Quotes & Sayings About Spenser

All for love, and nothing for reward. — Edmund Spenser

O sacred hunger of ambitious minds. — Edmund Spenser

The gentle mind by gentle deeds is known,
For a man by nothing is so well betrayed
As by his manners. — Edmund Spenser

Ill can he rule the great that cannot reach the small. — Edmund Spenser

We split a bottle of Norman cider. Not everybody sells Norman cider by the bottle.
"Has a European feel" Susan said.
"That sounds terrific" I said. "Can I have one?"
Susan grinned at me. "How did you ever get to be so big without growing up?" she said.
"Iron self-control" I said. — Robert B. Parker

We have then, in the first part of The Faerie Queene, four of the seven deadly sins depicted in the more important passages of the four several books; those sins being much more elaborately and powerfully represented than the virtues, which are opposed to them, and which are personified in the titular heroes of the respective books. The alteration which made these personified virtues the centre each of a book was probably part of the reconstruction on the basis of Aristotle Ethics.
The nature of the debt to Aristotle suggests that Spenser did not borrow directly from the Greek, but by way of modern translations. — Janet Spens

Who will not mercy unto others show, How can he mercy ever hope to have? — Edmund Spenser

Fly from wrath; sad be the sights and bitter fruits of war; a thousand furies wait on wrathful swords. — Edmund Spenser

O but," quoth she, "great griefe will not be tould,
And can more easily be thought, then said."
"Right so"; quoth he, "but he, that never would,
Could never: will to might gives greatest aid."
"But grief," quoth she, "does great grow displaid,
If then it find not helpe, and breedes despaire."
"Despaire breedes not," quoth he, "where faith is staid."
"No faith so fast," quoth she, "but flesh does paire."
"Flesh may empaire," quoth he, "but reason can repaire. — Edmund Spenser

Even the best critical writing on Emily Dickinson underestimates her. She is frightening. To come to her directly from Dante, Spenser, Blake, and Baudelaire is to find her sadomasochism obvious and flagrant. Birds, bees, and amputated hands are the dizzy stuff of this poetry. Dickinson is like the homosexual cultist draping himself in black leather and chains to bring the idea of masculinity into aggressive visibility. — Camille Paglia

He oft finds med'cine, who his griefe imparts;
But double griefs afflict concealing harts,
As raging flames who striveth to supresse. — Edmund Spenser

So furiously each other did assayle,
As if their soules they would attonce haue rent
Out of their brests, that streames of bloud did rayle
Adowne, as if their springes of life were spent;
That all the ground with purple bloud was sprent,
And all their armours staynd with bloudie gore,
Yet scarcely once to breath would they relent,
So mortall was their malice and so sore,
Become of fayned friendship which they vow'd afore. — Edmund Spenser

In the humanist world following Erasmus, man is at the centre of the universe. Man becomes largely responsible for his own destiny, behaviour and future. This is the new current of thought which finds its manifestation in the writing of the 1590s and the decades which follow. The euphoria of Elizabeth's global affirmation of authority was undermined in these years by intimations of mortality: in 1590 she was 57 years old. No one could tell how much longer her golden age would last; hence, in part, Spenser's attempts to analyse and encapsulate that glory in an epic of the age. This concern about the death of a monarch who - as Gloriana, the Virgin Queen - was both symbol and totem, underscores the deeper realisation that mortality is central to life. After the Reformation, the certainties of heaven and hell were less clear, more debatable, more uncertain. — Ronald Carter

Through knowledge we behold the world's creation, How in his cradle first he fostered was; And judge of Nature's cunning operation, How things she formed of a formless mass. — Edmund Spenser

Each goodly thing is hardest to begin. — Edmund Spenser

All that in this delightful garden grows should happy be and have immortal bliss. — Edmund Spenser

Yet is there one more cursed than they all,
That canker-worm, that monster, jealousie,
Which eats the heart and feeds upon the gall,
Turning all love's delight to misery,
Through fear of losing his felicity. — Edmund Spenser

And thus of all my harvest-hope I have Nought reaped but a weedye crop of care. — Edmund Spenser

O happy earth, Whereon thy innocent feet doe ever tread! — Edmund Spenser

So passeth, in the passing of a day,
Of mortall life the leafe, the bud, the flowre — Edmund Spenser

The light of genius never sets, but sheds itself upon other faces, in different hues of splendor. Homer glows in the softened beauty of Virgil, and Spenser revives in the decorated learning of Gray. — Robert Aris Willmott

But times do change and move continually. — Edmund Spenser

You have any suggestions, make them. I'm in charge but humble. No need to salute when you see me."
Fraser said, "Mind if we snicker every once in a while behind your back?"
"Hell, no," I said. "Everyone else does. — Robert B. Parker

from Arlington Street and onto the bridge. He had his hands in his coat pockets. "You Spenser?" he said. "Yes. — Robert B. Parker

Wrath, gealosie, griefe, loue do thus expell:
Wrath is a fire, and gealosie a weede,
Griefe is a flood, and loue a monster fell;
The fire of sparkes, the weede of little seede,
The flood of drops, the Monster filth did breede:
But sparks, seed, drops, and filth do thus delay;
The sparks soone quench, the springing seed outweed,
The drops dry vp, and filth wipe cleane away:
So shall wrath, gealosie, griefe, loue dye and decay. — Edmund Spenser

Immortal Spenser, no frailty hath thy fame but the imputation of this idiot's friendship! — Thomas Nashe

Discord oft in music makes the sweeter lay. — Edmund Spenser

For of the soule the bodie forme doth take;
For the soule is forme, and doth the bodie make. — Edmund Spenser

Hark, how the cheerful birds do chaunt their lays, and carol of love's praise. — Edmund Spenser

A. E. Maxwell wrote one of the smartest, most consistent PI series in recent memory. Big plots, great villains, and a kickass private eye with plenty of humanity. The toughness of Robert B. Parker's early Spenser novels blended with the wry humor and scope of Ross Thomas. Wholly original, endlessly entertaining. The books of A. E. Maxwell are a forgotten treasure. — Tim Maleeny

Men call you fayre, and you doe credit it,
For that your self ye daily such doe see:
But the trew fayre, that is the gentle wit,
And vertuous mind, is much more praysd of me.
For all the rest, how ever fayre it be,
Shall turne to nought and loose that glorious hew:
But onely that is permanent and free
From frayle corruption, that doth flesh ensew.
That is true beautie: that doth argue you
To be divine and borne of heavenly seed:
Deriv'd from that fayre Spirit, from whom al true
And perfect beauty did at first proceed.
He onely fayre, and what he fayre hath made,
All other fayre lyke flowres untymely fade. — Edmund Spenser

My Love Is Like To Ice, And I To Fire
My love is like to ice, and I to fire;
How comes it then that this her cold so great
Is not dissolv'd through my so hot desire,
But harder grows the more I her entreat?
Or how comes it that my exceeding heat
Is not delay'd by her heart-frozen cold;
But that I burn much more in boiling sweat,
And feel my flames augmented manifold!
What more miraculous thing may be told,
That fire, which all things melts, should harden ice;
And ice, which is congeal'd with senseless cold,
Should kindle fire by wonderful device!
Such is the power of love in gentle mind,
That it can alter all the course of kind. — Edmund Spenser

So Orpheus did for his owne bride,
So I unto my selfe alone will sing,
The woods shall to me answer and my Eccho ring. — Edmund Spenser

This Miss Wooster that I knew married a man named Spenser. Was she any relation?"
"She is my Aunt Agatha," I replied, and I spoke with a good deal of bitterness, trying to suggest by my manner that he was exactly the sort of man, in my opinion, who would know my Aunt Agatha. — P.G. Wodehouse

There is nothing lost, but may be found, if sought.
(No hay nada perdido, que no pueda encontrarse, si se lo busca) — Edmund Spenser

For that which all men then did virtue call, Is now called vice; and that which vice was hight, Is now hight virtue, and so used of all: Right now is wrong, and wrong that was is right — Edmund Spenser

Those that were up themselves, kept others low;
Those that were low themselves, held others hard;
He suffered them to ryse or greater grow;
But every one did strive his fellow down to throw. — Edmund Spenser

Here haue I cause, in men iust blame to find,
That in their proper prayse too partiall bee,
And not indifferent to woman kind,
To whom no share in armes and cheualrie
They do impart, ne maken memorie
Of their brave gestes and prowess martiall;
Scarse do they spare to one or two or three,
Rowme in their writs; yet the same writing small
Does all their deeds deface, and dims their glories all,
But by record of antique times I find,
That women wont in warres to beare most sway,
And to all great exploits them selues inclind:
Of which they still the girlond bore away,
Till enuious Men fearing their rules decay,
Gan coyne straight laws to curb their liberty;
Yet sith they warlike armes haue layd away:
They haue exceld in artes and policy,
That now we foolish men that prayse gin eke t'enuy. — Edmund Spenser

Where justice grows, there grows eke greater grace. — Edmund Spenser

water lapped softly against the side of the marina walkway, the sound of muffled conversations and kids laughing occasionally floated by, the heat of the sun warmed skin while the breeze off the water kept the temperature pleasant, and a time-traveling vampire pirate was dragging a sensual, yet innocent, — Juliet Spenser

All that in this world is great or gay,
Doth, as a vapor, vanish and decay. — Edmund Spenser

Vain-glorious man, when fluttering wind does blow
In his light wing's, is lifted up to sky;
The scorn of-knighthood and true chivalry.
To think, without desert of gentle deed
And noble worth, to be advanced high,
Such praise is shame, but honour, virtue's meed,
Doth bear the fairest flower in honourable seed. — Edmund Spenser

I watched them taxi off across the grass and take off. — Jay Spenser

Make haste therefore, sweet love, whilst it is prime,
For none can call again the passed time. — Edmund Spenser

Go little book, thy self present, As child whose parent is unkent: To him that is the president Of noblesse and of chivalry, And if that Envy bark at thee, As sure it will, for succour flee. — Edmund Spenser

The mind maketh good or ill, wretch or happy, rich or poor. — Edmund Spenser

For all that faire is, is by nature good;That is a signe to know the gentle blood. — Edmund Spenser

English literature, from the days of the minstrels to the Lake Poets - Chaucer and Spenser and Milton, and even Shakespeare, included - breathes no quite fresh and, in this sense, wild strain. It is an essentially tame and civilized literature, reflecting Greece and Rome. ...
Where is the literature which gives expression to Nature?
...
I do not know of any poetry to quote which adequately expresses this yearning for the Wild.
...
The West is preparing to add its fables to those of the East. The valleys of the Ganges, the Nile, and the Rhine having yielded their crop, it remains to be seen what the valleys of the Amazon, the Plate, the Orinoco, the St. Lawrence, and the Mississippi will produce. — Henry David Thoreau

Not so (quoth he) love most aboundeth there.
For all the walls and windows there are writ,
All full of love, and love, and love my deare,
And all their talke and studie is of it.
Ne any there doth brave or valiant seeme,
Unlesse that some gay Mistresse badge he bears:
Ne any one himselfe doth ought esteeme,
Unlesse he swin in love up to the ears.
But they of love and of his sacred lere,
(As it should be) all otherwise devise,
Then we poore shepheards are accustomd here,
And him do sue and serve all otherwise.
For with lewd speeches and licentious deeds,
His mightie mysteries they do prophane,
And use his ydle name to other needs,
But as a complement for courting vaine.
So him they do not serve as they professe,
But make him serve to them for sordid uses,
Ah my dread Lord, that doest liege hearts possesse,
Avenge they selfe on them for their abuses. — Edmund Spenser

Hasty wrath and heedless hazardy do breed repentance late and lasting infamy. — Edmund Spenser

Man's wretched state, That floures so fresh at morne, and fades at evening late. — Edmund Spenser

You ask whether I have ever been in love: fool as I am, I am not such a fool as that. But if one is only to talk from first-hand experience, conversation would be a very poor business. But though I have no personal experience of the things they call love, I have what is better - the experience of Sappho, of Euripides, of Catallus, of Shakespeare, of Spenser, of Austen, of Bronte, of anyone else I have read. — C.S. Lewis

I pulled the MG in beside him at the curb and he got in.
"This thing ain't big enough for either one of us," he said. "When you getting something that fits?"
"It goes with my preppy look," I said. "You get one of these, they let you drive around the north shore, watch polo, anything you want."
I let the clutch in and turned right on Dartmouth.
"How you get laid in one of these?" Hawk said.
"You just don't understand preppy," I said. "I know it's not your fault. You're only a couple generations out of the jungle. I realize that. But if you're preppy you don't get laid in a car."
"Where do you get laid if you preppy?"
I sniffed. "One doesn't," I said.
"Preppies gonna be outnumbered in a while," Hawk said. — Robert B. Parker

Yet nothing did he dread, but euer was ydrad. — Edmund Spenser

Thankfulness is the tune of angels. — Edmund Spenser

All love is sweet Given or returned And its familiar voice wearies not ever. — Edmund Spenser

The noblest mind the best contentment has — Edmund Spenser

But as it falleth, in the gentlest hearts Imperious love hath highest set his throne, And tyrannizeth in the bitter smarts Of them, that to him buxom are and prone. — Edmund Spenser

And painefull pleasure turnes to pleasing paine. — Edmund Spenser

There learned arts do flourish in great honour
And poets's wits are had in peerless price;
Religion hath lay power, to rest upon her,
Advancing virtue, and suppressing vice.
For end all good, all grace there freely grows,
Had people grace it gratefully to use:
For God His gifts there plenteously bestows,
But graceless men them greatly do abuse. — Edmund Spenser

In one consort there sat cruel revenge and rancorous despite, disloyal treason and heart-burning hate. — Edmund Spenser

Natalie Spenser was giving a dinner. She was not an easy hostess. — Mary Roberts Rinehart

Ah, fool! faint heart fair lady ne'er could win. — Edmund Spenser

Vaine is the vaunt, and victory unjust, that more to mighty hands, then rightfull cause doth trust. — Edmund Spenser

The man whom nature's self had made to mock herself, and truth to imitate. — Edmund Spenser

What more felicity can fall to creature, than to enjoy delight with liberty? — Edmund Spenser

Bright as does the morning star appear,
Out of the east with flaming locks bedight,
To tell the dawning day is drawing near. — Edmund Spenser

But angels come to lead frail minds to rest in chaste desires, on heavenly beauty bound. You frame my thoughts, and fashion me within; you stop my tongue, and teach my heart to speak. — Edmund Spenser

After her came jolly June, arrayed
All in green leaves, as he a player were;
Yet in his time he wrought as well as played,
That by his plough-irons mote right well appear.
Upon a crab he rode, that did him bear,
With crooked crawling steps, an uncouth pace,
And backward rode, as bargemen wont to fare,
Bending their force contrary to their face;
Like that ungracious crew which feigns demurest grace. — Edmund Spenser

How about the wrong crowd," I said. "You getting in with them?"
"Not much luck," Paul said. "I'm trying like hell, but the wrong crowd doesn't seem to want me."
"Don't quit," I said. "You want something, you go after it. I was nearly thirty-five before I could get in with wrong crowd. — Robert B. Parker

Sweet is the rose, but grows upon a brere;
Sweet is the juniper, but sharp his bough;
Sweet is the eglantine, but stiketh nere;
Sweet is the firbloome, but its braunches rough;
Sweet is the cypress, but its rynd is tough;
Sweet is the nut, but bitter is his pill;
Sweet is the broome-flowre, but yet sowre enough;
And sweet is moly, but his root is ill. — Edmund Spenser

Spenser Reynolds began telling about his next project - an attempt to have suicides coordinate their leaps from bridges on a score of worlds while the All Thing watched - and Tyrena Wingreen-Feif stole all attention by putting her arm around Monsignor Edouard and inviting him to her after-dinner nude swimming party at her floating estate on Mare Infinitus. I — Dan Simmons

No daintie flowre or herbe that growes on grownd, No arborett with painted blossoms drest And smelling sweete, but there it might be fownd To bud out faire, and throwe her sweete smels al arownd. — Edmund Spenser

in describing the various writers of his idolatry he more than once lets fall a phrase that could equally apply to himself. 'To read Spenser,' he says, 'is to grow in mental health.' What he values in Addison is his 'open-mindedness.' The moments of despair chronicled in Scott's diary cannot, he claims, counterpoise 'that ease and good temper, that fine masculine cheerfulness' suffused through the best of the Waverly novels. Most of all it was the chiaroscuro of what Chaucer called 'earnest' and 'game' that attracted him. He found it eminently in the poetry of Dunbar, that late-medieval Scottish maker who wrote the greatest religious poetry and the earthiest satire in the language — Jocelyn Gibb

Sweet breathing Zephyrus did softly play,
A gentle spirit, that lightly did delay
Hot Titan's beams, which then did glister fair — Edmund Spenser

For love is a celestial harmony
Of likely hearts compos'd of stars' concent,
Which join together in sweet sympathy,
To work each other's joy and true content,
Which they have harbour'd since their first descent
Out of their heavenly bowers, where they did see
And know each other here belov'd to be. — Edmund Spenser

Thus, on the one hand, Spenser's thought is steeped in sensuous detail, so that for him there is no really abstract thinking; men, he thinks, 'should be satisfied with the use of these days, seeing all things accounted by their showes, and nothing esteemed of, that is not delightfull and pleasing to commune sense' ( Prefatory Letter). But on the other hand the details of the physical universe become translucent from the pulsing light of varied human experience which is seen behind it. His 'haunt and the main region of (his) song' is the inner life of man and it is described in the symbolism of human figures clothed in raiment iridescent with innumerable associations. His art is a development of the mediaeval. — Janet Spens

Unhappie Verse, the witnesse of my unhappie state,
Make thy selfe fluttring wings of thy fast flying
Thought — Edmund Spenser

For easy things, that may be got at will, Most sorts of men do set but little store. — Edmund Spenser

At last, the golden orientall gate Of greatest heaven gan to open fayre, And Phoebus, fresh as brydegrome to his mate, Came dauncing forth, shaking his dewie hayre; And hurls his glistring beams through gloomy ayre. — Edmund Spenser

The ever-whirling wheele Of Change, to which all mortal things doth sway. — Edmund Spenser

The merry cuckow, messenger of Spring, His trumpet shrill hath thrice already sounded. — Edmund Spenser

Pour out the wine without restraint or stay,
Pour not by cups, but by the bellyful,
Pour out to all that wull. — Edmund Spenser

Much more profitable and gracious is doctrine by example than by rule. — Edmund Spenser

What man so wise, what earthly wit so ware,
As to descry the crafty cunning train,
By which deceit doth mask in visor fair,
And cast her colours dyed deep in grain,
To seem like truth, whose shape she well can feign,
And fitting gestures to her purpose frame,
The guiltless man with guile to entertain? — Edmund Spenser

What more felicitie can fall to creature Than to enjoy delight with libertie, And to be lord of all the workes of Nature, To raine in th' aire from earth to highest skie, To feed on flowres and weeds of glorious feature. — Edmund Spenser

Much can they praise the trees so straight and high, The sailing pine,the cedar proud and tall, The vine-prop elm, the poplar never dry, The builder oak, sole king of forests all, The aspin good for staves, the cypress funeral, The laurel, meed of mighty conquerors And poets sage, the fir that weepest still, The yew obedient to the bender's will, The birch for shafts, the sallow for the mill, The myrrh sweet-bleeding in the bitter wound, The warlike beech, the ash for nothing ill, The fruitful olive, and the platane round, The carver holm, the maple seldom inward sound. — Edmund Spenser

I hate the day, because it lendeth light
To see all things, but not my love to see. — Edmund Spenser

His Lady sad to see his sore constraint,
Cried out, "Now now Sir knight, shew what ye bee,
Add faith unto your force, and be not faint:
Strangle her, else she sure will strangle thee."
That when he heard, in great perplexitie,
His gall did grate for griefe and high distaine,
And knitting all his force got one hand free,
Wherewith he grypt her gorge with so great paine,
That soone to loose her wicked bands did her constraine. — Edmund Spenser

Yet gold all is not, that doth gold seem,
Nor all good knights, that shake well spear and shield:
The worth of all men by their end esteem,
And then praise, or due reproach them yield. — Edmund Spenser

The nightingale is sovereign of song. — Edmund Spenser

Conversation between Susan's therapist and Spenser -
"And when you find her? Then what?"
"Then she will be free again to come here and work with you until she can make the choices she wishes to make."
"And what if you are not that choice?"
"I think I will be. But I can't control that. What I can do is see that she's free to choose. — Robert B. Parker

Death is an equall doome
To good and bad, the common In of rest. — Edmund Spenser

Fresh spring the herald of love's mighty king. — Edmund Spenser

Has anyone ever told you," I said, "that you coalesce reality?"
"No. They only say that I'm good in the sack."
"They are accurate but limited," I said. "And if you give me their names I'll kill them. — Robert B. Parker

Together linkt with adamantine chains. — Edmund Spenser

Later these tales would be retold and embellished by the genius of Mallory, Spenser, and Tennyson. — Winston S. Churchill

Her angel's face, As the great eye of heaven shined bright, And made a sunshine in the shady place. — Edmund Spenser

Now the twelfth canto of Book II is an almost literal translation from Tasso description in the Jerusalem Delivered of the island of Armida. That poem was not printed till 1582. It is likely enough that Spenser may have seen part of it in manuscript, which would account for the general resemblance of the Adonis passages, though the likeness is not close enough to make any debt certain. — Janet Spens

The fish once caught, new bait will hardly bite. — Edmund Spenser