1660s · Skopia

Showing 66 quotes from the 1660s

Poem · Epic poem · Religious literature

Long is the way And hard, that out of Hell leads up to Light.

Paradise Lost · 1667

★ 7.8

Poem · Epic poem · Religious literature

O fairest of Creation, last and best Of all God's works.

Paradise Lost · 1667

★ 7.8

Epigram · Philosophical literature

The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of.

Pensees · 1662

★ 7.3

Poem · Epic poem · Religious literature

Her rash hand in evil hour Forth reaching to the fruit, she plucked, she ate: Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat Sighing through all her works gave signs of woe That all was lost.

Paradise Lost · 1667

★ 7.1

Poem · Epic poem · Religious literature

Of Man's First Disobedience, and the fruit Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste Brought Death into the World, and all our woe, With loss of Eden, till one greater Man Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat, Sing, Heav'nly Muse.

Paradise Lost · 1667

★ 7.1

Epigram · Philosophical literature

We never do evil so fully and cheerfully as when we do it out of conscience.

Pensees · 1662

★ 7.1

Poem · Epic poem · Religious literature

What in me is dark Illumine, what is low raise and support; That to the height of this great Argument I may assert Eternal Providence, And justify the ways of God to men.

Paradise Lost · 1667

★ 7.1

Epigram · Philosophical literature

God is, or He is not. But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separates us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up. What will you wager?... If you win, you win everything; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is.

Pensees · 1662

★ 7.0

Fable and fairytale

I bend but do not break.

Jean de La Fontaine

1668

★ 6.1

Poem · Epic poem · Religious literature

Who overcomes By force hath overcome but half his foe.

Paradise Lost · 1667

★ 5.6

Play · Tragedy (play)

Pains of love be sweeter far Than all other pleasures are.

Tyrannick Love, or The Royal Martyr · 1669

★ 5.4

Living only for the moment, turning our full attention to the pleasures of the moon, the snow, the cherry blossoms and the maples, singing songs, drinking water and diverting ourselves in just floating, floating; caring not a whit for the poverty staring us in the face, refusing to be disheartened, like a gourd floating along with the river current: this is what we call ukiyo.

Tales of the Floating World · 1661

★ 5.2

Personal journal

In appearance, at least, he being on all occasions glad to be at friendship with me, though we hate one another, and know it on both sides.

1668

★ 5.2

Personal journal

I find my wife hath something in her gizzard, that only waits an opportunity of being provoked to bring up; but I will not, for my content-sake, give it.

1668

★ 5.1

Poem · Epic poem · Religious literature

Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.

Paradise Lost · 1667

★ 4.8

Poem · Epic poem · Religious literature

All hell broke loose.

Paradise Lost · 1667

★ 4.0

Poem · Epic poem · Religious literature

With thee conversing I forget all time.

Paradise Lost · 1667

★ 4.0

Poem · Epic poem · Religious literature

Hypocrisy, the only evil that walks Invisible, except to God alone.

Paradise Lost · 1667

★ 4.0

Poem · Epic poem · Religious literature

Yet I shall temper so Justice with mercy.

Paradise Lost · 1667

★ 4.0

Epigram · Philosophical literature

Men blaspheme what they do not know.

Pensees · 1662

★ 3.9

Epigram · Philosophical literature

The skeptical are the most credulous.

Pensees · 1662

★ 3.9

Epigram · Philosophical literature

We shall die alone.

Pensees · 1662

★ 3.9

Poem · Epic poem · Religious literature

What if earth Be but the shadow of heaven, and things therein Each to other like, more than on earth is thought?

Paradise Lost · 1667

★ 3.9

Poem · Epic poem · Religious literature

Nor love thy Life, nor hate; but what thou liv'st Live well; how long or short permit to Heaven.

Paradise Lost · 1667

★ 3.9

Poem · Epic poem · Religious literature

Flesh of flesh, Bone of my bone thou art, and from thy state Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe.

Paradise Lost · 1667

★ 3.9

Poem · Epic poem · Religious literature

The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.

Paradise Lost · 1667

★ 3.9

Epigram · Philosophical literature

All human misfortune comes from this one thing: man's being unable to sit still in a room.

Pensees · 1662

★ 3.8

Epigram · Philosophical literature

The last proceeding of reason is to recognize that there is an infinity of things which are beyond it.

Pensees · 1662

★ 3.8

Epigram · Philosophical literature

Man is only a reed, the weakest thing in nature; but he is a thinking reed.

Pensees · 1662

★ 3.8

Play · Comedy (play)

One is easily fooled by that which one loves.

Tartuffe · 1669

★ 3.8

Oaths are but words, and words but wind.

Samuel Butler (poet)

1664

★ 3.7

For truth is precious and divine Too rich a pearl for carnal swine.

Samuel Butler (poet)

1664

★ 3.7

Play · Comedy (play)

He who lives without tobacco is not worthy to live.

Don Juan · 1665

★ 3.7

Play · Comedy (play)

Of all human follies there's none could be greater Than trying to render our fellow-men better.

The Misanthrope · 1666

★ 3.7

Play · Comedy (play)

It is public scandal that constitutes offence, and to sin in secret is not to sin at all.

Tartuffe · 1669

★ 3.7

Treatise · Religious literature

Words easy to be understood do often hit the mark, when high and learned ones do only pierce the air.

1665

★ 3.6

Play · Drama (play)

For all the happiness Mankind can gain Is not in pleasure, but in rest from pain.

1665

★ 3.6

Love comes from blindness, Friendship comes from knowledge.

Roger de Rabutin, Comte de Bussy

1665

★ 3.6

Personal journal

Strange to see how a good dinner and feasting reconciles everybody.

1665

★ 3.6

Personal journal

Musique and women I cannot but give way to, whatever my business is.

1666

★ 3.6

Play · Comedy (play)

For secrets are edg'd Tools, And must be kept from Children and from Fools.

1667

★ 3.6

Fable and fairytale

I bend and I break not.

Jean de La Fontaine

1668

★ 3.6

Absence is to love what wind is to fire; It extinguishes the small, it kindles the great.

Roger de Rabutin, Comte de Bussy

1665

★ 3.5

If by the people you understand the multitude, the hoi polloi, 'tis no matter what they think; they are sometimes in the right, sometimes in the wrong: their judgement is a mere lottery.

1668

★ 3.5

Epigram · Philosophical literature

It is the heart which perceives God and not the reason.

Pensees · 1662

★ 2.2

Epigram · Philosophical literature

Do you wish people to think well of you? Don't say anything.

Pensees · 1662

★ 2.2

Epigram · Philosophical literature

Our nature lies in movement; complete calm is death.

Pensees · 1662

★ 2.2

Epigram · Philosophical literature

The state of man: inconstancy, boredom, anxiety.

Pensees · 1662

★ 2.2

Poem · Epic poem · Religious literature

He hears On all sides, from innumerable tongues A dismal universal hiss, the sound Of public scorn.

Paradise Lost · 1667

★ 2.2

Poem · Epic poem · Religious literature

What thou art is mine; Our state cannot be severed, we are one, One flesh; to lose thee were to lose my self.

Paradise Lost · 1667

★ 2.2

Poem · Epic poem · Religious literature

In solitude What happiness? who can enjoy alone, Or all enjoying, what contentment find?

Paradise Lost · 1667

★ 2.2

Poem · Epic poem · Religious literature

The infernal serpent; he it was, whose guile, Stirr'd up with envy and revenge, deceiv'd The mother of mankind.

Paradise Lost · 1667

★ 2.2

Epigram · Philosophical literature

When we see a natural style, we are quite surprised and delighted, for we expected to see an author and we find a man.

Pensees · 1662

★ 2.1

Epigram · Philosophical literature

If all men knew what each said of the other, there would not be four friends in the world.

Pensees · 1662

★ 2.1

Epigram · Philosophical literature

For after all, what is man in nature? A nothing in respect of that which is infinite, an all in respect of nothing, a middle betwixt nothing and all.

Pensees · 1662

★ 2.1

Play · Comedy (play) · Comedy

You see him laboring to produce bons mots.

The Misanthrope · 1666

★ 2.1

Poem · Epic poem · Religious literature

Now glowed the firmament With living sapphires: Hesperus that led The starry Host, rode brightest, till the Moon Rising in clouded Majesty, at length Apparent Queen unveiled her peerless light, And o'er the dark her Silver Mantle threw.

Paradise Lost · 1667

★ 2.1

Play · Comedy (play)

One should look long and carefully at oneself Before one considers judging others.

The Misanthrope · 1666

★ 2.0

Play · Comedy (play)

One should eat to live, and not live to eat.

1669

★ 2.0

Play · Comedic play

The more we love our friends, the less we flatter them; it is by excusing nothing that pure love shows itself.

The Misanthrope · 1666

★ 1.9

Personal journal

Musique is the thing of the world that I love most.

1666

★ 1.9

God the first garden made, and the first city, Cain.

1668

★ 1.9

Play · Tragedy (play)

And he who servilely creeps after sense, Is safe, but ne'er will reach an Excellence.

1669

★ 1.9

Personal journal

Strange to see what delight we married people have to see these poor fools decoyed into our condition.

1665

★ 1.9

Plato is my friend, Aristotle is my friend, but my greatest friend is truth.

1664

★ 1.3

Fable and fairytale

Help thyself and Heaven will help thee.

Jean de La Fontaine

1668

★ 1.1