For you may palm upon us new for old:All, as they say, that glitters, is not gold.

Better to hunt in fields, for health unbought,Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught.The wise, for cure, on exercise depend;God never made his work for man to mend.

Dreams are but interludes, which fancy makes; When monarch reason sleeps, this mimic wakes.

Must I at length the Sword of Justice draw?Oh curst Effects of necessary Law!How ill my Fear they by my Mercy scan,Beware the Fury of a Patient Man.

We first make our habits, then our habits make us.

…So when the last and dreadful hourThis crumbling pageant shall devour,The trumpet shall be heard on high,The dead shall live, the living die,And Music shall untune the sky

Thus like a Captive in an Isle confin’d,Man walks at large, a Pris’ner of the Mind

Beware the fury of a patient man.

If others in the same Glass better see ‘Tis for Themselves they look, but not for me: For my Salvation must its Doom receive Not from what others, but what I believe.

Great wits are to madness near alliedAnd thin partitions do their bounds divide.

None are so busy as the fool and knave.

Those who write ill, and they who ne’er durst write,Turn critics out of mere revenge and spite.

When I consider life, ‘t is all a cheat.Yet fool’d with hope, men favour the deceit;Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay.To-morrow ‘s falser than the former day;Lies worse, and while it says we shall...

Whatever is, is in its causes just;But purblind manSees but a part o’ th’ chain; the nearest link;His eyes not carrying to that equal beamThat poises all above.

To die is landing on some distant shore.

I am sore wounded but not slainI will lay me down and bleed a whileAnd then rise up to fight again

Tis Fate that flings the dice,And as she flingsOf kings makes peasants,And of peasants kings.

Better shun the bait, than struggle in the snare.

But far more numerous was the herd of such,Who think too little, and who talk too much.

All things are subject to decay and when fate summons, monarchs must obey.

Let Fortune empty her whole quiver on me, I have a soul that, like an ample shield, Can take in all, and verge enough for more; Fate was not mine, nor am I Fate’s: Souls...

Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow; He who would search for pearls, must dive below.

When I consider Life, ’tis all a cheat;Yet, fooled with hope, men favour the deceit;Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay:To-morrow’s falser than the former day;Lies worse; and while it says, we shall be blestWith...

Welcome, thou kind deceiver!Thou best of thieves: who, with an easy key,Dost open life, and, unperceived by us,Even steal us from ourselves.

Whence but from heaven, could men unskilled in arts,In several ages born, in several parts,Weave such agreeing truths? Or how, or why, Should all conspire to cheat us with a lie?