Philip Massinger (1583–1640) was an English dramatist. He was renowned for his gifts of comedy, plot structure, social realism, and satirical power. He composed 55 plays (22 of which are lost,) many in partnerships with other dramatists, particularly John Fletcher.
Specifies about Massinger’s personal life are lost. Born in Salisbury, Wiltshire, Massinger attended Oxford’s Merton College but left without a degree. He became a playwright, first in collaboration with the theatrical financer Philip Henslowe and later with Fletcher and others. Messenger’s collaboration with Fletcher produced 16 plays, including Custom of the Country (1619) and The Beggar’s Bush (1622.)
Massinger also collaborated with Thomas Dekker on The Virgin Martyr (1622) and Nathan Field on The Fatal Dowry (1632.) Massinger wrote the plays The Duke of Milan (1623,) The Great Duke of Florence (1627,) The Emperor of the East (1631,) and The Unnatural Combat (1639.)
The City Madam (1632) and A New Way to Pay Old Debts (1633) are Massinger’s best-known comedies. The latter was a mainstay of the English stage in the late 18th and early 19th centuries and has had modern revivals. Its central character, Sir Giles Over-reach, became one of the famous villains on English and American stages during the 19th century.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Philip Massinger
I know the sum of all that makes a man—a just man—happy, consists in the well choosing of his wife; and then well to discharge it, does require equality of years, of birth, of fortune.
—Philip Massinger
Topics: Marriage
The soul is strong that trusts in goodness.
—Philip Massinger
Topics: Goodness
Quiet night, that brings rest to the laborer, is the outlaw’s day, in which he rises early to do wrong, and when his work is ended, dares not sleep.
—Philip Massinger
Topics: Night
He doth allot for every exercise a several hour; for sloth, the nurse of vices and rust of action is a stranger to him.
—Philip Massinger
Valor employ’d in an ill quarrel, turns to cowardice; and virtue then puts on foul vice’s vizor.
—Philip Massinger
Without good company all dainties lose their true relish, and like painted grapes, are only seen, not tasted.
—Philip Massinger
Topics: Society
Happy those who knowing they are subject to uncertain changes, are prepared and armed for either fortune; a rare principle, and with much labor learned in wisdom’s school.
—Philip Massinger
Malice scorned, puts out itself; out argued, gives a kind of credit to a false accusation.
—Philip Massinger
Immature poets imitate, mature poets steal.
—Philip Massinger
Topics: Poetry, Poets
There’s no want of meat, sir; portly and curious viands are prepared to please all kinds of appetites.
—Philip Massinger
For any man to match above his rank, is but to sell his liberty.
—Philip Massinger
Topics: Marriage
The good need fear no law; it is his safety, and the bad man’s awe.
—Philip Massinger
O summer friendship, whose flattering leaves, shadowed us in our prosperity, With the least gust, drop off in the autumn of adversity.
—Philip Massinger
Topics: Friendship
I have play’d the fool, the gross fool, to believe the bosom of a friend would hold a secret mine own could not contain.
—Philip Massinger
Topics: Secrecy
Out, you impostors; quack-salving, cheating mountebanks; your skill is to make sound men sick, and sick men to kill.
—Philip Massinger
Like virgin parchment, capable of any inscription.
—Philip Massinger
Topics: Youth
As the index tells the contents of the book, and directs to the particular chapter, even so do the outward habit and garments, in man or woman, give us a taste of the spirit, and point to the internal quality of the soul; and there cannot be a more evident and gross manifestation of poor, degenerate, dung-hilly blood and breeding, than a rude, unpolished, disordered, and slovenly outside.
—Philip Massinger
He that doth public good for multitudes, finds few are truly grateful.
—Philip Massinger
Topics: Ingratitude
Petitions not sweetened with gold, are but unsavory, and often refused; or if received, are pocketed, not read.
—Philip Massinger
Cheerful looks make every dish a feast; and it is that which crowns a welcome.
—Philip Massinger
We have not an hour of life in which our pleasures relish not some pain, our sours, some sweetness.
—Philip Massinger
Topics: Pleasure
How sweetly sounds the voice of a good woman! When it speaks it ravishes all senses.
—Philip Massinger
The over curious are not over wise.
—Philip Massinger
Patience, the beggar’s virtue, shall find no harbor here.
—Philip Massinger
Topics: Patience
He who would govern others should first be master of himself.
—Philip Massinger
Topics: Self-Control
Be wise; soar not too high to fall, but stoop to rise.
—Philip Massinger
Topics: Humility, Wisdom
To doubt is worse than to have lost; And to despair is but to antedate those miseries that must fall on us.
—Philip Massinger
Topics: Doubt
True dignity is never gained by place, and never lost when honors are withdrawn.
—Philip Massinger
Topics: Dignity
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