Quotes from Philip Sidney

He cometh unto you with a tale which holdeth children from play, and old men from the chimney corner.

"Fool!" said my muse to me, "look in thy heart, and write."

High-erected thoughts seated in the heart of courtesy.

With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the skies!How silently, and with how wan a face!

I never heard the old song of Percy and Douglas that I found not my heart moved more than with a trumpet.

Ring out your bells! Let mourning shows be spread!For Love is dead.

Thy necessity is yet greater than mine.

It is great happiness to be praised of them who are most praiseworthy.

Have I caught my heav'nly jewel.

The ingredients of health and long life, are great temperance, open air, easy labor, and little care.

Leave me, O Love, which reachest but to dust,And thou, my mind, aspire to higher things;Grow rich in that which never taketh rust:Whatever fades, but fading pleasure brings.

My true-love hath my heart, and I have his,By just exchange one for the other given:I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss,There never was a better bargain driven.

My dear, my better half.

Comedy is an imitation of the common errors of our life.

Fearfulness, contrary to all other vices, maketh a man think the better of another, the worse of himself.

Open suspecting of others comes of secretly condemning ourselves.

Thus, with child to speak, and helpless in my throes, biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite: Fool! said my muse to me, look in thy heart, and write.

To be ambitious of true honor, of the true glory and perfection of our natures, is the very principle and incentive of virtue.

Either I will find a way, or I will make one.

I am not I; pity the tale of me.

With a sword thou mayest kill thy father, and with a sword thou mayest defend thy prince and country.

So, then, the best of the historian is subject to the poet; for whatsoever action or faction, whatsoever counsel, policy, or war-stratagem the historian is bound to recite, that may the poet, if he list, with his imitation make his own, beautifying it both for further teaching and more delighting, as it pleaseth him; having all, from Dante's Heaven to his Hell, under the authority of his pen.

Anger, the Stoics said, was a short madness.

Leave me, O Love, which reachest but to dust, And thou, my mind, aspire to higher things! Grow rich in that which never taketh rust: Whatever fades, but fading pleasure brings. Draw in thy beams, and humble all thy might To that sweet yoke where lasting freedoms be; Which breaks the clouds, and opens forth the light, That doth both shine, and give us sight to see.