John Webster

Whether we fall by ambition, blood, or lust, Like diamonds, we are cut with our own dust.

Heaven-gates are not so highly arched As princes' palaces; they that enter there Must go upon their knees.

I know death hath ten thousand several doors For men to take their exits.

Of what is't fools make such vain keeping? Sin their conception, their birth, weeping: Their life, a general mist of error, Their death, a hideous storm of terror.

Glories, like glowworms, afar off shine bright, But looked to near have neither heat nor light.

Prosperity doth bewitch men, seeming clear; But seas do laugh, show white, when rocks are near.

But keep the wolf far thence, that's foe to men, For with his nails he'll dig them up again.

Call for the robin redbreast and the wren, Since o'er shady groves they hover, And with leaves and flowers do cover The friendless bodies of unburied men.

Glories, like glow-worms, afar off shine bright, But look'd too near have neither heat nor light.

Condemn you me for that the duke did love me? So may you blame some fair and crystal river For that some melancholic, distracted man Hath drown'd himself in 't.

'T is just like a summer bird-cage in a garden,—the birds that are without despair to get in, and the birds that are within despair and are in a consumption for fear they shall never get out.

Vain the ambition of kings Who seek by trophies and dead things To leave a living name behind, And weave but nets to catch the wind.

I saw him going the way of all flesh.

Is not old wine wholesomest, old pippins toothsomest, old wood burn brightest, old linen wash whitest? Old soldiers, sweethearts, are surest, and old lovers are soundest.