John Webster quotes

John Webster was an English dramatist known for his dark and complex tragedies from the Jacobean era. His most famous plays, such as "The Duchess of Malfi" and "The White Devil," are celebrated for their psychological depth and poetic language. He is remembered as one of the greatest playwrights of early 17th-century England. Here are 30 of his quotes:

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.

John Webster

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.

John Webster

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

John Webster

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.

John Webster

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

John Webster

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

John Webster

Lay this unto your breast: Old friends, like old swords, still are trusted best.

John Webster

Eagles commonly fly alone. They are crows, daws, and starlings that flock together.

John Webster

Cover her face; mine eyes dazzle: she died young.

John Webster

I saw him going the way of all flesh.

John Webster

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.

John Webster

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

John Webster

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

John Webster

Webster is not concerned with humanity. He is the poet of bile and brainstorm, the sweet singer of apoplexy; ideally, one feels, he would have had all his characters drowned in a sea of cold sweat. His muse drew nourishment from Bedlam, and might, a few centuries later, have done the same from Belsen.

John Webster

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.

John Webster

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.

John Webster

Man is most happy, when his own actions are arguments and examples of his virtue.

John Webster

Sorrow is held the eldest child of sin.

John Webster

For the subtlest folly proceeds from the subtlest wisdom.

John Webster

When I go to hell, I mean to carry a bribe: for look you, good gifts evermore make way for the worst persons.

John Webster

Integrity of life is fame's best friend, which nobly, beyond death, shall crown in the end.

John Webster

A politician is the devil's quilted anvil; He fashions all sins on him, and the blows are never heard.

John Webster