“No sooner met but they looked; no sooner looked but they loved; no sooner loved but they sighed; no sooner sighed but they asked one another the reason; no sooner knew the reason but they sought the remedy; and in these degrees have they made a pair of stairs to marriage...”
“Enjoy'd no sooner but despised straight, Past reason hunted, and no sooner had Past reason hated”
“Let still woman takeAn elder than herself: so wears she to him,So sways she level in her husband's heart,For, boy, however we do praise ourselves,Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm,More longing, wavering, sooner to be lost and warn,Than women's are.”
“For, boy, however we do praise ourselves,Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm,More longing, wavering, sooner lost and won,Than women's are. ...For women are as roses, whose fair flow'rBeing once display'd doth fall that very hour.Viola: And so they are; alas, that they are so!To die, even when they to perfection grow!”
“Sooner strangle an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires.”
“sooner begun is sooner done”
“War is cruelty. There's no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.”