John Webster (c.1580–c.1625) was an English dramatist and poet. He wrote several plays in collaboration with other dramatists, but his fame rests chiefly on the revenge tragedies The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi.
Nothing definite is known of Webster’s life. Born the son of a merchant tailor in London, he may have been an actor. His works suggest that he was a learned man, but nothing is known of his education.
In Lady Jane and The Two Harpies (both lost,) Webster was the collaborator of Thomas Dekker, Michael Drayton, Henry Chettle, and others. Webster’s other collaborations with Dekker include the Famous History of Sir Thomas Wyatt (1607,) Westward Hoe (1604,) and Northward Hoe (1605.)
Webster is best known for his two tragedies, The White Devil (1612) and The Duchess of Malfi (1623,) which explore the theme of revenge using offensive language. Founded on Italian novella, they are passionate dramas of love and political intrigue in Renaissance Italy.
Webster’s subsequent dramatic work was sporadic and unremarkable.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by John Webster
How tedious is a guilty conscience.
—John Webster
Topics: Guilt, One liners
All things do help the unhappy man to fall.
—John Webster
Topics: Unhappiness, One liners
I do love these ancient ruins.—We never tread upon them but we set our foot upon some reverend history.
—John Webster
Whether we fall by ambition, blood, or lust, like diamonds we are cut with our own dust.
—John Webster
Topics: Ambition
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
Who fights with passions and overcomes, that man is armed with the best virtue—passive fortitude.
—John Webster
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
In all our quest of greatness, like wanton boys, whose pastime is their care, we follow after bubbles, blown in the air.
—John Webster
Let guilty men remember, their black deeds
Do lean on crutches made of slender reeds.
—John Webster
Topics: Evil, Guilt
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
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
‘Tis better to be fortunate than wise.
—John Webster
Topics: Luck
We are merely the stars tennis-balls, struck and bandied which way please them.
—John Webster
Gold that buys health can never be ill spent; nor hours laid out in harmless merriment.
—John Webster
Topics: Health
Prosperity doth bewitch men, seeming clear;
As seas do laugh, show white, when rocks are near.
—John Webster
Topics: Temptation
There is not in nature a thing that makes man so deformed, so beastly, as doth intemperate anger.
—John Webster
Topics: Anger
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
Heaven’s gates are not so highly arched as princes’ palaces; they that enter there must go upon their knees.
—John Webster
Topics: Humility
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
The weakest arm is strong enough, that strikes
With the sword of justice.
—John Webster
Topics: Justice
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Ben Jonson English Dramatist
John Gay English Poet, Dramatist
Francis Beaumont English Dramatist
Philip Massinger English Playwright
John Lyly English Dramatist, Author
W. S. Gilbert English Dramatist
William Wycherley English Dramatist
Arthur Helps English Dramatist
Arthur Wing Pinero English Playwright
Douglas William Jerrold English Dramatist