The White Devil Quotes

“What a strange creature is a laughing fool,
As if a man were created to no use
But only to show his teeth.”
― John Webster, The White Devil

“There's nothing of so infinite vexation as man's own thoughts”
― John Webster, The White Devil

“Through darkness diamonds spread their richest light.”
― John Webster, The White Devil

“Oft gay and honoured robes those tortures try:
We think caged birds sing, when indeed they cry.”
― John Webster, The White Devil

“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 drowned himself in’t.”
― John Webster, The White Devil

“O that I were a man, or that I had power

To execute my apprehended wishes!

I would whip some with scorpions.”
― John Webster, The White Devil

“Fortune’s a right whore:
If she give aught, she deals it in small parcels,
That she may take away all at one swoop.”
― John Webster, The White Devil

“We endure the strokes like anvils or hard steel,
Till pain itself make us no pain to feel.”
― John Webster, The White Devil

“Princes give rewards with their own hands,
But death or punishment by the hands of other.”
― John Webster, The White Devil

“Ha, ha, ha, thou entanglest thyself in thine own work like a silkworm.”
― John Webster, The White Devil

“As in this world there are degrees of evils,
So in this world there are degrees of devils.”
― John Webster, The White Devil

“Right! There are plots.
Your beauty! Oh, ten thousand curses on 't!
How long have I beheld the devil in crystal!
Thou hast led me, like an heathen sacrifice,
With music, and with fatal yokes of flowers,
To my eternal ruin. Woman to man
Is either a god, or a wolf.”
― John Webster, The White Devil

“Call for the robin-red-breast and the wren,
Since o'er shady groves they hover,
And with leaves and flow'rs do cover
The friendless bodies of unburied men.
Call unto his funeral dole
The ant, the field-mouse and the mole,
To rear him hillocks that shall keep him warm,
And (when gay tombs are robbed) sustain no harm,
But keep the wolf far thence, that's foe to men,
For with his nails he'll dig them up again.
Let holy Church receive him duly,
Since he paid the church-tithes truly.”
― John Webster, The White Devil

“Lovers die inward that their flames conceal.”
― John Webster, The White Devil

“Take it for words. O woman’s poor revenge,
Which dwells but in the tongue!”
― John Webster, The White Devil

“What's a whore? She's like the guilty counterfeited coin Which whosoe're first stamps it brings in trouble all that receive it.”
― John Webster, The White Devil

“Let all that do ill, take this precedent:
Man may his fate foresee, but not prevent.
And of all axioms this shall win the prize,
'Tis better to be fortunate than wise.”
― John Webster, The White Devil

“O me, this place is hell.”
― John Webster, The White Devil

“You know what whore is. Next the devil adultery,
Enters the devil murder.”
― John Webster, The White Devil

“Whether I resolve to fire, earth, water, air,
Or all the elements by scruples, I know not,
Nor greatly care. - Shoot. Shoot!
Of all deaths, the violent death is best;
For from ourselves it steals ourselves so fast,
The pain, once apprehended, is quite past.”
― John Webster, The White Devil

“And great men do great good, or else great harm.”
― John Webster, The White Devil

“Know this, and let it somewhat raise your spite,
Through darkness diamonds spread their richest light.”
― John Webster, The White Devil

“There's but three furies found in spacious hell,
But in a great man’s breast three thousand dwell”
― John Webster, The White Devil

“There's nothing of so infinite vexation as man's own thoughts.”
― John Webster, The White Devil