John Ford (dramatist) (1586 – 1640)
One of the last English playwrights in the great Jacobean school that produced Marlowe, William Shakespeare and Jonson.
Delay in vengeance gives a heavier blow.
Oh, happy kings,
Whose thrones are raised in their subjects' hearts.
The joys of marriage are the heaven on earth,
Life's paradise, great princess, the soul's quiet,
Sinews of concord, earthly immortality,
Eternity of pleasures; no restoratives
Like to a constant woman!
Love is the tyrant of the heart; it darkens
Reason, confounds discretion; deaf to Counsel
It runs a headlong course to desperate madness.
I have spent
Many a silent night in sighs and groans,
Ran over all my thoughts, despised my fate,
Reasoned against the reasons of my love,
Done all that smoothed-cheek Virtue could advise,
But found all bootless: 'tis my destiny
That you must either love, or I must die.
He is a noble gentleman; withal
Happy in his endeavours: the general voice
Sounds him for courtesy, behaviour, language,
And every fair demeanour, an example:
Titles of honour add not to his worth;
Who is himself an honour to his title.
We can drink till all look blue.
Nice philosophy
May tolerate unlikely arguments,
But heaven admits no jest.
There is a place,
List, daughter! in a black and hollow vault,
Where day is never seen; there shines no sun,
But flaming horror of consuming fires;
A lightless sulphur, choked with smoky fogs
Of an infected darkness; in this place
Dwell many thousand thousand sundry sorts
Of never-dying deaths.
Flattery
Is monstrous in a true friend.
Busy opinion is an idle fool.