“Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly.” – William Shakespeare, As You Like It 2.7
“Blow, blow, thou winter wind, thou art not so unkind as man’s ingratitude; thy tooth is not so keen.” – William Shakespeare, As You Like It 2.7
“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players; they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages. At first the infant, mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms; then the whining school-boy, with his satchel and shining morning face, creeping like snail unwillingly to school. And then the lover, sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier, full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard, jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, seeking the bubble reputation, even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice, in fair round belly with good capon lin’d, with eyes severe and beard of formal cut, full of wise saws and modern instances; and so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon, with spectacles on nose and pouch on side; his youthful hose, well sav’d, a world too wide for his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, turning again toward childish treble, pipes and whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, that ends this strange eventful history, is second childishness and mere oblivion; sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.” – William Shakespeare, As You Like It 2.7
“He that a fool doth very wisely hit doth very foolishly, although he smart, not to seem senseless of the bob; if not, the wise man’s folly is anatomiz’d even by the squandering glances of the fool.” – William Shakespeare, As You Like It 2.7
“Call me not fool till heaven hath sent me fortune.” – William Shakespeare, As You Like It 2.7
“Where civil liberty is entire, it includes liberty of conscience; where liberty of conscience is entire it includes civil liberty.” – James Harrington, Political Aphorisms
“The fact that there is a Puritan doctrine of liberty, whatever its limitations, is immensely important. Repeatedly Puritanism brings the question of liberty up for discussion, and this is a major service. While operating within the prescribed bounds of ‘Christian’ liberty, Puritanism, further, does a great deal to foster the notion of individuality, and an individualistic outlook, with results partially, though not wholly, favourable to democracy.” – A. S. P. Woodhouse, Puritanism & Liberty
“Nothing stokes human creativity like the desire to kill a motherfucker you don’t like.” – The Fat Electrician, “America’s Secret Weapon That Won WW2 – VT Fuze”
“Men in all ages have, through their supine carelessness, degenerated from the righteousness of their first principles.” – The Worshipful Company of Saddlers (quoted by A. S. P. Woodhouse in Puritanism & Liberty)
“The function of the state is to preserve peace and order and to guarantee the freedom of the individual; a wise government will be more willing to repeal old laws than to enact new ones, for the intention of laws is to check the commission of vice, but liberty is the best school of virtue.” – A. S. P. Woodhouse, Puritanism & Liberty
“Human nature being what it was, a measure of democracy was the best protection against tyranny.” – A. S. P. Woodhouse, Puritanism & Liberty
“Objectives in practical politics are always limited and generally selfish.” – A. S. P. Woodhouse, Puritanism & Liberty
“We that are true lovers run into strange capers; but as all is mortal in nature, so is all nature in love mortal in folly.” – William Shakespeare, As You Like It 2.4
“To some kind of men their graces serve them but as enemies.” – William Shakespeare, As You Like It 2.3
“How full of briers is this working-day world!” – William Shakespeare, As You Like It 1.3
“The true temper and proper employment of a Christian is always to be working like the sea, and purging ignorance out of his understanding and exchanging notions and apprehensions imperfect for more perfect, and forgetting things behind to press forward.” – Henry Robinson, Liberty and Conscience
“The strong Puritan impulse to action results in the constant intrusion of religion into the secular sphere in an effort to enforce the standards of the holy community upon the world, and in a marked tendency to press on, in the name of that ideal, from the quest for religious liberty to the quest for political power.” – A. S. P. Woodhouse, Puritanism & Liberty
“Its zeal for reformation results in part from the fact that the Puritan temper is in general active rather than contemplative. Though its official creed repudiates works as a means of salvation, it emphasizes them as a sign; and the Puritan has an overwhelming sense of one’s responsibility to use every effort for advancing the kingdom of God.” – A. S. P. Woodhouse, Puritanism & Liberty (emphases in original)
“The more the pity that fools may not speak wisely what wise men do foolishly.” – William Shakespeare, As You Like It 1.2
“There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries.” – William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar 4.3
“When love begins to sicken and decay, it useth an enforced ceremony.” – William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar 4.2
“The Puritan turned to the theological aspects of a question as naturally as the modern man turns to the economic; and his first instinct was to seek guidance within the covers of his Bible—or was it rather to seek there justification for a policy already determined on other, on political and economic, grounds?” – A. S. P. Woodhouse, Puritanism & Liberty
“Had not God given the Israelites kings, and whenever they could do so with impunity, had not that model people knocked them about?” – A. S. P. Woodhouse, Puritanism & Liberty
“The law taken abstract from its original reason and end is made a shell without a kernel, a shadow without a substance and a body without a soul. It is the execution of laws according to their equity and reason, which is the spirit that gives life to authority.” – John Lilburne, a/k/a Freeborn John (quoted by A. S. P. Woodhouse in Puritanism & Liberty)
“Cats are obligate carnivores, which means they have a limited ability to digest anything other than meat. Living in close quarters with an animal that might consider you dinner isn’t generally a recipe for success.” – Carrie Arnold, “Out of the Wild and Into Our Homes”
“Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once. Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, it seems to me most strange that men should fear; seeing that death, a necessary end, will come when it will come.” – William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar 2.1
“Between the acting of a dreadful thing and the first motion, all the interim is like a phantasma or a hideous dream: the genius and the mortal instruments are then in council; and the state of man, like to a little kingdom, suffers then the nature of an insurrection.” – William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar 2.1
“’Tis a common proof that lowliness is young ambition’s ladder, whereto the climber-upward turns his face; but when he once attains the utmost round, he then unto the ladder turns his back, looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees by which he did ascend.” – William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar 2.1
“The abuse of greatness is, when it disjoins remorse from power.” – William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar 2.1
“Every bondman in his own hand bears the power to cancel his captivity.” – William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar 1.3