16th century

The Prince · 1532

★ 7.9

My bounty is as boundless as the sea, My love as deep. The more I give to thee, The more I have, for both are infinite.

1597

★ 7.8

Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more, Men were deceivers ever, One foot in sea and one on shore, To one thing constant never.

Much Ado About Nothing · 1600

★ 7.8

Eat no onions nor garlic, for we are to utter sweet breath.

A Midsummer Night's Dream · 1599

★ 7.2

See what a ready tongue suspicion hath!

Finally we shall place the Sun himself at the center of the Universe. All this is suggested by the systematic procession of events and the harmony of the whole Universe, if we only face the facts, as they say, "with both eyes open."

Henry IV, Part 2 · 1597

★ 7.1

Scientific literature

Nicolaus Copernicus

On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres · 1543

★ 7.0

Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once.

Julius Caesar · 1599

★ 7.0

I am not in the roll of common men.

Henry IV, Part 1 · 1597

★ 7.0

There lives not three good men unhanged in England, and one of them is fat and grows old.

Happy is he who, like Ulysses, has made a glorious voyage.

Henry IV, Part 1 · 1597

★ 7.0

Poem

Joachim du Bellay

Les Regrets · 1558

★ 6.9

There is a tide in the affairs of men Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

Superstition, idolatry, and hypocrisy have ample wages, but truth goes a-begging.

Julius Caesar · 1599

★ 6.4

Love comforteth like sunshine after rain.

1569

★ 6.3

Poem · Narrative poem

Political literature · Philosophical literature

Venus and Adonis · 1593

★ 6.3

Whoever desires to found a state and give it laws, must start with assuming that all men are bad and ever ready to display their vicious nature, whenever they may find occasions for it.

Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has: it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but-more frequently than not-struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.

Discourses on Livy · 1531

★ 6.2

1569

★ 6.2

Kindness in women, not their beauteous looks, Shall win my love.

The Taming of the Shrew · 1594

★ 6.1

Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.

Much Ado About Nothing · 1600

★ 5.7

Good night, good night. Parting is such sweet sorrow That I shall say “Good night” till it be morrow.

1597

★ 5.6

Men at some time are masters of their fates. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings.

A mighty fortress is our God, A bulwark never failing. Our helper He amid the flood Of mortal ills prevailing.

Julius Caesar · 1599

★ 5.6

Hymn

A prince being thus obliged to know well how to act as a beast must imitate the fox and the lion, for the lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves.

A Mighty Fortress is Our God · 1529

★ 5.5

Treatise · Political literature · Philosophical literature

The Prince · 1532

★ 5.5

A jest's prosperity lies in the ear Of him that hears it, never in the tongue Of him that makes it.

Love's Labour's Lost · 1597

★ 5.5

O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name, Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.

1597

★ 5.5

How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

The Merchant of Venice · 1598

★ 5.5

His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day ere you find them, and when you have them, they are not worth the search.

The Merchant of Venice · 1598

★ 5.5

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interrèd with their bones.

Speak the truth and shame the Devil.

Julius Caesar · 1599

★ 5.5

Novel · Satirical fiction · Satire

Francois Rabelais

Gargantua and Pantagruel · 1564

★ 5.5

I find that the best goodness I have has some tincture of vice.

Extreme fear can neither fight nor fly.

Essays · 1580

★ 5.5

Poem · Narrative poem

The Rape of Lucrece · 1594

★ 5.5

He hath eaten me out of house and home.

Rome was not built in one day.

Henry IV, Part 2 · 1597

★ 5.5

Proverbs (Heywood) · 1580

★ 5.4

Looke ere ye leape.

Proverbs (Heywood) · 1580

★ 5.4

Haste maketh waste.

When the Sunne shineth make hay.

Proverbs (Heywood) · 1580

★ 5.4

Proverbs (Heywood) · 1580

★ 5.4

Truly man is a marvelously vain, diverse, and undulating object. It is hard to found any constant and uniform judgement on him.

Essays · 1580

★ 5.4

It happens as with the cages: the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of getting out.

They wonder much to hear that gold, which in itself is so useless a thing, should be everywhere so much esteemed, that even men for whom it was made, and by whom it has its value, should yet be thought of less value than it is.

Essays · 1580

★ 5.4

Satire · Political literature

Thomas More

Utopia · 1516

★ 5.3

Poem

And he that strives to touch the stars, Oft stumbles at a straw.

Edmund Spenser

1579

★ 5.3

And while I at length debate and beate the bush, There shall steppe in other men and catche the burdes.

Proverbs (Heywood) · 1580

★ 5.3

For truth itself does not have the privilege to be employed at any time and in every way; its use, noble as it is, has its circumscriptions and limits.

Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?

Essays · 1580

★ 5.3

Poem

Christopher Marlowe

Hero and Leander · 1593

★ 5.3

But miserable most, to love unloved? This you should pity rather than despise.

A Midsummer Night's Dream · 1599

★ 5.3

Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more.

Julius Caesar · 1599

★ 5.3

You and I are past our dancing days.

1597

★ 5.2

Things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour.

1595

★ 4.9

Was ever book containing such vile matter So fairly bound? O, that deceit should dwell In such a gorgeous palace!

The chief foundations of all states, new as well as old or composite, are good laws and good arms; and as there cannot be good laws where the state is not well armed, it follows that where they are well armed they have good laws.

1597

★ 4.8

Treatise · Political literature · Philosophical literature

To laugh is proper to man.

The Prince · 1532

★ 4.7

Novel · Satirical fiction · Satire

Francois Rabelais

Gargantua and Pantagruel · 1534

★ 4.7

The setting sun, and the music at the close, As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last, Writ in remembrance more than things long past.

1595

★ 4.7

True hope is swift, and flies with swallow's wings; Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings.

1597

★ 4.7

The brain may devise laws for the blood, but a hot temper leaps o'er a cold decree.

What can only be taught by the rod and with blows will not lead to much good; they will not remain pious any longer than the rod is behind them.

The Merchant of Venice · 1598

★ 4.7

Religious literature

The Large Catechism · 1529

★ 4.6

Let us give Nature a chance; she knows her business better than we do.

Essays · 1580

★ 4.6

Talkers are no good doers. Be assured We go to use our hands and not our tongues.

They have no lawyers among them, for they consider them as a sort of people whose profession it is to disguise matters.

1597

★ 4.6

Satire · Political literature

Thomas More

Utopia · 1516

★ 4.5

The mad mob does not ask how it could be better, only that it be different. And when it then becomes worse, it must change again. Thus they get bees for flies, and at last hornets for bees.

1526

★ 4.5

The easy, gentle and sloping path…is not the path of true virtue. It demands a rough and thorny road.

He takes false shadows for true substances.

Essays · 1580

★ 4.5

Play · Tragedy (play)