John Webster > Quotes

“Whether we fall by ambition, blood, or lust
Like diamonds we are cut with our own dust”
― John Webster

“Cover her face; mine eyes dazzle. She died young.”
― John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

“Whether we fall by ambition, blood or lust
Like diamonds, we are cut with our own dust”
― John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

“I account this world a tedious theater,
For I do play a part in 't 'gainst my will.”
― John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

“Ambition, madam, is a great man's madness.”
― John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

“Whether we fall by ambition, blood, or lust, like diamonds we are cut with our own dust.”
― John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

“What a strange creature is a laughing fool,
As if a man were created to no use
But only to show his teeth.”
― John Webster, The White Devil

“Do you not weep?
Other sins only speak, murder shreaks out:
The element of water moistens the earth,
But blood flies upwards and bedews the heavens.”
― John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

“I know death hath ten thousand several doors
For men to take their exits; and 'tis found
They go on such strange geometrical hinges,
You may open them both ways: any way, for heaven-sake”
― John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

“The weakest arm is strong enough that strikes with the sword of justice.”
― John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

“Heaven-gates are not so highly arched
As princes' palaces; they that enter there
Must go upon their knees.”
― John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

“There's nothing of so infinite vexation as man's own thoughts”
― John Webster, The White Devil

“What's this flesh? A little cruded milk
Fantastical puff-paste. Our bodies are weaker than those
Paper prisons boys use to keep flies in; more contemptible,
Since our is to preserve earth-worms. Didst thou ever seen
A lark in a cage? Such is the soul in the body: this world
Is like her little turf of grass, and the heaven o'er our heads
Like her looking-glass, only gives us a miserable knowledge
Of the small compass of our prison.”
― John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

“What! because we are poor Shall we be vicious?”
― John Webster

“Oft gay and honoured robes those tortures try:
We think caged birds sing, when indeed they cry.”
― John Webster, The White Devil

“Through darkness diamonds spread their richest light.”
― John Webster, The White Devil

“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 drowned himself in’t.”
― John Webster, The White Devil

“Eagles commonly fly alone. They are crows, daws, and starlings that flock together.”
― John Webster

“The chiefest action for a man of great spirit is never to be out of action... the soul was never put into the body to stand still.”
― John Webster

“I am Duchess of Malfi still.”
― John Webster

“You have left me heartless; mine is in your bosom.”
― John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

“Sometimes the Devil doth preach.”
― John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

“we had need to borrow that fantastic glass,invented by Galileo the Florentine
To view another spacious world in the moon
and look to find a constant woman there”
― John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

“O that I were a man, or that I had power

To execute my apprehended wishes!

I would whip some with scorpions.”
― John Webster, The White Devil

“Ha, ha, ha, thou entanglest thyself in thine own work like a silkworm.”
― John Webster, The White Devil

“Princes give rewards with their own hands,
But death or punishment by the hands of other.”
― John Webster, The White Devil

“Lovers die inward that their flames conceal.”
― John Webster, The White Devil

“Are you out of your princely wits?"

What's he? Let me have his beard sawed off and his eyebrows filed more civil!”
― John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

“We endure the strokes like anvils or hard steel,
Till pain itself make us no pain to feel.”
― John Webster, The White Devil

“Think't the best voyage that e'er you made like an irregular crab which, though’t goes backward, thinks that it goes right, because it goes its own way.”
― John Webster