“Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied,And vice sometime by action dignified.”

“O, mickle is the powerful grace that liesIn herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities:For nought so vile that on the earth doth liveBut to the earth some special good doth give,Nor aught so good but strain’d from that fair useRevolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse:Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied;And vice sometimes by action dignified.Within the infant rind of this small flowerPoison hath residence and medicine power:For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part;Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart.Two such opposed kings encamp them stillIn man as well as herbs, grace and rude will;And where the worser is predominant,Full soon the canker death eats up that plant.”

“The grey-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night,Chequering the eastern clouds with streaks of light,And flecked darkness like a drunkard reelsFrom forth day's path and Titan's fiery wheels:Now, ere the sun advance his burning eye,The day to cheer and night's dank dew to dry,I must up-fill this osier cage of oursWith baleful weeds and precious-juiced flowers.The earth that's nature's mother is her tomb;What is her burying grave that is her womb,And from her womb children of divers kindWe sucking on her natural bosom find,Many for many virtues excellent,None but for some and yet all different.O, mickle is the powerful grace that liesIn herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities:For nought so vile that on the earth doth liveBut to the earth some special good doth give,Nor aught so good but strain'd from that fair useRevolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse:Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied;And vice sometimes by action dignified.Within the infant rind of this small flowerPoison hath residence and medicine power:For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part;Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart.Two such opposed kings encamp them stillIn man as well as herbs, grace and rude will;And where the worser is predominant,Full soon the canker death eats up that plant.”

“So may the outward shows be least themselves:The world is still deceived with ornament.In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt,But, being seasoned with a gracious voice,Obscures the show of evil? In religion,What damned error, but some sober browWill bless it and approve it with a text,Hiding the grossness with fair ornament?There is no vice so simple but assumesSome mark of virtue on his outward parts.”

“The rarer action is in virtue than in vengeance.”

“I hate ingratitude more in a manthan lying, vainness, babbling, drunkenness,or any taint of vice whose strong corruptioninhabits our frail blood".”

“He who the sword of heaven will bearShould be as holy as severe;Pattern in himself to know,Grace to stand, and virtue go;More nor less to others payingThan by self-offences weighing.Shame to him whose cruel strikingKills for faults of his own liking!Twice treble shame on Angelo,To weed my vice and let his grow!O, what may man within him hide,Though angel on the outward side!How may likeness made in crimes,Making practise on the times,To draw with idle spiders' stringsMost ponderous and substantial things!Craft against vice I must apply:With Angelo to-night shall lieHis old betrothed but despised;So disguise shall, by the disguised,Pay with falsehood false exacting,And perform an old contracting.”