John Webster - The White Devil (1612)

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And of all axioms this shall win the prize,—
'Tis better to be fortunate than wise.

John Webster
There's nothing of so infinite vexation
As man's own thoughts.

John Webster
I had a limb corrupted to an ulcer, But I have cut it off; and now I'll go Weeping to heaven on crutches.

John Webster
Are you grown an atheist? Will you turn your body, Which is the goodly palace of the soul, To the soul's slaughter-house? Oh, the curse' d devil, Which doth present us with all other sins Thrice-candied o'er.

John Webster
DUCHESS: Diamonds are of most value,
They say, that have past through most jewellers' hands.
FERDINAND: Whores, by that rule, are precious.

John Webster
That friend a great man's ruin strongly checks, who rails into his belief all his defects.

John Webster
In all our quest of greatness, like wanton boys, whose pastime is their care, we follow after bubbles, blown in the air.

John Webster
That realm is never long in quiet, where the ruler is a soldier.

John Webster
'T is just like a summer bird-cage in a garden,—the birds that are without despair to get in, and the birds that are within despair and are in a consumption for fear they shall never get out.

John Webster
Leave thy idle questions;
I am i'th'way to study a long silence,
To prate were idle.

John Webster
Call for the robin-red-breast and the wren,
Since o'er shady groves they hover,
And with leaves and flowers do cover
The friendless bodies of unburied men.

John Webster
My soul, like to a ship in a black storm,
Is driven, I know not whither.

John Webster
But keep the wolf far thence, that's foe to men,
For with his nails he'll dig them up again.

John Webster
Condemn you me for that the duke did love me?
So may you blame some fair and crystal river
For that some melancholic, distracted man
Hath drown'd himself in 't.

John Webster
Call for the robin redbreast and the wren,
Since o'er shady groves they hover,
And with leaves and flowers do cover
The friendless bodies of unburied men.

John Webster
'Tis just like a summer birdcage in a garden; the birds that are without despair to get in, and the birds that are within despair, and are in a consumption, for fear they shall never get out.

John Webster
I have caught
An everlasting cold; I have lost my voice
Most irrecoverably.

John Webster
Prosperity doth bewitch men, seeming clear;
But seas do laugh, show white, when rocks are near.

John Webster