George Chapman Quotes

“How blinde is pride! what eagles we are still
In matters that belong to other men,
What beetles in our own!”

Act I, scene i.
All Fools (1605)

“Young men think old men are fools; but old men know young men are fools.”

Act IV, scene i.
All Fools (1605)

“Make ducks and drakes with shillings.”

Act V, scene i.
All Fools (1605)

“Cornelia. What flowers are these?
Gazetta. The pansy this.
Cor. Oh, that's for lover's thoughts.”

Act I, scene i.
Eastward Hoe (1605)

“As when about the silver moon, when air is free from wind,
And stars shine clear; to whose sweet beams, high prospects, and the brows
Of all steep hills and pinnacles, thrust up themselves for shows;
And even the lowly valleys joy, to glitter in their sight,
When the unmeasured firmament bursts to disclose her light,
And all the signs in heaven are seen that glad the shepherd's heart.”

Act II, scene i.
All Fools (1605)

“Love is a golden bubble, full of dreams,
That waking breaks, and fills us with extremes.”

Book VIII, line 487, p. 115 https://books.google.com/books?id=ashjAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA115&dq=%22As+when+about%22 <br class="br">The Iliads of Homer, Prince of Poets (1611)

George Chapman Quotes about love

“Music, and mood, she loves, but love she hates
(As curious ladies do, their public cates),
This train, with meteors, comets, lightenings,
The dreadful presence of our empress sings:
Which grant for ever (O eternal Night)
Till virtue flourish in the light of light.”

Hero and Leander: a poem (1600), begun by Christopher Marlowe, and finished by George Chapman. Sestiad III.

“This said, he reached to take his son; who, of his arms afraid,
And then the horse-hair plume, with which he was so overlaid,
Nodded so horribly, he clinged back to his nurse, and cried.
Laughter affected his great sire, who doffed and laid aside
His fearful helm, that on the earth cast round about it light;
Then took and kissed his loving son, and (balancing his weight
In dancing him) these loving vows to living Jove he used,
And all the other bench of Gods: "O you that have infused
Soul to this infant, now set down this blessing on his star:
Let his renown be clear as mine; equal his strength in war."”

Hymnus in noctem, line 398
The Shadow of Night (1594)

“None ever loved but at first sight they loved.”

Book VI, line 506, p. 94
The Iliads of Homer, Prince of Poets (1611)

George Chapman The Blind Beggar of Alexandria

The Blind Beggar of Alexandria (1596); reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Compare: "Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?" Christopher Marlowe, Hero and Leander (1598).

“Give me a spirit that on this life's rough sea
Loves t' have his sails fill'd with a lusty wind,
Even till his sail-yards tremble, his masts crack,
And his rapt ship run on her side so low
That she drinks water, and her keel plows air.”

George Chapman The Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron

Act III, scene i; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
The Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron (1608)

George Chapman: Trending quotes

“The sea had soaked his heart through”

“Danger (the spur of all great minds) is ever
The curb to your tame spirits.”

Homer's Odysses (1614), Book V, line 608; shipwrecked Odysseus washes up on Scheria.
Context: Then forth he came, his both knees falt'ring, both
His strong hands hanging down, and all with froth
His cheeks and nostrils flowing, voice and breath
Spent to all use, and down he sunk to death.
The sea had soaked his heart through; all his veins
His toils had rack'd t'a labouring woman's pains.
Dead weary was he.

“Achilles' baneful wrath resound, O Goddess, that imposed
Infinite sorrows on the Greeks, and many brave souls loosed
From breasts heroic”

The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois (1613), Act V, scene i.

“He is at no end of his actions blest
Whose ends will make him greatest, and not best.”

Book I, line 1, p. 1
The Iliads of Homer, Prince of Poets (1611)
Context: Achilles' baneful wrath resound, O Goddess, that imposed
Infinite sorrows on the Greeks, and many brave souls loosed
From breasts heroic, sent them far to that invisible cave
That no light comforts, and their limbs to dogs and vultures gave;
To all which Jove's will gave effect; from whom first strife begun
Betwixt Atrides, king of men, and Thetis' godlike son.

George Chapman Quotes

George Chapman The Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron

Act V, scene i; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
The Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron (1608)

“Let no man value at a little price
A virtuous woman's counsel; her wing'd spirit
Is feather'd oftentimes with heavenly words.”

George Chapman The Gentleman Usher

The Gentleman Usher, Act IV, scene i; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

“Enough 's as good as a feast.”

“They're only truly great who are truly good.”

Act III, scene ii.
Eastward Hoe (1605)

“O Innocence, the sacred amulet
'Gainst all the poisons of infirmity;
Of all misfortune, injury, and death,
That makes a man in tune still in himself;
Free from the hell to be his own accuser,
Ever in quiet, endless joy enjoying;
No strife nor no sedition in his powers;
No motion in his will against his reason,
No thought 'gainst thought—
But (all parts in him, friendly and secure,
Fruitful of all best things in all worst seasons)
He can with every wish be in their plenty;
When the infectious guilt of one foul crime
Destroys the free content of all our time.”

Revenge for Honour, Act V, scene ii; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Disputed

George Chapman The Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron

Act IV, scene i.
The Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron (1608)

“He that to nought aspires, doth nothing need;
Who breaks no law is subject to no king.”

“Fortune, the great commandress of the world,
Hath divers ways to advance her followers:
To some she gives honour without deserving,
To other some, deserving without honour.”

The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois (1613), Act IV, scene i.

“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.”

Act V, scene i.
All Fools (1605)

“As night the life-inclining stars best shows,
So lives obscure the starriest souls disclose.”

Act V, scene i
Eastward Hoe (1605)

“Only a few industrious Scots perhaps, who indeed are dispersed over the face of the whole earth. But as for them, there are no greater friends to Englishmen and England, when they are out on 't, in the world, than they are. And for my own part, I would a hundred thousand of them were there [Virginia]; for we are all one countrymen now, ye know, and we should find ten times more comfort of them there than we do here.”

Epilogue to Translations; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

“Our hopes, I see, resemble much the sun,
That rising and declining cast large shadows;
But when his beams are dressed in's midday brightness,
Yields none at all: when they are farthest from
Success, their guilt reflection does display
The largest shows of events fair and prosperous.”

Act III, scene ii.
Eastward Hoe (1605)

“Exceeding fair she was not; and yet fair
In that she never studied to be fairer
Than Nature made her; beauty cost her nothing,
Her virtues were so rare.”

Revenge for Honour (1654), Act II, scene i. Attributed, probably falsely, to Chapman. The play may have been written by Henry Glapthorne.
Disputed

“Who to himself is law no law doth need,
Offends no law, and is a king indeed.”

Act I, scene i.
All Fools (1605)

“Man is a torch borne in the wind; a dream
But of a shadow, summ'd with all his substance.”

Act II, scene i.
Bussy D'Ambois (1607)

“His deeds inimitable, like the sea
That shuts still as it opes, and leaves no tracts
Nor prints of precedent for poor men's facts.”

Act I, scene i.
Bussy D'Ambois (1607)

“For one heat, all know, doth drive out another,
One passion doth expel another still.”

Act I, scene i.
Bussy D'Ambois (1607)

George Chapman Monsieur D'Olive

Monsieur D'Olive, Act V, scene i; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

“Black is a pearl in a woman's eye.”

George Chapman An Humorous Day's Mirth

An Humorous Day's Mirth; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

“Nor could the foole abstaine,
But drunke as often.”

“Great goddess, to whose throne in Cynthian fires,
This earthly altar endless fumes expires;
Therefore, in fumes of sighs and fires of grief,
To fearful chances thou send'st bold relief,
Happy, thrice happy type, and nurse of death,
Who, breathless, feeds on nothing but our breath,
In whom must virtue and her issue live,
Or die for ever.”

Homer's Odysses (1614), Book IX, line 496

“Poetry, unlike oratory, should not aim at clarity… but be dense with meaning, 'something to be chewed and digested'…”

Hymnus in noctem, line 1
The Shadow of Night (1594)

“As far as white Aurora's dews are sprinkled through the air.”

Preface to Ovid's Banquet of Sense (1595)

“Each natural agent works but to this end,—
To render that it works on like itself.”

Book VII, line 374, p. 104
The Iliads of Homer, Prince of Poets (1611)

“So our lives
In acts exemplary, not only win
Ourselves good names, but doth to others give
Matter for virtuous deeds, by which we live.”

Act III, scene i.
Bussy D'Ambois (1607)

“Mourne not inevitable things; thy teares can spring no deeds
To helpe thee, nor recall thy sonne: impacience ever breeds
Ill upon ill, makes worst things worse.”

Act I, scene i.
Bussy D'Ambois (1607)

“Virtue is not malicious; wrong done her
Is righted even when men grant they err.”

Book XXIV, line 494, p. 336
The Iliads of Homer, Prince of Poets (1611)

George Chapman Monsieur D'Olive

Monsieur D'Olive, Act I, scene i; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

“Obscuritie in affection of words, & indigested concets, is pedanticall and childish…”

“The lady of the light, the rosy-fingered Morn,
Rose from the hills.”

Preface to Ovid's Banquet of Sense (1595)

“Promise is most given when the least is said.”

Book I, line 460, p. 11
The Iliads of Homer, Prince of Poets (1611)

“Man is a name of honour for a king.”

Musæus of Hero and Leander; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

“What man can blame
The Greekes and Trojans to endure, for so admired a Dame,
So many miseries, and so long? In her sweet countenance shine
Lookes like the Godesses.”

Act IV, scene i.
Bussy D'Ambois (1607)

“Keep thy shop, and thy shop will keep thee. Light gains make heavy purses. 'Tis good to be merry and wise.”

Book III, line 167, p. 41
The Iliads of Homer, Prince of Poets (1611)

“This was a sleight well mask'd. O, what is man,
Unless he be a Politician?”

Act I, scene i.
Eastward Hoe (1605)

“Use makes things nothing huge, and huge things nothing.”

Act I, scene i.
Bussy D'Ambois (1607)

“Tis immortality to die aspiring,
As if a man were taken quick to heaven.”

Ovid's Banquet of Sense (1595), line 718.

George Chapman The Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron

Act I, scene i; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
The Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron (1608)

“For your behaviour, let it be free and negligent, not clogged with ceremony or observance; give no man honour, but upon equal terms; for look how much thou giv'st any man above that, so much thou tak'st from thyself.”

George Chapman May Day

May Day (1611), Act I, scene i.

“Fair words never hurt the tongue.”

“I know an Englishman,
Being flattered, is a lamb; threatened, a lion.”

Act IV, scene i.
Eastward Hoe (1605)

“There is no danger to the man that knows
What life and death is; there's not any law
Exceeds his knowledge; neither is it lawful
That he should stoop to any other law.
He goes before them, and commands them all,
That to himself is a law rational.”

Alphonsus, Emperor of Germany (1654), Act I, scene ii, lines 208–209. Attributed, probably falsely, to Chapman. Perhaps by George Peele.
Disputed

George Chapman The Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron

Act III, scene i.
The Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron (1608)

“To put a girdle round about the world.”

“And for the authentical truth of either person or actions, who (worth the respecting) will expect it in a poem, whose subject is not truth, but things like truth? Poor envious souls they are that cavil at truth's want in these natural fictions; material instruction, elegant and sententious excitation to virtue, and deflection from her contrary, being the soul, limbs, and limits of an authentical tragedy.”

Act I, scene i.
Bussy D'Ambois (1607)

“As cedars beaten with continual storms,
So great men flourish; and do imitate
Unskilful statuaries, who suppose,
In forging a Colossus, if they make him
Straddle enough, strut, and look big, and gape,
Their work is goodly: so men merely great
In their affected gravity of voice,
Sourness of countenance, manners' cruelty,
Authority, wealth, and all the spawn of fortune,
Think they bear all the kingdom's worth before them,
Yet differ not from those colossic statues,
Which, with heroic forms without o'erspread,
Within are naught but mortar, flint and lead.”

The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois (1613)

“Let pride go afore, shame will follow after.”

Act I, scene i.
Bussy D'Ambois (1607)

“An ill weed grows apace.”

Act IV, scene i.
Eastward Hoe (1605)

George Chapman An Humorous Day's Mirth

An Humorous Day's Mirth; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

“Words writ in waters.”

“I am ashamed the law is such an ass.”

Revenge for Honour, Act V, scene ii; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Disputed

“And for the authentical truth of either person or actions, who (worth the respecting) will expect it in a poem, whose subject is not truth, but things like truth?”

Revenge for Honour, Act III, scene ii.
Disputed