Thomas Middleton (1580 – 1627)
English Jacobean playwright and poet.
A little too wise, they say, do ne’er live long.
The worst comes to the worst.
Beat all your feathers as flat down as pancakes.
A flat case as plain as a pack-staff.
Have you summoned your wits from wool-gathering?
Ground not upon dreams; you know they are ever contrary.
Wilt make haste to give up thy verdict because thou wilt not lose thy dinner.
The world's a stage on which all parts are played.
He who loves the law dies either mad or poor.
Let the air strike our tune,
Whilst we show reverence to yond peeping moon. 15
’Tis slight, not strength, that gives the greatest lift.
How many honest words have suffered corruption since Chaucer’s days!
From thousands of our undone widows
One may derive some wit.
That disease
Of which all old men sicken,—avarice.
Hold their noses to the grindstone.