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.

... the best pilots have need of mariners, besides sails, anchor and other tackle.

The world knows only two, that's Rome and I.

Men that talk of their own benefits are not believed to talk of them because they have done them, but to have done them because they might talk of them.

He who is taught only by himself has a fool for a master.

As it is a great point of art, when our matter requires it, to enlarge and veer out all sail, so to take it in and contract it is of no less praise when the argument doth ask it.

If you succeed not, cast not away the quills yet, nor scratch the wainscot, beat not the poor desk, but bring all to the forge and file again; turn it new.