Top 80 Edmund Spenser Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “And painful pleasure turns to pleasing pain.”

— Edmund Spenser

2. “The mind maketh good or ill, wretch or happy, rich or poor.”

— Edmund Spenser

3. “Thankfulness is the tune of angels.”

— Edmund Spenser

4. “For there is nothing lost, that may be found, if sought.”

— Edmund Spenser

5. “All for love, and nothing for reward.”

— Edmund Spenser

6. “Be bold, and everywhere be bold.”

— Edmund Spenser

7. “Gather therefore the Rose, whilst yet is prime, For soon comes age, that will her pride deflower: Gather the Rose of love, whilst yet is time.”

— Edmund Spenser

8. “What more felicity can fall to creature, than to enjoy delight with liberty?”

— Edmund Spenser

9. “But times do change and move continually.”

— Edmund Spenser

10. “Ah, fool! faint heart fair lady ne’er could win.”

— Edmund Spenser

11. “Her angel’s face, As the great eye of heaven shined bright, And made a sunshine in the shady place.”

— Edmund Spenser

12. “The noblest mind the best contentment has.”

— Edmund Spenser

13. “Fierce warres and faithfull loves shall moralize my song.”

— Edmund Spenser

14. “Then came October, full of merry glee.”

— Edmund Spenser

15. “The poets scrolls will outlive the monuments of stone. Genius survives; all else is claimed by death.”

— Edmund Spenser

16. “Ill can he rule the great that cannot reach the small.”

— Edmund Spenser

17. “For evil deeds may better than bad words be borne.”

— Edmund Spenser

18. “Fresh spring the herald of love’s mighty king.”

— Edmund Spenser

19. “Where justice grows, there grows eke greater grace.”

— Edmund Spenser

20. “The nightingale is sovereign of song.”

— Edmund Spenser

21. “Hard it is to teach the old horse to amble anew.”

— Edmund Spenser

22. “For that which all men then did virtue call, Is now called vice; and that which vice was hight, Is now hight virtue, and so used of all: Right now is wrong, and wrong that was is right.”

— Edmund Spenser

23. “The man whom nature’s self had made to mock herself, and truth to imitate.”

— Edmund Spenser

24. “Discord harder is to end then to begin.”

— Edmund Spenser

25. “Go little book, thy self present, As child whose parent is unkent: To him that is the president Of noblesse and of chivalry, And if that Envy bark at thee, As sure it will, for succour flee.”

— Edmund Spenser

26. “The merry cuckow, messenger of Spring, His trumpet shrill hath thrice already sounded.”

— Edmund Spenser

27. “What though the sea with waves continuall Doe eate the earth, it is no more at all ; Ne is the earth the lesse, or loseth ought : For whatsoever from one place doth fall Is with the tyde unto another brought : For there is nothing lost, that may be found if sought.”

— Edmund Spenser

28. “Full little knowest thou that hast not tried, What hell it is in suing long to bide: To loose good dayes, that might be better spent; To waste long nights in pensive discontent; To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow; To feed on hope, to pine with feare and sorrow.”

— Edmund Spenser

29. “All love is sweet Given or returned And its familiar voice wearies not ever.”

— Edmund Spenser

30. “Gather the rose of love whilst yet is time.”

— Edmund Spenser

31. “He oft finds med’cine, who his griefe imparts; But double griefs afflict concealing harts, As raging flames who striveth to supresse.”

— Edmund Spenser

32. “Sleep after toil, port after stormy seas, Ease after war, death after life does greatly please.”

— Edmund Spenser

33. “Ah! when will this long weary day have end, And lende me leave to come unto my love? – Epithalamion.”

— Edmund Spenser

34. “O sacred hunger of ambitious minds.”

— Edmund Spenser

35. “Discord oft in music makes the sweeter lay.”

— Edmund Spenser

36. “For easy things, that may be got at will, Most sorts of men do set but little store.”

— Edmund Spenser

37. “Entire affection hateth nicer hands.”

— Edmund Spenser

38. “Who will not mercy unto others show, How can he mercy ever hope to have?”

— Edmund Spenser

39. “Vaine is the vaunt, and victory unjust, that more to mighty hands, then rightfull cause doth trust.”

— Edmund Spenser

40. “Beauty is not, as fond men misdeem, an outward show of things that only seem.”

— Edmund Spenser

41. “All that in this delightful garden grows should happy be and have immortal bliss.”

— Edmund Spenser

42. “A circle cannot fill a triangle, so neither can the whole world, if it were to be compassed, the heart of man; a man may as easily fill a chest with grace as the heart with gold. The air fills not the body, neither doth money the covetous mind of man.”

— Edmund Spenser

43. “Sluggish idleness – the nurse of sin.”

— Edmund Spenser

44. “In one consort there sat cruel revenge and rancorous despite, disloyal treason and heart-burning hate.”

— Edmund Spenser

45. “For deeds to die, however nobly done, And thoughts of men to as themselves decay, But wise words taught in numbers for to run, Recorded by the Muses, live for ay.”

— Edmund Spenser

46. “At last, the golden orientall gate Of greatest heaven gan to open fayre, And Phoebus, fresh as brydegrome to his mate, Came dauncing forth, shaking his dewie hayre; And hurls his glistring beams through gloomy ayre.”

— Edmund Spenser

47. “Rising glory occasions the greatest envy, as kindling fire the greatest smoke.”

— Edmund Spenser

48. “But angels come to lead frail minds to rest in chaste desires, on heavenly beauty bound. You frame my thoughts, and fashion me within; you stop my tongue, and teach my heart to speak.”

— Edmund Spenser

49. “In vain he seeketh others to suppress, Who hath not learn’d himself first to subdue.”

— Edmund Spenser

50. “Much more profitable and gracious is doctrine by example than by rule.”

— Edmund Spenser