When any great design thou dost intend

poetry is of so subtile a spirit, that in the pouring out of one language into another, it will all evaporate; and if a new spirit be not added in the transfusion, there will remain nothing but a caput mortuum, there being certain graces …

Actions o' th' last age are like almanacks o' th' last year.

Variety, which all the rest endears.

[U]ncertain ways unsafest are.

But whither am I strayed? I need not raise Trophies to thee from other men's dispraise; Nor is thy fame on lesser ruins built; Nor needs thy juster title the foul guilt Of Eastern kings, who, to secure their reign, Must have their …

Ambition is like love, impatient Both of delays and rivals.