Whether we fall by ambition, blood, or lust, like diamonds we are cut with our own dust.
—John Webster
Topics: Ambition
Prosperity doth bewitch men, seeming clear;
As seas do laugh, show white, when rocks are near.
—John Webster
Topics: Temptation
We are merely the stars tennis-balls, struck and bandied which way please them.
—John Webster
Topics: Worth
Who fights with passions and overcomes, that man is armed with the best virtue—passive fortitude.
—John Webster
DUCHESS: Diamonds are of most value,
They say, that have past through most jewellers’ hands.
FERDINAND: Whores, by that rule, are precious.
—John Webster
Topics: Value
In all our quest of greatness, like wanton boys, whose pastime is their care, we follow after bubbles, blown in the air.
—John Webster
Fortune’s a right whore. If she give ought, she deals it in small parcels, that she may take away all at one swoop.
—John Webster
Topics: Luck
Let guilty men remember, their black deeds
Do lean on crutches made of slender reeds.
—John Webster
Topics: Evil, Guilt
The weakest arm is strong enough, that strikes
With the sword of justice.
—John Webster
Topics: Justice
Heaven’s gates are not so highly arched as princes’ palaces; they that enter there must go upon their knees.
—John Webster
Topics: Humility
Is not old wine wholesomest, old pippins toothsomest, old wood burn brightest, old linen wash whitest? Old soldiers, sweethearts, are surest, and old lovers are soundest.
—John Webster
Topics: Wine
How tedious is a guilty conscience.
—John Webster
Topics: One liners, Guilt
All things do help the unhappy man to fall.
—John Webster
Topics: Unhappiness, One liners
Glories, like glow-worms afar off, shine bright, but looked at near have neither heat nor light.
—John Webster
The chiefest action for a man of spirit is never to be out of action; the soul was never put into the body to stand still.
—John Webster
Topics: Industry
Vain ambition of kings
Who seek by trophies and dead things
To leave a living name behind,
And weave but nets to catch the wind.
—John Webster
Topics: Fame
There is not in nature a thing that makes man so deformed, so beastly, as doth intemperate anger.
—John Webster
Topics: Anger
Gold that buys health can never be ill spent; nor hours laid out in harmless merriment.
—John Webster
Topics: Health
I do love these ancient ruins.—We never tread upon them but we set our foot upon some reverend history.
—John Webster
When I go to hell, I mean to carry a bribe: for look you, good gifts evermore make way for the worst persons.
—John Webster
Topics: Hell
‘Tis better to be fortunate than wise.
—John Webster
Topics: Luck, Fortune
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Ben Jonson English Dramatist
- John Gay English Poet, Dramatist
- Francis Beaumont English Playwright
- Philip Massinger English Playwright
- John Lyly English Dramatist, Author
- W. S. Gilbert English Dramatist
- William Wycherley English Dramatist
- Arthur Helps British Essayist, Historian
- Arthur Wing Pinero English Playwright
- Douglas William Jerrold English Dramatist
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