“Antiquity! thou wondrous charm, what art thou? that being nothing art everything? When thou wert, thou wert not antiquity - then thou wert nothing, but hadst a remoter antiquity, as thou calledst it, to look back to with blind veneration; thou thyself being to thyself flat, jejune, modern! What mystery lurks in this retroversion? or what half Januses are we, that cannot look forward with the same idolatry with which we for ever revert! The mighty future is as nothing, being everything! the past is everything, being nothing!”

“A beastly ambition, which the gods grant thee t'attain to! If thou wert the lion, the fox wouldbeguile thee; if thou wert the lamb, the fox wouldeat three: if thou wert the fox, the lion wouldsuspect thee, when peradventure thou wert accused bythe ass: if thou wert the ass, thy dulness wouldtorment thee, and still thou livedst but as abreakfast to the wolf: if thou wert the wolf, thygreediness would afflict thee, and oft thou shouldsthazard thy life for thy dinner: wert thou theunicorn, pride and wrath would confound thee andmake thine own self the conquest of thy fury: wertthou a bear, thou wouldst be killed by the horse:wert thou a horse, thou wouldst be seized by theleopard: wert thou a leopard, thou wert german tothe lion and the spots of thy kindred were jurors onthy life: all thy safety were remotion and thydefence absence. What beast couldst thou be, thatwere not subject to a beast? and what a beast artthou already, that seest not thy loss intransformation!”

“To-day man is, and to-morrow he will be seen no more. And being removed out of sight, quickly also he is out of mind. O the dulness and hardness of man's heart, which thinketh only of the present, and looketh not forward to the future. Thou oughtest in every deed and thought so to order thyself, as if thou wert to die this day.”

“Tis well thou art not fish; if thou hadst, thou hadst been poor-John.”

“Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all,What hast thou then more than thou hadst before? No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call, All mine was thine, before thou hadst this more. Then if for my love thou my love receivest,I cannot blame thee for my love thou usest, But yet be blam’d, if thou this self deceivest By willful taste of what thyself refusest.”

“Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother, Why wert thou not born in my father's dwelling?”