Top 40 George Chapman Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “The best way to accomplish something is to just do it, and then find the courage afterward.”

— George Chapman

2. “They’re only truly great who are truly good.”

— George Chapman

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

— George Chapman

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

— George Chapman

5. “Let no man under value the price of a virtuous woman’s counsel.”

— George Chapman

6. “Ignorance is the mother of admiration.”

— George Chapman

7. “He that shuns trifles must shun the world.”

— George Chapman

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

— George Chapman

9. “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.”

— George Chapman

10. “Fate’s such a shrewish thing.”

— George Chapman

11. “An ill weed grows apace.”

— George Chapman

12. “Fortune, the great commandress of the world, Hath divers ways to advance her followers: To some she gives honor without deserving; To other some, deserving without honor; Some wit, some wealth, – and some, wit without wealth; Some wealth without wit; some nor wit nor wealth.”

— George Chapman

13. “Love is Natures second sun.”

— George Chapman

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

— George Chapman

15. “Black is a pearl in a woman’s eye.”

— George Chapman

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

— George Chapman

17. “Danger, the spur of all great minds.”

— George Chapman

18. “Flatterers look like friends, as wolves like dogs.”

— George Chapman

19. “Blood, though it sleep a time, yet never dies. The gods on murtherers fix revengeful eyes.”

— George Chapman

20. “Let no man value at a little price A virtuous woman’s counsel; her winged spirit Is feathered often times with heavenly words, And, like her beauty, ravishing and pure.”

— George Chapman

21. “Fair words never hurt the tongue.”

— George Chapman

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

— George Chapman

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

— George Chapman

24. “And let a scholar all earth’s volumes carry, he will be but a walking dictionary: a mere articulate clock.”

— George Chapman

25. “We inherit nothing truly, but what our actions make us worthy of.”

— George Chapman

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

— George Chapman

27. “An Englishman, being flattered, is a lamb; threatened, a lion.”

— George Chapman

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

— George Chapman

29. “Extremes, though contrary, have the like effects. Extreme heat kills, and so extreme cold: extreme love breeds satiety, and so extreme hatred; and too violent rigor tempts chastity, as does too much license.”

— George Chapman

30. “I pray, what flowers are these? The pansy this, O, that’s for lover’s thoughts.”

— George Chapman

31. “Who hath no faith to man, to God hath none.”

— George Chapman

32. “Pure innovation is more gross than error.”

— George Chapman

33. “Who to himself is law no law doth need; offends none and is king indeed.”

— George Chapman

34. “Enough ’s as good as a feast.”

— George Chapman

35. “News as wholesome as the morning air.”

— George Chapman

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

— George Chapman

37. “Words writ in waters.”

— George Chapman

38. “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.”

— George Chapman

39. “Make ducks and drakes with shillings.”

— George Chapman

40. “Be free all worthy spirits, and stretch yourselves, for greatness and for height.”

— George Chapman

41. “There is a nick in Fortune’s restless wheel For each man’s good.”

— George Chapman

42. “Perfect happiness, by princes sought, Is not with birth born, nor exchequers bought.”

— George Chapman

43. “The incompetent quickly throws himself into another impressive enterprise in order to escape his responsibility from previous disaster.”

— George Chapman

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

— George Chapman