Category: Lit & Crit

“Wise men, folly-fallen, quite taint their wit.” – William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night; or, What You Will 3.1

“Foolery, sir, does walk about the orb like the sun; it shines everywhere.” – William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night; or, What You Will 3.1

“They that dally nicely with words may quickly make them wanton.” – William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night; or, What You Will 3.1

“Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.” – William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night; or, What You Will 2.5

“What is love? ’tis not hereafter; present mirth hath present laughter; what’s to come is still unsure: in delay there lies no plenty; then come kiss me, sweet and twenty, youth’s a stuff will not endure.” – William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night; or, What You Will 2.3

“Those wits that think they have thee, do very oft prove fools; and I, that am sure I lack thee, may pass for a wise man. For what says Quinapalus? Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.” – William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night; or, What You Will 1.5

“Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage.” – William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night; or, What You Will 1.5

“God give them wisdom that have it; and those that are fools, let them use their talents.” – William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night; or, What You Will 1.5

“Care’s an enemy to life.” – William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night; or, What You Will 1.3

“What great ones do, the less will prattle of.” – William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night; or, What You Will 1.2

“O spirit of love, how quick and fresh art thou!” – William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night; Or, What You Will 1.1

“If music be the food of love, play on.” – William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night; or, What You Will 1.1

“The equity of the law is superior to the letter, the letter being subordinate and subject thereto. And look how much the letter transgresseth the equity, even so much it is unequal, of no validity and force.” – Richard Overton, “An Appeal from the Commons to the Free People” (in A. S. P. Woodhouse, Puritanism & Liberty)

“Necessity is a law above all laws. And this principle conveyeth and issueth forth authority and power, both to general and particular cases, even to the taking up of unusual and unexemplary courses for public and particular deliverances.” – Richard Overton, “An Appeal from the Commons to the Free People” (in A. S. P. Woodhouse, Puritanism & Liberty)

“Nothing which is against reason is lawful, reason being the very life of the law of our land; so that should the law be taken away from its original reason and end, it would be made a shell without a kernel, a shadow without substance, a carcass without life, which presently turns to putrefaction. And as reason only gives it a legal being and life, so it only makes it authoritative and binding. If this be not granted, lust, will, pride (and what the devil and corruption will) may be a law. For if right reason be not the only being and bounder of the law over the corrupt nature of man (that what is rational, the which injustice and tyranny cannot be, may only and at all times be legal, and what is legal, to be simply and purely rational, the which mercy and justice must be whensoever, wheresoever, and by whomsoever it be), all would fall into confusion, disorder, madness, and cruelty; and so magistracy would cease, and be converted into inhumanity and tyranny.” – Richard Overton, “An Appeal from the Commons to the Free People” (in A. S. P. Woodhouse, Puritanism & Liberty)

“Reason hath no precedent; for reason is the fountain of all just precedents. Therefore where that is, there is a sufficient and justifiable precedent. And if this principle must be granted of, and obeyed by all (as by no rational man can be denied), then the act of appeal in this nature, if grounded upon right reason, is justifiable and warranted, even by that which gives an equitable authority, life, and being, to all just laws, precedents, and forms of government whatsoever. For reason is their very life and spirit, whereby they are all made lawful and warrantable both for settlement, administration, and obedience; which is the highest kind of justification and authority for human actions, that can be, for greater is that which gives being and justifieth than that which receiveth and is justified. All forms of laws and governments may fall and pass away, but right reason (the fountain of all justice and mercy to the creature) shall and will endure for ever. It is that by which in all our actions we must stand or fall, be justified or condemned; for neither morality nor divinity amongst men can or may transgress the limits of right reason. For whatsoever is unreasonable cannot be justly termed moral or divine, and right reason is only commensurable and discernible by the rule of merciful justice and just mercy. It is gradual in its quantity, but one in its quality.” – Richard Overton, “An Appeal from the Commons to the Free People” (in A. S. P. Woodhouse, Puritanism & Liberty)

“Instead of resentment, or thinking that you can lay the blame on anyone but yourselves, know that to be free is the same as to be pious, to be wise, to be temperate and just, to be frugal with your own goods, and abstinent from another’s, and, lastly, to be magnanimous and brave; so to be the opposite of all these is the same as to be a slave. You, therefore, who wish to remain free, either instantly be wise, or as soon as possible cease to be fools; if you think slavery an intolerable evil, learn obedience to right reason and the rule of yourselves; and finally bid adieu to your dissensions, your jealousies, your superstitions, your outrages, your rapine, your lusts. Unless you will spare no pains to effect this, you must be judged, by God, man, and your very deliverers, unfit to be entrusted with the possession of liberty and the administration of the government.” – John Milton, “Defensio Secunda” (in A. S. P. Woodhouse, Puritanism & Liberty)

“Permit the free discussion of truth without any hazard to the author, or any subjection to the caprice of an individual, which is the best way to make truth flourish and knowledge abound.” – John Milton, “Defensio Secunda” (in A. S. P. Woodhouse, Puritanism & Liberty)

“Colonel Hall, his regimental headquarters group, and the men of 1/8 had spent the night at the line of departure, waiting in vain for orders to land on Betio. Although division had issued such an order, on the afternoon of D-Day, the message had not reached the regimental commander. Finally, at 0200 on the morning of 21 November [1943], Hall was contacted and told to report the position of 1/8 and the condition of its men. He replied that his Marines, in boats near the control vessel, were ‘resting easy,’ a surprisingly cheerful description of men that had spent over 12 hours in bobbing landing craft.” – Henry I. Shaw, Jr., Bernard C. Nalty, and Edwin T. Turnbladh, Central Pacific Drive, History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II, Volume III, Part II, “The Gilberts Operation”

“When religious men break out of the way of righteousness and truth, with the renitency and obmurmuration of their judgments and consciences, it is a sign that their judgments and consciences are yet at liberty and in condition to reduce them; but when these are confederate with their lust, there is little hope of their repentance.” – John Goodwin, “Right and Might Well Met” (in A. S. P. Woodhouse, Puritanism & Liberty)

“According to the notion of that maxim in natural philosophy, that the corruption of the best is worst, so are the miscarriages and errors of the best men of worst consequence in many cases. The digressions of men religious are many times worse than the thorough discourses of other men. When conscience and concupiscence meet (as oft they do in religious men), the conjunction is very fiery.” – John Goodwin, “Right and Might Well Met” (in A. S. P. Woodhouse, Puritanism & Liberty)

“Do you ever think of yourself as actually dead, lying in a box with a lid on it?” – Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (emphasis in original)

“To be taken in hand and led, like being a child again, even without the innocence, a child—it’s like being given a prize, an extra slice of childhood when you least expect it.” – Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead

“Your smallest action sets off another somewhere else, and is set off by it. Keep an eye open, an ear cocked. Tread warily, follow instructions.” – Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead

“The only beginning is birth and the only end is death—if you can’t count on that, what can you count on?” – Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead

“All your life you live so close to truth, it becomes a permanent blur in the corner of your eye, and when something nudges it into outline it is like being ambushed by a grotesque.” – Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead

“Let all that preach or print affix their names that we may know from whom. The contrary is a kind of unwarrantable modesty at the best. If it be truth they write, why do they not own it? If untruth, why do they write? Some such must either suppress themselves for shame or fear, and they that dare not own what they do, they suspect the magistrate or themselves.” – John Saltmarsh, “Smoke in the Temple” (in A. S. P. Woodhouse, Puritanism & Liberty)

“It is not easy by the light of nature to determine more than that there is a God. The sun may be that God. The moon may be that God. To frame a right conception or notion of the First Being, wherein all other things had their being, is not possible by the light of nature alone. Indeed, if a man consider there is a will of the Supreme Cause, it is an hard thing for him by the light of nature to conceive how there can be any sin committed. And therefore the magistrate cannot easily determine what sins are against the light of nature, and what not.” – Sir John Wildman, “Whitehall Debates” (in A. S. P. Woodhouse, Puritanism & Liberty)

“A man’s life’s no more than to say One.” – William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark 5.2

“’Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes between the pass and fell incensed points of mighty opposites.” – William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark 5.2