller
For all we know
Of what the blessed do above
Is, that they sing, and that they love.

Edmund Waller
He that alone would wise and mighty be,
Commands that others love as well as he.
Love as he lov'd! — How can we soar so high?—
He can add wings when he commands to fly.
Nor should we be with this command dismay'd;
He that examples gives will give his aid:
For he took flesh, that where his precepts fall,
His practice, as a pattern, may prevail.

Edmund Waller
The chain that's fixed to the throne of Jove, On which the fabric of our world depends, One link dissolved, the whole creation ends.

Edmund Waller
Others may use the ocean as their road,
Only the English make it their abode.

Edmund Waller
To love is to believe, to hope, to know;
'Tis an essay, a taste of Heaven below!

Edmund Waller
That eagle's fate and mine are one,
Which on the shaft that made him die
Espied a feather of his own,
Wherewith he wont to soar so high.

Edmund Waller
How small a part of time they share
That are so wondrous sweet and fair!

Edmund Waller
To man, that was in th' evening made,
Stars gave the first delight;
Admiring, in the gloomy shade,
Those little drops of light.

Edmund Waller
So must the writer, whose productions should Take with the vulgar, be of vulgar mould.

Edmund Waller
For all we know Of what the blessed do above Is, that they sing, and that they love. While I listen to thy Voice.

Edmund Waller