If men will impartially, and not asquint, look toward the offices and function of a poet, they will easily conclude to themselves the impossibility of any man's being a good poet without first being a good man.

It is as great a spite to be praised in the wrong place, and by a wrong person, as can be done to a noble nature.

To speak and to speak well are two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks.

Of all wild beasts preserve me from a tyrant; and of all tame a flatterer.

All concord's born of contraries.

Come, my Celia, let us prove, While we can, the sports of love, Time will not be ours for ever, He, at length, our good will sever; Spend not then his gifts in vain: Suns that set may rise again; But if once we lose this light, 'Tis with us perpetual night. Why should we defer our joys? Fame and rumour are but toys.

Indeed there's a woundy luck in names.