“Which can say more than this rich praise, that you alone are you?”

“If you can look into the seeds of time And say which grain will grow and which will not, Speak, then, to me, who neither beg nor fear Your favors nor your hate.”

“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.”

“God's will! my liege, would you and I alone, Without more help, could fight this royal battle!”

“For we, which now behold these present days,Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.”

“Thou seest we are not all alone unhappy:This wide and universal theatrePresents more woeful pageants than the sceneWherein we play in.”

“Those that much covet are with gain so fond,For what they have not, that which they possessThey scatter and unloose it from their bond,And so, by hoping more, they have but less;Or, gaining more, the profit of excessIs but to surfeit, and such griefs sustain,That they prove bankrupt in this poor-rich gain.”