Quotes from Thomas Nashe

The Sun shineth as well on the good as the bad: God from on high beholdeth all the workers of iniquity, as well as the upright of heart.

New herrings, new!' we must cry, every time we make ourselves public, or else we shall be christened with a hundred new titles of idiotism.

Brightness falls from the air;Queens have died young and fair;Dust hath closed Helen's eye.I am sick, I must die.Lord, have mercy on us!

Our learning ought to be our lives' amendment, and the fruits of our private study ought to appear in our public behavior.

From winter, plague and pestilence, good Lord, deliver us!

A traveler must have the back of an ass to bear all, a tongue like the tail of a dog to flatter all, the mouth of a hog to eat what is set before him, the ear of a merchant to hear all and say nothing.

Grosse plodders they were all, that had some learning and reading, but no wit to make use of it.

What is Logicke but the highe waie to wrangling, contayning in it a world of bibble babble. Need we anie of your Greek, Latine, Hebrue, or anie such gibbrage, when we have the word of God in English?

N]othing is more odious to the auditor, than the artless tongue of a tedious dolt, which dulls the delight of hearing, and slacketh the desire of remembering.

I'll be your daily Orator to pray that that pure sanguine complexion of yours may never be famished with pot-lucke, that you may taste till your last gasp, and live to see the confusion of both your special enemies, Small Beer and Grammar rules.

Had I a ropemaker to my father, and someone had cast it in my teeth, I would forthwith have written in praise of ropemakers, and proved it by sound sillogistry to be one of the seven liberal sciences.

There is not a room in anie mans house, but is pestred and close packed with a camp royeale of divels.

Why shoulde I goe gadding and fisgigging after firking flantado Amphibologies, wit is wit, and good will is good will.

Beauty is but a flower Which wrinkles will devour; Brightness falls from the air; Queens have died young and fair; Dust hath closed Helen's eye. I am sick, I must die. Strength stoops unto the grave, Worms feed on Hector brave; Swords may not fight with fate, Earth still holds open her gate. "Come, come!" the bells do cry. I am sick, I must die. 'A Litany in Time of Plague

His soul hath left his body; for why, it is flying after these airy incorporate courtly promises, and glittering painted allurements, which when they vanish to nothing, it likewise vanished with them

where by the Orator of the vniuersitie, whose pickerdeuant was very plentifully besprinkled with rose water, a verie learned or rather ruthfull Oration was deliuered

If of a number of shreds of his sentences he can shape an oration, from all the world hee carries it awaie, although in truth it be no more than a fooles coat of many coulours. No inuention or matter haue they of theyr owne, but tacke vp a stile of his stale galimafries. The leaden headed Germanes first began this, and we Englishmen haue surfetted of their absurd imitation. I pittie Nizolius that had nothing to doe, but picke thrids ends out of an olde ouerworne garment.

He would praise her beyond the moon and stars, and that so sweetly and ravishingly, as I persuade myself he was more in love with his own curious forming fancy than her face; and truth is, many become passionate lovers only to win praise to their wits.

Some courtiers to wearie out time woulde tell vs further tales of Cornelius Agrippa, and how when sir Thomas Moore our countrieman was there, hee shewed him the whole destruction of Troy in a dreame.

Amor est mihi causa sequendi - I serve because I love.

A dream is nothing else but a bubbling scum or froth of the fancy, which the day hath left undigested; or an after-feast made of the fragments of idle imaginations

Dreaming is no other than groaning, while sleep our surgeon hath us in cure

A dream is nothing else but the echo of our conceits in the day

What is Logicke but the highe waie to wrangling, contayning in it a world of bible babble. Need we anie of your Greek, Latine, Hebrue, or anie such gibbrage, when we have the word of God in English?