Top William Davenant Quotes

William Davenant Biography

Sir William Davenant (baptised 3 March 1606 – 7 April 1668), also spelled D'Avenant, was an English poet and playwright.

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William Davenant Quotes

Honor is the moral conscience of the great.

Army, Conscience, Honor, Moral

Calamity is the perfect glass wherein we truly see and know ourselves.

Calamity, Glass, Glasses, Know, Perfect

It is the wit and policy of sin to hate those we have abused.

Abuse, Abused, Hate, Sin

What one cannot, another can.

Ability

Had laws not been, we never had been blam'd; For not to know we sinn'd is innocence.

Innocence, Know, Knows, Law, Laws

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.

Feet, Heroic, Liberty, Lose, Take

All jealousy must be strangled in its birth.

Birth, Gratitude, Jealousy, Strangled

All slander must still be strangled in its birth, or time will soon conspire to make it strong enough to overcome the truth.

Birth, Enough, Make, Overcoming, Slander, Strong

The assembled souls of all that men held wise.

Assembled, Men, Soul, Souls, Wise

Think not ambition wise, because 't is brave.

Ambition, Brave, Think, Thinking, Wise

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.

Dive, Jeweller, Men, Nice, Sight, Skilful

Ambition is the mind's immodesty.

Ambition, Immodesty, Mind

Praise and Prayer PRAISE is devotion fit for mighty minds, The diff'ring world's agreeing sacrifice; Where Heaven divided faiths united finds: But Prayer in various discord upward flies. For Prayer the ocean is where diversely Men steer their course, each to a sev'ral coast; Where all our interests so discordant be That half beg winds by which the rest are lost. By Penitence when we ourselves forsake, 'Tis but in wise design on piteous Heaven; In Praise we nobly give what God may take, And are, without a beggar's blush, forgiven.

Devotion, Fit, Ocean, Piteous, Prayer, Wise

Anger is blood, poured and perplexed into froth; but malice is the wisdom of our wrath.

Anger, Blood, Malice, Perplexed, Wrath

Be not with honor's gilded baits beguil'd, Nor think ambition wise, because 'tis brave; For though we like it, as a forward child, 'Tis so unsound, her cradle is the grave.

Ambition, Baits, Children, Like, Think, Wise

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!

Dawn, Eye, Ploughman, Shakes, Stars, Wings

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.

Ambition, Doe, Fears, Increase, Tolls, Unless

Actions rare and sudden do commonly proceed from fierce necessity, of else from some oblique design, which is ashamed to show itself in the public road.

Action, Design, Fierce, Proceed, Rare

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.

Dark, Death, Expect, Grave, Valiant, Wise

How beautiful is sorrow when it is dressed by virgin innocence! it makes felicity in others seem deformed.

Beautiful, Felicity, Grief, Sorrow, Virgin

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William Davenant Biography

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