All a green willow, willow,
All a green willow is my garland.
He that will not when he may,
When he would he shall have nay.
Like will to like.
Nothing is impossible to a willing hart.
Pryde will have a fall;
For pryde goeth before and shame commeth after.
A man may well bring a horse to the water,
But he cannot make him drinke without he will.
Men say, kinde will creepe where it may not goe.
It will not out of the flesh that is bred in the bone.
Who is so deafe or so blinde as is hee
That wilfully will neither heare nor see?
Magna Charta is such a fellow that he will have no sovereign.
Cowards [may] fear to die; but courage stout,
Rather than live in snuff, will be put out.
Note 1.Altissima quæque flumina minimo sono labi (The deepest rivers flow with the least sound).--Q. Curtius, vii. 4. 13.
Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep.--William Shakespeare: 2 Henry VI. act iii. sc. i.
Who will not mercie unto others show,
How can he mercy ever hope to have?
Tell her the joyous Time will not be staid,
Unlesse she doe him by the forelock take.
That to live by one man's will became the cause of all men's misery.
He is at no end of his actions blest
Whose ends will make him greatest, and not best.
Keep thy shop, and thy shop will keep thee. Light gains make heavy purses. 'T is good to be merry and wise.
Let pride go afore, shame will follow after.
I will neither yield to the song of the siren nor the voice of the hyena, the tears of the crocodile nor the howling of the wolf.
Come live with me, and be my love;
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dales and fields,
Woods or steepy mountain yields.
And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies.
Now will I show myself to have more of the serpent than the dove; that is, more knave than fool.
I will be correspondent to command,
And do my spiriting gently.
There's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple:
If the ill spirit have so fair a house,
Good things will strive to dwell with 't.
O, good old man, how well in thee appears
The constant service of the antique world,
When service sweat for duty, not for meed!
Thou art not for the fashion of these times,
Where none will sweat but for promotion.