If there be no great love in the beginning, yet heaven may decrease it upon better acquaintance, when we are married and have more occasion to know one another: I hope, upon familiarity will grow more contempt.

Lord Bacon told Sir Edward Coke when he was boasting, The less you speak of your greatness, the more shall I think of it.

If I were a woman I would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased me, complexions that liked me and breaths that I defied not

Life is as tedious as twice-told tale, vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.

Wolves and bears, they say, casting their savagery aside, have done like offices of pity.

The tempter or the tempted, who sins most?

I had rather be a kitten and cry mew Than one of these same metre ballet-mongers.