Source: The Shoes of Happiness, and Other Poems (1913), The Crowning Hour, II
Context: p>If this is a dream, then perhaps our dreaming
Can touch life's height to a finer fire:
Who knows but the heavens and all their seeming
Were made by the heart's desire?One thing shines clear in the heart's sweet reason,
One lightning over the chasm runs —
That to turn from love is the world's one treason
That darkens all the suns.</p
“Love is the tyrant of the heart; it darkens
Reason, confounds discretion; deaf to Counsel
It runs a headlong course to desperate madness.”
Act III, sc. iii.
The Lover's Melancholy (1628)
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John Ford (dramatist) 33
dramatist 1586–1639Related quotes
“I wish to uphold counsel in the exercise of their discretion.”
In re Somerset; Somerset v. Earl Poulett (1893), L. R. [1894], 1 Ch. 249.
“In difficult and desperate cases, the boldest counsels are the safest.”
Book XXV, sec. 38
History of Rome
“There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.”
“All right and wrong, confounded in impious madness, turned from us the righteous will of the gods.”
Omnia fanda nefanda malo permixta furore
iustificam nobis mentem avertere deorum.
LXIV
Carmina
“It all seemed like madness, but was madness anything other than desperation blended with hope?”
Source: Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard (2015), Chapter 29, “Choice and Sacrifice” (p. 270)
“For when last need to desperation driveth,
Who dareth most, he wisest counsel giveth.”
Chè spesso avvien che ne' maggior' perigli
Sono i più audaci gli ottimi consigli.
Canto VI, stanza 6 (tr. Fairfax)
Gerusalemme Liberata (1581)
“5344. Valour would fight, but Discretion would run away.”
Compare Poor Richard's Almanack (1747) : Courage would fight, but Discretion won't let him.
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)