Top 40 Edmund Waller Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Go, lovely rose, Tell her that wastes her time and me, That now she knows, When I resemble her to thee, How sweet and fair she seems to be.”

— Edmund Waller

2. “Music so softens and disarms the mind That not an arrow does resistance find.”

— Edmund Waller

3. “Stronger by weakness, wiser men become.”

— Edmund Waller

4. “Tea does our fancy aid, Repress those vapours which the head invade And keeps that palace of the soul serene.”

— Edmund Waller

5. “The soul’s dark cottage, batter’d and decay’d, Lets in new light through chinks that Time has made. Stronger by weakness, wiser men become As they draw near to their eternal home: Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view That stand upon the threshold of the new.”

— Edmund Waller

6. “Circle are praised, not that abound, In largeness, but the exactly round.”

— Edmund Waller

7. “Vexed sailors cursed the rain, for which poor shepherds prayed in vain.”

— Edmund Waller

8. “Small is the worth Of beauty from the light retired: Bid her come forth, Suffer herself to be desired, And not blush so to be admired.”

— Edmund Waller

9. “The seas are quiet when the winds give o’er; So calm are we when passions are no more!”

— Edmund Waller

10. “Fade, flowers, fade! Nature will have it so; ’tis but what we in our autumn do.”

— Edmund Waller

11. “The fear of Hell, or aiming to be blest, Savors too much of private interest. This moved not Moses, nor the zealous Paul, Who for their friends abandoned soul and all.”

— Edmund Waller

12. “Poets that lasting marble seek Must come in Latin or in Greek.”

— Edmund Waller

13. “Under the tropic is our language spoke, And part of Flanders hath receiv’d our yoke.”

— Edmund Waller

14. “With wisdom fraught; not such as books, but such as practice taught.”

— Edmund Waller

15. “The rising sun complies with our weak sight, First gilds the clouds, then shows his globe of light At such a distance from our eyes, as though He knew what harm his hasty beams would do.”

— Edmund Waller

16. “All human things Of dearest value hang on slender strings.”

— Edmund Waller

17. “The lark that shuns on lofty boughs to build, Her humble nest, lies silent in the field.”

— Edmund Waller

18. “That eagle’s fate and mine are one, Which, on the shaft that made him die, Espied a feather of his own, Wherewith he wont to soar so high.”

— Edmund Waller

19. “A narrow compass! and yet there Dwelt all that ’s good, and all that ’s fair; Give me but what this riband bound, Take all the rest the sun goes round.”

— Edmund Waller

20. “How small a part of time they share, That are so wondrous sweet and fair!”

— Edmund Waller

21. “Illustrious acts high raptures do infuse, And every conqueror creates a muse.”

— Edmund Waller

22. “If its length be not considered a merit, it hath no other.”

— Edmund Waller

23. “Virtue’s a stronger guard than brass.”

— Edmund Waller

24. “And as pale sickness does invade, Your frailer part, the breaches made, In that fair lodging still more clear, Make the bright guest, your soul, appear.”

— Edmund Waller

25. “All things but one you can restore; the heart you get returns no more.”

— Edmund Waller

26. “And keeps the palace of the soul.”

— Edmund Waller

27. “Give us enough but with a sparing hand.”

— Edmund Waller

28. “Happy the innocent whose equal thoughts are free from anguish as they are from faults.”

— Edmund Waller

29. “Soft words, with nothing in them, make a song.”

— Edmund Waller

30. “What use of oaths, of promise, or of test, where men regard no God but interest?”

— Edmund Waller

31. “For all we know Of what the blessed do above Is, that they sing, and that they love. While I listen to thy Voice.”

— Edmund Waller

32. “Thrice happy is that humble pair, Beneath the level of all care! Over whose heads those arrows fly, Of sad distrust and jealousy.”

— Edmund Waller

33. “The chain that’s fixed to the throne of Jove, On which the fabric of our world depends, One link dissolved, the whole creation ends.”

— Edmund Waller

34. “Poets lose half the praise they should have got, Could it be known what they discreetly blot.”

— Edmund Waller

35. “When religion doth with virtue join, it makes a hero like an angel shine.”

— Edmund Waller

36. “Others may use the ocean as their road; Only the English make it their abode.”

— Edmund Waller

37. “Lampoons, like squibs, may make a present blaze; but time and thunder pay respect to bays.”

— Edmund Waller

38. “Ingenious to their ruin, every age improves the art and instruments of rage.”

— Edmund Waller

39. “Gods, that never change their state, vary oft their love and hate.”

— Edmund Waller

40. “His love at once and dread instruct our thought; As man He suffer’d and as God He taught.”

— Edmund Waller

41. “Since thou wouldst needs, bewitched with some ill charms, Be buried in those monumental arms: As we can wish, is, may that earth lie light Upon thy tender limbs, and so good night.”

— Edmund Waller

42. “So must the writer, whose productions should Take with the vulgar, be of vulgar mould.”

— Edmund Waller

43. “But virtue too, as well as vice, is clad in flesh and blood.”

— Edmund Waller

44. “Happy is she that from the world retires, and carries with her what the world admires.”

— Edmund Waller