Philip Sidney quotes:

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It is the nature of the strong heart, that like the palm tree it strives ever upwards when it is most burdened.
The ingredients of health and long life, are great temperance, open air, easy labor, and little care.
Plato found fault that the poets of his time filled the world with wrong opinions of the gods, making light tales of that unspotted essence, and therefore would not have the youth depraved with such opinions.
If you have so earth-creeping a mind that it cannot lift itself up to look to the sky of poetry... thus much curse I must send you, in the behalf of all poets, that while you live, you live in love, and never get favour for lacking skill of a sonnet; and, when you die, your memory die from the earth for want of an epitaph.
A true knight is fuller of bravery in the midst, than in the beginning of danger.
Alexander received more bravery of mind by the pattern of Achilles, than by hearing the definition of fortitude.
The only disadvantage of an honest heart is credulity.
Poesy must not be drawn by the ears: it must be gently led, or rather, it must lead, which was partly the cause that made the ancient learned affirm it was a divine, and no human skill, since all other knowledges lie ready for any that have strength of wit; a poet no industry can make, if his own genius be not carried into it.
It is great happiness to be praised of them who are most praiseworthy.
As the fertilest ground, must be manured, so must the highest flying wit have a Daedalus to guide him.
**Did you realize how much a kiss says, Philip???** Oh My Angel I doooo....A KISS is the beginning of, middle to, and end of most things I love about life....
Whoever gossips to you will gossip about you.
Come Sleep! Oh Sleep, the certain knot of peace, the baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe, the poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release, the indifferent judge between the high and low.
Fool," said my muse to me. "Look in thy heart and write.
My true love hath my heart, and I have his
The day seems long, but night is odious; no sleep, but dreams; no dreams but visions strange.
Indeed, the Roman laws allowed no person to be carried to the wars but he that was in the soldiers' roll.
O you virtuous owle, The wise Minerva's only fowle.
Every base occupation makes one sharp in its practice, and dull in every other.
When it shall please God to bring thee to man's estate, use great providence and circumspection in choosing thy wife. For from thence will spring all thy future good or evil; and it is an action of life, like unto a stratagem of war; wherein a man can err but once!
In the clear mind of virtue treason can find no hiding-place.
Like the air-invested heron, great persons should conduct themselves; and the higher they be, the less they should show.
Since bodily strength is but a servant to the mind, it were very barbarous and preposterous that force should be made judge over reason.
Courage ought to be guided by skill, and skill armed by courage. Neither should hardiness darken wit, nor wit cool hardiness. Be valiant as men despising death, but confident as unwonted to be overcome.
In forming a judgment, lay your hearts void of foretaken opinions; else, whatsoever is done or said, will be measured by a wrong rule; like them who have jaundice, to whom everything appears yellow.
My true-love hath my heart, and I have his, By just exchange, one for the other given; I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss, There never was a better bargain driven.
They are never alone that are accompanied with noble thoughts.
To be ambitious of true honor and of the real glory and perfection of our nature is the very principle and incentive of virtue; but to be ambitious of titles, place, ceremonial respects, and civil pageantry, is as vain and little as the things are which we court
They love indeed who quake to say they love.
My true-love hath my heart and I have his, By just exchange one for the other given: I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss; There never was a bargain better driven.
Take thou of me, sweet pillowes, sweetest bed; A chamber deafe of noise, and blind of light, A rosie garland and a weary hed.
...scoffing cometh not of wisdom...
...music, I say, the most divine striker of the senses...
Happiness is a sunbeam, which may pass though a thousand bosoms without losing a particle of its original ray.
Laughter almost ever cometh of things most disproportioned to ourselves and nature: delight hath a joy in it either permanent or present; laughter hath only a scornful tickling.
Laws are not made like lime-twigs or nets, to catch everything that toucheth them; but rather like sea-marks, to guide from shipwreck the ignorant passenger.
Our erected wit maketh us to know what perfection is.
Either I will find a way, or I will make one.
...the poet, he nothing affirmeth, and therefore never lieth.
A brave captain is as a root, out of which, as branches, the courage of his soldiers doth spring.
A churlish courtesy rarely comes but either for gain or falsehood.
A dull head thinks of no better way to show himself wise, than by suspecting everything in his way.
A fair woman shall not only command without authority but persuade without speaking.
A just cause and a zealous defender make an imperious resolution cut off the tediousness of cautious discussions.
A noble cause doth ease much a grievous case.
A noble heart, like the sun, showeth its greatest countenance in its lowest estate.
A popular license is indeed the many-headed tyrant.
All is but lip-wisdom which wants experience.
Ambition thinks no face so beautiful as that which looks from under a crown.
Ambition, like love, can abide no lingering; and ever urgeth on his own successes, hating nothing but what may stop them.
And thou my minde aspire to higher things; Grow rich in that which never taketh rust.
Anger, the Stoics said, was a short madness.
As in labor, the more one doth exercise, the more one is enabled to do, strength growing upon work; so with the use of suffering, men's minds get the habit of suffering, and all fears and terrors are not to them but as a summons to battle, whereof they know beforehand they shall come off victorious.
As the love of the heavens makes us heavenly, the love of virtue virtuous, so doth the love of the world make one become worldly.
As well the soldier dieth who standeth still as he that gives the bravest onset.
Blasphemous words betray the vain foolishness of the speaker.
But words came halting forth, wanting Invention's stay; Invention, Nature's child, fled stepdame Study's blows; And others' feet still seemed but strangers in my way. Thus, great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes, Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite: "Fool," said my Muse to me, "look in thy heart, and write.
Commonly they must use their feet for defense whose only weapon is their tongue.
Confidence in one's self is the chief nurse of magnanimity, which confidence, notwithstanding, doth not leave the care of necessary furniture for it; and therefore, of all the Grecians, Homer doth ever make Achilles the best armed.
Contentions for trifles can get but a trifling victory.
Courage without discipline is nearer beastliness than manhood.
Cupid makes it his sport to pull the warrior's plum.
Doing good is the only certainly happy action of a man's life.
Every present occasion will catch the senses of the vain man; and with that bridle and saddle you may ride him.
Fear is far more painful to cowardice than death to true courage.
Fear is the underminer of all determinations; and necessity, the victorious rebel of all laws.
Fearfulness, contrary to all other vices, maketh a man think the better of another, the worse of himself.
For as much as to understand and to be mighty are great qualities, the higher that they be, they are so much the less to be esteemed if goodness also abound not in the possessor.
For the uttering sweetly and properly the conceit of the mind, English hath it equally with any other tongue in the world.
Fortify courage with the true rampart of patience.
Friendship is made fast by interwoven benefits.
God has appointed us captains of this our bodily fort, which, without treason to that majesty, are never to be delivered over till they are demanded.
Gold can gild a rotten stick, and dirt sully an ingot.
Great captains do never use long orations when it comes to the point of execution.
Great is not great to the greater.
He travels safe and not unpleasantly who is guarded by poverty and guided by love.
He whom passion rules, is bent to meet his death.
High erected thoughts seated in the heart of courtesy.
High honor is not only gotten and born by pain and danger, but must be nursed by the like, else it vanisheth as soon as it appears to the world.
Honor, thou strong idol of man's mind.
Hope itself is a pain, while it is overmatched by fear.
How violently do rumors blow the sails of popular judgments! How few there be that can discern between truth and truth-likeness, between shows and substance!
I am no herald to inquire into men's pedigree; it sufficeth me if I know their virtues.
I seek no better warrant than my own, conscience.
I willingly confess that it likes me better when I find virtue in a fair lodging than when I am bound to seek it in an ill-favored creature.
If any sensual weakness arise, we are to yield all our sound forces to the overthrowing of so unnatural a rebellion; wherein how can we want courage, since we are to deal against so feeble an adversary, that in itself is nothing but weakness? Nay, we are to resolve that if reason direct it, we must do it, and if we must do it, we will do it; for to say "I cannot" is childish, and "I will not" is womanish.
If you neglect your work, you will dislike it; if you do it well, you will enjoy it
In shame there is no comfort but to be beyond all bounds of shame.
In the performance of a good action, we not only benefit ourselves, but we confer a blessing upon others.
In the truly great, virtue governs with the sceptre of knowledge.
In victory, the hero seeks the glory, not the prey.
Indeed, the Roman laws allowed no person to be carried to the wars but he that was in the soldiers roll.
Inquisitiveness is an uncomely guest.
It is a lively spark of nobleness to descend in most favour to one when he is lowest in affliction
It is against womanhood to be forward in their own wishes.
It is cruelty in war that buyeth conquest.
It is hard, but it is excellent, to find the right knowledge of when correction is necessary and when grace doth most avail.
It is manifest that all government of action is to be gotten by knowledge, and knowledge best, by gathering many knowledges, which is reading.
It is no less vain to wish death than it is cowardly to fear it.
It is not good to wake a sleeping lion.
It many times falls out that we deem ourselves much deceived in others because we first deceived ourselves.
Liking is not always the child of beauty; but whatsoever is liked, to the liker is beautiful.
Love, one time, layeth burdens; another time, giveth wings.
Lovely sweetness is the noblest power of woman, and is far fitter to prevail by parley than by battle.
Malice, in its false witness, promotes its tale with so cunning a confusion, so mingles truths with falsehoods, surmises with certainties, causes of no moment with matters capital, that the accused can absolutely neither grant nor deny, plead innocen.
Many delight more in giving of presents than in paying their debts.
Men are almost always cruel in their neighbors' faults; and make others' overthrow the badge of their own ill-masked virtue.
Misery and misfortune is all one; and of misfortune fortune hath only the gift.
Much more may a judge overweigh himself in cruelty than in clemency.
My thoughts, imprisoned in my secret woes, with flamy breaths do issue oft in sound.
Nature never set forth the earth in so rich tapestry as divers poets have done; neither with pleasant rivers, fruitful trees, sweet-smelling flowers, nor whatsoever else may make the too-much-loved earth more lovely; her world is brazen, the poets only deliver a golden.
No decking sets forth anything so much as affection.
No is no negative in a woman's mouth.
Nothing has a letter effect upon children than praise.
O sweet woods, the delight of solitariness!
Often extraordinary excellence, not being rightly conceived, does rather offend than please.
Open suspecting of others comes of secretly condemning ourselves.
Our poor eyes were so enriched as to behold, and our low hearts so exalted as to love, a maid who is such, that as the greatest thing the world can show is her beauty, so the least thing that may be praised in her is her beauty.
Provision is the foundation of hospitality, and thrift the fuel of magnificence.
Reason cannot show itself more reasonable than to cease reasoning on things above reason.

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