Top 53 Quotes & Sayings by George Chapman

Flatterers look like friends, as wolves like dogs.

Pure innovation is more gross than error.

They're only truly great who are truly good.

Young men think old men are fools; but old men know young men are fools.

Let no man under value the price of a virtuous woman's counsel.

We inherit nothing truly, but what our actions make us worthy of.

He that shuns trifles must shun the world.

Promise is most given when the least is said.

Extremes, though contrary, have the like effects. Extreme heat kills, and so extreme cold: extreme love breeds satiety, and so extreme hatred; and too violent rigor tempts chastity, as does too much license.

Who to himself is law, no law doth need, offends no law, and is a king indeed.

I am ashamed the law is such an ass.

And let a scholar all earth's volumes carry, he will be but a walking dictionary: a mere articulate clock.

Advice is seldom welcome; and those who want it the most always like it the least.

Ignorance is the mother of admiration.

An Englishman, being flattered, is a lamb; threatened, a lion.

Be free all worthy spirits, and stretch yourselves, for greatness and for height.

For one heat, all know, doth drive out another, One passion doth expel another still.

Black is a pearl in a woman's eye.

I will neither yield to the song of the siren nor the voice of the hyena, the tears of the crocodile nor the howling of the wolf.

The incompetent quickly throws himself into another impressive enterprise in order to escape his responsibility from previous disaster.

An ill weed grows apace.

And for the authentical truth of either person or actions, who (worth the respecting) will expect it in a poem, whose subject is not truth, but things like truth? Poor envious souls they are that cavil at truth's want in these natural fictions; material instruction, elegant and sententious excitation to virtue, and deflection from her contrary, being the soul, limbs, and limits of an authentical tragedy.

He is at no end of his actions blestWhose ends will make him greatest, and not best.

Keep thy shop, and thy shop will keep thee. Light gains make heavy purses. 'Tis good to be merry and wise.

Fate's such a shrewish thing.

Blood, though it sleep a time, yet never dies. The gods on murtherers fix revengeful eyes.

Danger, the spur of all great minds.

Who to himself is law no law doth need; offends none and is king indeed.

Fortune, the great commandress of the world, Hath divers ways to advance her followers: To some she gives honor without deserving; To other some, deserving without honor; Some wit, some wealth,--and some, wit without wealth; Some wealth without wit; some nor wit nor wealth.

Give me a spirit that on this life's rough sea Loves t'have his sails filled with a lusty wind, Even till his sail-yards tremble, his masts crack, And his ship run on her side so low That she drinks water, and her keel plows air.

Man is a torch borne in the wind; a dream But of a shadow, summed with all his substance.

Enough 's as good as a feast.

Tis immortality to die aspiring.

Let no man value at a little price A virtuous woman's counsel; her winged spirit Is feathered often times with heavenly words, And, like her beauty, ravishing and pure.

Fair words never hurt the tongue.

There is a nick in Fortune's restless wheel For each man's good.

Who hath no faith to man, to God hath none.

Make ducks and drakes with shillings.

Perfect happiness, by princes sought, Is not with birth born, nor exchequers bought.

Virtue is not malicious; wrong done her Is righted even when men grant they err.

Each natural agent works but to this end,- To render that it works on like itself.

Poetry, unlike oratory, should not aim at clarity... but be dense with meaning, 'something to be chewed and digested'.

News as wholesome as the morning air.

Love is Natures second sun.

Let pride go afore, shame will follow after.

As night the life-inclining stars best shows, So lives obscure the starriest souls disclose.

The best way to accomplish something is to just do it, and then find the courage afterward.

Tis immortality to die aspiring, As if a man were taken quick to heaven.

Words writ in waters.

I pray, what flowers are these? The pansy this, O, that's for lover's thoughts.

Archers ever Have two strings to bow; and shall great Cupid (Archer of archers both in men and women), Be worse provided than a common archer?

Young men think old men are fools, but old men know young men are fools.

So our lives In acts exemplary, not only win Ourselves good names, but doth to others give Matter for virtuous deeds, by which we live.