Works

To safeguard man from wrongs, there nothing must
Be truer to him than a wise distrust.
And to thyself be best this sentence known:
Hear all men speak, but credit few or none.

When a daffodil I see,
Hanging down his head towards me,
Guess I may what I must be:
First, I shall decline my head;
Secondly, I shall be dead;
Lastly, safely buried.

Let not that day God's friends and servants scare;
The bench is then their place, and not the bar.

Milk still your fountains and your springs: for why?
The more th'are drawn, the less they will grow dry.

At draw-gloves we'll play,
And prithee let's lay
A wager, and let it be this:
Who first to the sum
Of twenty shall come,
Shall have for his winning a kiss.

Here we are all, by day; by night we're hurl'd
By dreams, each one into a several world.

Good princes must be pray'd for; for the bad
They must be borne with, and in rev'rence had.
Do they first pill thee, next pluck off thy skin?
Good children kiss the rods that punish sin....

Why wore th' Egyptians jewels in the ear?
But for to teach us, all the grace is there,
When we obey, by acting what we hear.

God gives to none so absolute an ease
As not to know or feel some grievances.

Empires of kings are now, and ever were,
As Sallust saith, coincident to fear.

No trust to metals nor to marbles, when
These have their fate and wear away as men;
Times, titles, trophies may be lost and spent,
But virtue rears the eternal monument....

O years! and age! farewell:
Behold I go,
Where I do know
Infinity to dwell.

And these mine eyes shall see
All times, how they
Are lost i' th' sea
Of vast eternity:
...

Begin with Jove; then is the work half done,
And runs most smoothly when 'tis well begun.
Jove's is the first and last: the morn's his due,
The midst is thine; but Jove's the evening too;...

By time and counsel do the best we can,
Th' event is never in the power of man.

Evil no nature hath; the loss of good
Is that which gives to sin a livelihood.

Examples lead us, and we likely see;
Such as the prince is, will his people be.

Excess is sluttish: keep the mean; for why?
Virtue's clean conclave is sobriety.

Live with a thrifty, not a needy fate;
Small shots paid often waste a vast estate.

The factions of the great ones call,
To side with them, the commons all.

Tears quickly dry, griefs will in time decay:
A clear will come after a cloudy day.