No place, no company, no age, no person is temptation-free; let no man boast that he was never tempted, let him not be high-minded, but fear, for he may be surprised in that very instance wherein he boasteth that he was never tempted at all.
—Edmund Spenser
Topics: Temptation
A man may as easily fill a chest with grace as the heart with gold.—The air fills not the body, neither does money the covetous heart of man.
—Edmund Spenser
In vain he seeketh others to suppress who hath not learned himself first to subdue.
—Edmund Spenser
Topics: Self-Discovery
Ill can he rule the great that cannot reach the small.
—Edmund Spenser
Topics: Power
What more felicity can fall to man than to enjoy delight with liberty?
—Edmund Spenser
Who will not mercy unto others show, how can he mercy ever hope to have?
—Edmund Spenser
Topics: Mercy
Yet is there one more cursed than they all, that canker-worm, that monster, jealousy, which eats the heart and feeds upon the gall, turning all love’s delight to misery, through fear of losing his felicity.
—Edmund Spenser
Topics: Jealousy
Under thy mantle black, there hidden lie, light-shunning theft, and traitorous intent, abhorred bloodshed, and vile felony, shameful deceit, and danger imminent, foul horror, and eke hellish dreriment.
—Edmund Spenser
Topics: Night
He whose days in wilful woe are worn, the grace of his Creator doth despise, that will not use his gifts for thankless niggardise.
—Edmund Spenser
Topics: Sadness
It is the mind that maketh good or ill, that maketh wretch or happy, rich or poor.
—Edmund Spenser
Topics: Mind, The Mind
The ever-whirling wheele of change, to which all mortal things doth sway.
—Edmund Spenser
Beauty is the bait which with delight allures man to enlarge his kind.
—Edmund Spenser
Topics: Beauty
A stern discipline pervades all nature, which is a little cruel that it may be very kind.
—Edmund Spenser
Topics: Discipline
Much more gracious and profitable is doctrine by ensample, than by rule.
—Edmund Spenser
Topics: Example
Base-minded they that lack intelligence; for God himself for wisdom most is praised, and men to God thereby are highest raised.
—Edmund Spenser
Topics: Knowledge
But Justice, though her dome doom she doe prolong,
Yet at the last she will her owne cause right.
—Edmund Spenser
Sluggish idleness—the nurse of sin.
—Edmund Spenser
Topics: Idleness
Lovely concord and most sacred peace doth nourish virtue, and fast friendship breed.
—Edmund Spenser
Topics: Peace
The noblest mind the best contentent has.
—Edmund Spenser
Topics: Contentment
Pour out the wine without restraint or stay, Pour not by cups, but by the bellyful, pour out to all that wull.
—Edmund Spenser
Topics: Wine
O sacred hunger of ambitious minds!
—Edmund Spenser
The troubled blood through his pale face was seen to come and go with tidings from his heart, as it a running messenger had been.
—Edmund Spenser
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- William Wordsworth English Poet
- Geoffrey Chaucer English Poet
- John Dryden English Poet
- John Webster English Dramatist
- John Masefield English Poet
- Ben Jonson English Dramatist
- Percy Bysshe Shelley English Poet
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning English Poet
- John Milton English Poet
- Christina Rossetti English Poet
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