Philip Sidney Quotes

Fool," said my muse to me. "Look in thy heart and write.

Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite: "Fool!" said my muse to me, "look in thy heart, and write.

Either I will find a way, or I will make one.

...the poet, he nothing affirmeth, and therefore never lieth.

...music, I say, the most divine striker of the senses...

I now have learn’d Love right, and learn’d even so, As who by being poisoned doth poison know.

I am not I; pity the tale of me.

With a sword thou mayest kill thy father, and with a sword thou mayest defend thy prince and country.

If you have so earth-creeping a mind that it cannot lift itself up to look to the sky of poetry...thus much curse I must send you, in the behalf of all poets, that while you live, you live in love, and never get favour for lacking skill of a sonnet; and, when you die, your memory die from the earth for want of an epitaph.

Anger, the Stoics said, was a short madness.

Fear is more pain than is the pain it fears

A brave captain is as a root, out of which, as branches, the courage of his soldiers doth spring

Who will be taught, if he be not moved with desire to be taught?

...scoffing cometh not of wisdom...

Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show, That she (dear she) might take some pleasure of my pain; Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know; Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain; I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe, Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain; Oft turning others' leaves, to see if thence would flow Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sunburnt brain. But words came halting forth, wanting invention's stay; Invention, nature's child, fled step-dame study's blows; And others' feet still seemed but strangers in my way. Thus great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes, Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite, 'Fool,' said my muse to me; 'look in thy heart, and write.

Desire, desire! I have too dearly bought, With price of mangled mind, thy worthless ware.

So, then, the best of the historian is subject to the poet; for whatsoever action or faction, whatsoever counsel, policy, or war-stratagem the historian is bound to recite, that may the poet, if he list, with his imitation make his own, beautifying it both for further teaching and more delighting, as it pleaseth him; having all, from Dante’s Heaven to his Hell, under the authority of his pen.

...think I none so simple would say that Aesop lied in the tales of his beasts: for who thinks that Aesop writ it for actually true were well worthy to have his name chronicled among the beasts he writeth of.

For grammar it [poetry] might have, but it needs it not; being so easy in itself, and so void of those cumbersome differences of cases, genders, moods, and tenses, which, I think, was a piece of the Tower of Babylon's curse, that a man shoult be put to school to learn his mother-tongue.

Stella, the only planet of my light, Light of my life, and life of my desire, Chief good, whereto my hope doth only aspire, World of my wealth, and heav'n of my delight: Why dost thou spend the treasure of thy sprite, With voice more fit to wed Amphion's lyre, Seeking to quench in me the noble fire Fed by thy worth, and kindled by thy sight? And all in vain, for while thy breath most sweet, With choicest words, thy words with reasons rare, Thy reasons firmly set on Virtue's feet, Labor to kill in me this killing care: Oh, think I then, what paradise of joy It is, so fair a Virtue to enjoy.

My true-love hath my heart and I have his, By just exchange one for the other given: I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss; There never was a bargain better driven. His heart in me keeps me and him in one; My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides: He loves my heart, for once it was his own; I cherish his because in me it bides. His heart his wound received from my sight; My heart was wounded with his wounded heart; For as from me on him his hurt did light, So still, methought, in me his hurt did smart: Both equal hurt, in this change sought our bliss, My true-love hath my heart and I have his.

Over-mastered by some thoughts, I yeelded an inckie tribute unto them.

to know, and by knowledge to lift up the mind from the dungeon of the body to the enjoying his own divine essence

They are never alone that are accompanied with noble thoughts.

A brave captain is as a root, out of which, as branches, the courage of his soldiers doth spring. —Sir Philip Sidney

Leave me, O Love, which reachest but to dust, And thou, my mind, aspire to higher things! Grow rich in that which never taketh rust: Whatever fades, but fading pleasure brings. Draw in thy beams, and humble all thy might To that sweet yoke where lasting freedoms be; Which breaks the clouds, and opens forth the light, That doth both shine, and give us sight to see.

Come, Sleep; O Sleep! the certain knot of peace, The baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe, The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release, Th' indifferent judge between the high and low; With shield of proof shield me from out the prease Of those fierce darts Despair at me doth throw.

«Hästi sõnastatud teadmised on hea vaimutoit,» ütles Philip Sidney. Aga teisest küljest: «Sõnad on nagu puude lehed — sealt, kus neid on ohtralt, võib harva leida palju mõistuse vilja.» Alexander Pope.

No, no, let us think with consideration, and consider with acknowledging, and acknowledge with admiration, and admire with love, and love with joy in the midst of all woes ; let us in such sort think, I say, that our poor eyes were so enriched as to behold, and our low hearts so exalted as to love, a maid who is such, that as the greatest thing the world can show is her beauty, so the least thing that may be praised in her is her beauty.

Julius Caesar is an ambivalent study of civil conflict. As in Richard II, the play is structured around two protagonists rather than one. Cesar and Brutus are more alike one another than either would care to admit. This antithetical balance reflects a dual tradition: the medieval view of Dante and Chaucer condemning Brutus and Cassius as conspirators, and the Renaissance view of Sir Philip Sidney and Ben Johnson condemning Caesar as tyrant. Those opposing views still live on in various 20th-century productions which seek to enlist them play on the side of conservatism or liberalism.

The Renaissance did not break completely with mediaeval history and values. Sir Philip Sidney is often considered the model of the perfect Renaissance gentleman. He embodied the mediaeval virtues of the knight (the noble warrior), the lover (the man of passion), and the scholar (the man of learning). His death in 1586, after the Battle of Zutphen, sacrificing the last of his water supply to a wounded soldier, made him a hero. His great sonnet sequence Astrophel and Stella is one of the key texts of the time, distilling the author's virtues and beliefs into the first of the Renaissance love masterpieces. His other great work, Arcadia, is a prose romance interspersed with many poems and songs.

Sidney's never makes a mistake, he said to himself. We know that, too. What else can we depend on?

No mean Machiavelli is smiling, cynical Sidney Kidd.

[...] The idea of honor in battle has been passed down for generations. It went from Greece to Rome, to the medieval world and the Crusades. It was beloved of Sir Philip Sidney, Essex and Southampton [...]. In many ways, the British Empire was founded on it [...] The idea came to a halt in the First World War [...] The poets, led by Wilfred Owen, told the truth about it "[...] The old lie : 'Dulce el decorum est pro patria mori'. [...]Henry IV Part I is a play with much "honor". Honor is its central theme. So let's examine Henry IV Part I for a moment, to understand the ingredients of "honor". [...] You will notice there are not many women in these plays [about honor]-and when they appear, they are usually whores or faifthful wives. Honor is not a woman's story[...] 'What is honour? A word', (...) a mere scutcheon" [says] Falstaff's iconoclasm and truthful vision about honor. {...]There are several things we can see in all this. The first is that war is a man´s game, it is intolerable, and the only way you can get people to do it is to make the alternative seem a hundred times worse [...] Therefore, valor must be glorified, if not deified. [...]

the crisis is past and all is well, the sheep returns to the fold. We’re all sheep who have strayed at times. Truth is truth, to the end of reckoning, we’ve cried. They are never alone that are accompanied with noble thoughts, we’ve shouted to ourselves. ‘Sweet food of sweetly uttered knowledge,’ Sir Philip Sidney said. But on the other hand: ‘Words are like leaves and where they most abound, Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.

But hereto is replied that the poets give names to men they write of, which argueth a conceit of an actual truth, and so, not being true, proveth a falsehood. And doth the lawyer lie then, when, under the names of John of the Stile, and John of the Nokes, he putteth his case? But that is easily answered: their naming of men is but to make their picture the more lively, and not to build any history. Painting men, they cannot leave men nameless. We see we cannot play at chess but that we must give names to our chess-men; and yet, me thinks, he were a very partial champion of truth that would say we lied for giving a piece of wood the reverend title of a bishop.

O that we had, to make our woes more public, Seas in our eyes, and brazen tongues by nature, A yelling voice, and hearts composed of sorrow, Breath made of flames, wits knowing naught but damage, Our sports murd'ring ourselves, our musics wailing, Our studies fixed upon the falls of fortune.

When Nature made her chief work, Stella’s eyes, In colour black why wrapp’d she beams so bright? Would she in beamy black, like painter wise, Frame daintiest lustre, mix’d of shades and light? Or did she else that sober hue devise, In object best to knit and strength our sight, Lest if no veil those brave gleams did disguise, They sun-like should more dazzle than delight? Or would she her miraculous power show, That whereas black seems Beauty’s contrary, She even in black doth make all beauties flow? Both so and thus, she minding Love should be Placed ever there, gave him this mourning weed, To honour all their deaths, who for her bleed.

The malicious erasure of women’s names from the historical record began two or three thousand years ago and continues into our own period. Women take as great a risk of anonymity when they merge their names with men in literary collaboration as when they merge in matrimony. The Lynds, for example, devoted equal time, thought, and effort to the writing of Middletown, but today it is Robert Lynd’s book. Dr. Mary Leakey made the important paleontological discoveries in Africa, but Dr. Louis Leakey gets all the credit. Mary Beard did a large part of the work on America in Midpassage, yet Charles Beard is the great social historian. The insidious process is now at work on Eve Curie. A recent book written for young people states that radium was discovered by Pierre Curie with the help of his assistant, Eve, who later became his wife. Aspasia wrote the famous oration to the Athenians, as Socrates knew, but in all the history books it is Pericles’ oration. Corinna taught Pindar and polished his poems for posterity; but who ever heard of Corinna? Peter Abelard got his best ideas from Heloise, his acknowledged intellectual superior, yet Abelard is the great medieval scholar and philosopher. Mary Sidney probably wrote Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia; Nausicaa wrote the Odyssey, as Samuel Butler proves in his book The Authoress of the Odyssey, at least to the satisfaction of this writer and of Robert Graves, who comment, “no other alternative makes much sense.

Swaggering in the coffee-houses and ruffling it in the streets were the men who had sailed with Frobisher and Drake and Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Hawkins, and Sir Richard Granville; had perhaps witnessed the heroic death of Sir Philip Sidney, at Zutphen; had served with Raleigh in Anjou, Picardy, Languedoc, in the Netherlands, in the Irish civil war; had taken part in the dispersion of the Spanish Armada, and in the bombardment of Cadiz; had filled their cups to the union of Scotland with England; had suffered shipwreck on the Barbary Coast, or had, by the fortune of war, felt the grip of the Spanish Inquisition; who could tell tales of the marvels seen in new-found America and the Indies, and, perhaps, like Captain John Smith, could mingle stories of the naive simplicity of the natives beyond the Atlantic, with charming narratives of the wars in Hungary, the beauties of the seraglio of the Grand Turk, and the barbaric pomp of the Khan of Tartary.

I was on my way to college with two friends from high school, Sidney Jacobs and Tom Steiner, both of whom I knew quite well. But our going out to the Midwest together was unplanned, sheer chance. They were part of a local, self-made club they called the Phalanx—a group of superbright, geeky teenagers who banded together for mutual company and entertainment. I knew them from the Maryland Chess Club, though, being several years younger, I was tolerated to a degree but had never been a part of their highly introverted and intellectual group.

When I was forc’d from Stella, ever dear Stella, food of my thoughts, heart of my heart; Stella, whose eyes make all my tempests clear, By iron laws of duty to depart: Alas I found that she with me did smart; I saw that tears did in her eyes appear; I saw that sighs her sweetest lips did part, And her sad words my saddest sense did hear. For me, I wept to see pearls scatter’d so; I sigh’d her sighs, and wailed for her woe, Yet swam in joy, such love in her was seen. Thus, while th’effect most bitter was to me, And nothing than the cause more sweet could be, I had been vex’d, if vex’d I had not been.

What may words say, or what may words not say, Where truth itself must speak like flattery? Within what bounds can one his liking stay, Where Nature doth with infinite agree? What Nestor’s counsel can my flames allay, Since Reason’s self doth blow the coal in me? And ah what hope, that hope should once see day, Where Cupid is sworn page to Chastity? Honour is honour’d, that thou dost possess Him as thy slave, and now long needy Fame Doth even grow rich, naming my Stella’s name. Wit learns in thee perfection to express, Not thou by praise, but praise in thee is rais’d: It is a praise to praise, when thou art prais’d.

It is not about the scientists and teachers and lawyers they become and the things such people accomplish for others. It is not about the immigrants like Chaya who worked and saved and sacrificed to get a decent footing in America. It is not about the wonderful peaceful days and nights you spent growing up in our house. It is not about the lovely friends you always had. No, it’s about Essie and her hammer, and Sidney and his chorus girls, and that shyster of Essie’s and his filthy mouth, and, as best I can see, about what a jerk I was begging them to reach a decent compromise before the whole family had to be dragged up in front of a goyisher judge.” “I didn’t depict you as a jerk.

No, it’s that empathy,” Irmgard said vigorously. Fists clenched, she roved into the kitchen, up to Isidore. “Isn’t it a way of proving that humans can do something we can’t do? Because without the Mercer experience we just have your word that you feel this empathy business, this shared, group thing. How’s the spider?” She bent over Pris’s shoulder. With the scissors, Pris snipped off another of the spider’s legs. “Four now,” she said. She nudged the spider. “He won’t go. But he can.” Roy Baty appeared at the doorway, inhaling deeply, an expression of accomplishment on his face. “It’s done. Buster said it out loud, and nearly every human in the system heard him say it. ‘Mercerism is a swindle.’ The whole experience of empathy is a swindle.” He came over to look curiously at the spider. “It won’t try to walk,” Irmgard said. “I can make it walk.” Roy Baty got out a book of matches, lit a match; he held it near the spider, closer and closer, until at last it crept feebly away. “I was right,” Irmgard said. “Didn’t I say it could walk with only four legs?” She peered up expectantly at Isidore. “What’s the matter?” Touching his arm she said, “You didn’t lose anything; we’ll pay you what that—what’s it called?—that Sidney’s catalogue says. Don’t look so grim. Isn’t that something about Mercer, what they discovered? All that research? Hey, answer.” She prodded him anxiously. “He’s upset,” Pris said. “Because he has an empathy box. In the other room. Do you use it, J. R.?” she asked Isidore. Roy Baty said, “Of course he uses it. They all do—or did. Maybe now they’ll start wondering.” “I don’t think this will end the cult of Mercer,” Pris said. “But right this minute there’re a lot of unhappy human beings.” To Isidore she said, “We’ve waited for months; we all knew it was coming, this pitch of Buster’s.” She hesitated and then said, “Well, why not. Buster is one of us.

Buster Friendly said, “We may never know. Nor can we fathom the peculiar purpose behind this swindle. Yes, folks, swindle. Mercerism is a swindle!” “I think we know,” Roy Baty said. “It’s obvious. Mercerism came into existence—” “But ponder this,” Buster Friendly continued. “Ask yourselves what is it that Mercerism does. Well, if we’re to believe its many practitioners, the experience fuses—” “It’s that empathy that humans have,” Irmgard said. “—men and women throughout the Sol System into a single entity. But an entity which is manageable by the so-called telepathic voice of ‘Mercer.’ Mark that. An ambitious politically minded would-be Hitler could—” “No, it’s that empathy,” Irmgard said vigorously. Fists clenched, she roved into the kitchen, up to Isidore. “Isn’t it a way of proving that humans can do something we can’t do? Because without the Mercer experience we just have your word that you feel this empathy business, this shared, group thing. How’s the spider?” She bent over Pris’s shoulder. With the scissors, Pris snipped off another of the spider’s legs. “Four now,” she said. She nudged the spider. “He won’t go. But he can.” Roy Baty appeared at the doorway, inhaling deeply, an expression of accomplishment on his face. “It’s done. Buster said it out loud, and nearly every human in the system heard him say it. ‘Mercerism is a swindle.’ The whole experience of empathy is a swindle.” He came over to look curiously at the spider. “It won’t try to walk,” Irmgard said. “I can make it walk.” Roy Baty got out a book of matches, lit a match; he held it near the spider, closer and closer, until at last it crept feebly away. “I was right,” Irmgard said. “Didn’t I say it could walk with only four legs?” She peered up expectantly at Isidore. “What’s the matter?” Touching his arm she said, “You didn’t lose anything; we’ll pay you what that—what’s it called?—that Sidney’s catalogue says. Don’t look so grim. Isn’t that something about Mercer, what they discovered? All that research? Hey, answer.” She prodded him anxiously. “He’s upset,” Pris said. “Because he has an empathy box. In the other room. Do you use it, J. R.?” she asked Isidore. Roy Baty said, “Of course he uses it. They all do—or did. Maybe now they’ll start wondering.” “I don’t think this will end the cult of Mercer,” Pris said. “But right this minute there’re a lot of unhappy human beings.” To Isidore she said, “We’ve waited for months; we all knew it was coming, this pitch of Buster’s.” She hesitated and then said, “Well, why not. Buster is one of us.” “An android,” Irmgard explained. “And nobody knows. No humans, I mean.” Pris, with the scissors, cut yet another leg from the spider. All at once John Isidore pushed her away and lifted up the mutilated creature. He carried it to the sink and there he drowned it. In him, his mind, his hopes, drowned, too. As swiftly as the spider.

No, it’s that empathy,” Irmgard said vigorously. Fists clenched, she roved into the kitchen, up to Isidore. “Isn’t it a way of proving that humans can do something we can’t do? Because without the Mercer experience we just have your word that you feel this empathy business, this shared, group thing. How’s the spider?” She bent over Pris’s shoulder. With the scissors, Pris snipped off another of the spider’s legs. “Four now,” she said. She nudged the spider. “He won’t go. But he can.” Roy Baty appeared at the doorway, inhaling deeply, an expression of accomplishment on his face. “It’s done. Buster said it out loud, and nearly every human in the system heard him say it. ‘Mercerism is a swindle.’ The whole experience of empathy is a swindle.” He came over to look curiously at the spider. “It won’t try to walk,” Irmgard said. “I can make it walk.” Roy Baty got out a book of matches, lit a match; he held it near the spider, closer and closer, until at last it crept feebly away. “I was right,” Irmgard said. “Didn’t I say it could walk with only four legs?” She peered up expectantly at Isidore. “What’s the matter?” Touching his arm she said, “You didn’t lose anything; we’ll pay you what that—what’s it called?—that Sidney’s catalogue says. Don’t look so grim. Isn’t that something about Mercer, what they discovered? All that research? Hey, answer.” She prodded him anxiously. “He’s upset,” Pris said. “Because he has an empathy box. In the other room. Do you use it, J. R.?” she asked Isidore.

For Aristotle, a mark of good literature is that it “satisfies the moral sense.”1 The Christianized version of this classical tradition reached its climax in the Renaissance author Sir Philip Sidney’s treatise A Defense of Poetry. Sidney claimed that the very purpose of literature is the “winning of the mind from wickedness to virtue” and inflaming a reader with a “desire to be worthy.”2

Why should Milton, Shakespeare, and Lord Bacon, and Sir Philip Sidney die? Perhaps yet they shall not wholly die. I am not contented to visit the house in Bread-Street where Milton was born, or that in Bunhill-Row where he died, I want to repair to the place where he now dwells. Some spirit shall escape from his ashes, and whisper to me things unfelt before. I am not satisfied to converse only with the generation of men that now happens to subsist; I wish to live in intercourse with the Illustrious Dead of All Ages. I demand the friendship of Zoroaster. Orpheus, and Linus, and Musaeus shall be welcome to me. I have a craving and an earnest heart, that can never be contented with anything in this sort, while something more remains to be obtained. And I feel that thus much at least the human race owes to its benefactors, that they should never be passed by without an affectionate remembrance. I would say, with Ezekiel, the Hebrew, in his Vision, ‘Let these dry bones live!’ Not let them live merely in cold generalities and idle homilies of morality; but let them live, as my friends, my philosophers, my instructors, and my guides! I would say with the moralist of old, ‘Let me act, as I would wish to have acted, if Socrates or Cato were the spectators of what I did!’ And I am not satisfied only to call them up by a strong effort of the imagination, but I would have them, and men like them, ‘around my path, and around my bed,’ and not allow myself to hold a more frequent intercourse with the living, than with the good departed.

Self-love is better than any gilding to make that seem gorgeous wherein ourselves be parties.

Here in the sixteenth century one of the most unusual and talented women in England’s history – Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke – maintained an alchemical laboratory, assisted by Sir Walter Raleigh’s half-brother Adrian Gilbert, who also created an elaborate magical garden in the grounds, based on sacred geometry. And although the garden and house have undergone many changes since their time, through fire and restoration, it still seems as if its former inhabitants were here only yesterday. Mary Sidney is remarkable for being one of the few women whose names appear in the history of alchemy in England and, indeed, the world. She was also the first English woman to achieve a significant literary reputation. Some even believe that it was her genius that lay behind the plays of William Shakespeare, which they claim she either wrote herself or collaborated upon with the group of literary luminaries that she patronised.

Iubeste cu adevarat cel ce tremura cand isi marturiseste dragostea.

The perfect embodiment of the courtier-poet was a heroic nobleman born in one of the great houses of England, Penshurst Place, in 1554, and dead a mere thirty-one years later on a battlefield fighting the Spanish in the Netherlands: Sir Philip Sidney. He achieved lasting fame for giving his water bottle to another wounded soldier with the words “Thy need is greater than mine.

Alas, have I not pain enough, my friend, Upon whose breast a fiercer gripe doth tire Than did on him who first stale down the fire, While Love on me doth all his quiver spend, But with your rhubarb words you must contend To grieve me worse, in saying that Desire Doth plunge my well-formed soul even in the mire Of sinful thoughts, which do in ruin end? If that be sin which doth the manners frame, Well stayed with truth in word and faith of deed, Ready of wit, and fearing naught but shame; If that be sin which in fixed hearts doth breed A loathing of all loose unchastity, Then love is sin, and let me sinful be.

Stella, think not that I by verse seek fame, Who seek, who hope, who love, who live but thee; Thine eyes my pride, thy lips my history; If thou praise not, all other praise is shame.

For nothing from my wit or will doth flow, Since all my words thy beauty doth endite, And love doth hold my hand, and makes me write.

This purifying of wit, this enriching of memory, enabling of judgment, and enlarging of conceit, which commonly we call learning, under what name soever it come forth or to what immediate end soever it be directed, the final end is to lead and draw us to as high a perfection as our degenerate souls, made worse by their clay lodgings, can be capable of.

However, just for the heck of it, he wiggled his bent Sidney’s out of his coat pocket, thumbed to ostrich comma male-female, old-young, sick-well, mint-used, and inspected the prices.

Now for the Poet, he nothing affirmeth, therefore he never lieth.

Human creativity is borne as a reflection of the infinite creativity of God himself. Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586)

Stella, whence doth this new assault arise, A conquer’d, yielden, ransack’d heart to win? Whereto long since through my long batter’d eyes, Whole armies of thy beauties entered in. And there long since, Love thy lieutenant lies, My forces raz’d, thy banners rais’d within: Of conquest, do not these effects suffice, But wilt now war upon thine own begin? With so sweet voice, and by sweet Nature so In sweetest strength, so sweetly skill’d withal, In all sweet stratagems sweet Art can show, That not my soul, which at thy foot did fall Long since, forc’d by thy beams, but stone nor tree By Sense’s privilege, can ‘scape from thee.

Out, traitor Absence, darest thou counsel me From my dear captainess to run away, Because in brave array here marched she That to win me, oft shows a present pay? Is faith so weak? Or is such force in thee? When sun is hid, can stars such beams display? Cannot heav’n’s food, once felt, keep stomachs free From base desire on earthly cates to prey? Tush, Absence, while thy mists eclipse that light, My orphan sense flies to th’inward sight Where memory sets forth the beams of love; That where before heart lov’d and eyes did see, In heart both sight and love now coupl’d be; United powers make each the stronger prove.

Dear killer, spare not they sweet-cruel shot: A kind of grace it is to slay with speed. - From "Astrophel and Stella

Sweet food of sweetly uttered knowledge