John Webster 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.
• I saw him going the way of all flesh.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• But keep the wolf far thence, that's foe to men, For with his nails he'll dig them up again.
• Prosperity doth bewitch men, seeming clear; But seas do laugh, show white, when rocks are near.
• Glories, like glowworms, afar off shine bright, But looked to near have neither heat nor light.
• 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.
• I know death hath ten thousand several doors For men to take their exits.
• Heaven-gates are not so highly arched As princes' palaces; they that enter there Must go upon their knees.
• Cover her face; mine eyes dazzle: she died young.
• Whether we fall by ambition, blood, or lust, Like diamonds, we are cut with our own dust.
• Webster was much possessed by death And saw the skull beneath the skin.
• 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