William Davenant (D'Avenant) Quotes
How beautiful is sorrow when it is dressed by virgin innocence! it makes felicity in others seem deformed.
William Davenant
Quotes to Explore
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Aubade THE lark now leaves his wat'ry nest, And climbing shakes his dewy wings. He takes this window for the East, And to implore your light he sings- Awake, awake! the morn will never rise Till she can dress her beauty at your eyes. The merchant bows unto the seaman's star, The ploughman from the sun his season takes, But still the lover wonders what they are Who look for day before his mistress wakes. Awake, awake! break thro' your veils of lawn! Then draw your curtains, and begin the dawn!
William Davenant
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Since knowledge is but sorrow's spy, It is not safe to know.
William Davenant
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Small are the seeds fate does unheeded sow
Of slight beginnings to important ends.
William Davenant
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To a Mistress Dying Lover. YOUR beauty, ripe and calm and fresh As eastern summers are, Must now, forsaking time and flesh, Add light to some small star. Philosopher. Whilst she yet lives, were stars decay'd, Their light by hers relief might find; But Death will lead her to a shade Where Love is cold and Beauty blind. Lover. Lovers, whose priests all poets are, Think every mistress, when she dies, Is changed at least into a star: And who dares doubt the poet wise? Philosopher. But ask not bodies doom'd to die To what abode they go; Since Knowledge is but Sorrow's spy, It is not safe to know.
William Davenant
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Faith lights us through the dark to Deity.
William Davenant
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All jealousy must be strangled in its birth.
William Davenant
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Anger is blood, poured and perplexed into froth; but malice is the wisdom of our wrath.
William Davenant
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Generous souls
Are still most subject to credulity.
William Davenant
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To be rich be diligent; move on
Like heav'ns great movers that enrich the earth;
Whose moment's sloth would show the world undone;
And make the spring straight bury all her birth.
Rich are the diligent who can command
Time--nature's stock.
William Davenant
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Go! dive into the Southern Sea, and when
Th'ast found, to trouble the nice sight of men,
A swelling pearl, and such whose single worth
Boasts all the wonders which the seas bring forth,
Give it Endymion's love, whose ev'ry tear
Would more enrich the skilful jeweller.
William Davenant
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Fame, like the river, is narrowest where it is bred, and broadest afar off.
William Davenant
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How much pleasure they lose (and even the pleasures of heroic poesy are not unprofitable) who take away the liberty of a poet, and fetter his feet in the shackles of a historian.
William Davenant
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What one cannot, another can.
William Davenant
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O harmless Death! whom still the valiant brave,
The wise expect, the sorrowful invite,
And all the good embrace, who know the grave
A short dark passage to eternal light.
William Davenant
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All slander must still be strangled in its birth, or time will soon conspire to make it strong enough to overcome the truth.
William Davenant
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Calamity is the perfect glass wherein we truly see and know ourselves.
William Davenant
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For in a dearth of comforts, we art taught
To be contented with the least.
William Davenant
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Ambition's monstrous stomach does increase
By eating, and it fears to starve, unless
It still may feed, and all it sees devour;
Ambition is not tir'd with toll nor cloy'd with power.
William Davenant
