Top 160 Philip Sidney Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “The ingredients of health and long life, are great temperance, open air, easy labor, and little care.”

— Philip Sidney

52. “Anger, the Stoics said, was a short madness.”

— Philip Sidney

53. “Come Sleep! Oh Sleep, the certain knot of peace, the baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe, the poor man’s wealth, the prisoner’s release, the indifferent judge between the high and low.”

— Philip Sidney

54. “Laughter almost ever cometh of things most disproportioned to ourselves and nature: delight hath a joy in it either permanent or present; laughter hath only a scornful tickling.”

— Philip Sidney

55. “Happiness is a sunbeam, which may pass though a thousand bosoms without losing a particle of its original ray.”

— Philip Sidney

56. “Contentions for trifles can get but a trifling victory.”

— Philip Sidney

57. “It is no less vain to wish death than it is cowardly to fear it.”

— Philip Sidney

58. “The many-headed multitude, whom inconstancy only doth by accident guide to well-doing! Who can set confidence there, where company takes away shame, and each may lay the fault upon his fellow?”

— Philip Sidney

59. “Blasphemous words betray the vain foolishness of the speaker.”

— Philip Sidney

60. “Open suspecting of others comes of secretly condemning ourselves.”

— Philip Sidney

61. “As the fertilest ground, must be manured, so must the highest flying wit have a Daedalus to guide him.”

— Philip Sidney

62. “Like the air-invested heron, great persons should conduct themselves; and the higher they be, the less they should show.”

— Philip Sidney

63. “For the uttering sweetly and properly the conceit of the mind, English hath it equally with any other tongue in the world.”

— Philip Sidney

64. “I am no herald to inquire into men’s pedigree; it sufficeth me if I know their virtues.”

— Philip Sidney

65. “Ambition, like love, can abide no lingering; and ever urgeth on his own successes, hating nothing but what may stop them.”

— Philip Sidney

66. “What is mine, even to my life, is hers I love; but the secret of my friend is not mine!”

— Philip Sidney

67. “All is but lip-wisdom which wants experience.”

— Philip Sidney

68. “God has appointed us captains of this our bodily fort, which, without treason to that majesty, are never to be delivered over till they are demanded.”

— Philip Sidney

69. “There is nothing sooner overthrows a weak head than opinion by authority, like too strong a liquor for a frail glass.”

— Philip Sidney

70. “The end of all knowledge should be in virtuous action.”

— Philip Sidney

71. “There have been many most excellent poets that have never versified, and now swarm many versifiers that need never answer to the name of poets.”

— Philip Sidney

72. “Cupid makes it his sport to pull the warrior’s plum.”

— Philip Sidney

73. “Our erected wit maketh us to know what perfection is.”

— Philip Sidney

74. “Take thou of me, sweet pillowes, sweetest bed; A chamber deafe of noise, and blind of light, A rosie garland and a weary hed.”

— Philip Sidney

75. “Vice is but a nurse of agonies.”

— Philip Sidney

76. “A fair woman shall not only command without authority but persuade without speaking.”

— Philip Sidney

77. “It is hard, but it is excellent, to find the right knowledge of when correction is necessary and when grace doth most avail.”

— Philip Sidney

78. “Courage without discipline is nearer beastliness than manhood.”

— Philip Sidney

79. “Who will be taught, if he be not moved with desire to be taught?”

— Philip Sidney

80. “Laws are not made like lime-twigs or nets, to catch everything that toucheth them; but rather like sea-marks, to guide from shipwreck the ignorant passenger.”

— Philip Sidney

81. “The highest point outward things can bring unto, is the contentment of the mind; with which no estate can be poor, without which all estates will be miserable.”

— Philip Sidney

82. “There is a certain delicacy which in yielding conquers; and with a pitiful look makes one find cause to crave help one’s self.”

— Philip Sidney

83. “Truth is the ground of science, the centre wherein all things repose, and is the type of eternity.”

— Philip Sidney

84. “The observances of the church concerning feasts and fasts are tolerably well kept, since the rich keep the feasts and the poor the fasts.”

— Philip Sidney

85. “If you neglect your work, you will dislike it; if you do it well, you will enjoy it.”

— Philip Sidney

86. “To be ambitious of true honor and of the real glory and perfection of our nature is the very principle and incentive of virtue; but to be ambitious of titles, place, ceremonial respects, and civil pageantry, is as vain and little as the things are which we court.”

— Philip Sidney

87. “In the clear mind of virtue treason can find no hiding-place.”

— Philip Sidney

88. “Who doth desire that chaste his wife should be, first be he true, for truth doth truth deserve.”

— Philip Sidney

89. “Reason cannot show itself more reasonable than to cease reasoning on things above reason.”

— Philip Sidney

90. “Sweet speaking oft a currish heart reclaims.”

— Philip Sidney

91. “Provision is the foundation of hospitality, and thrift the fuel of magnificence.”

— Philip Sidney

92. “The glory and increase of wisdom stands in exercising it.”

— Philip Sidney

93. “It is great happiness to be praised of them who are most praiseworthy.”

— Philip Sidney

94. “Gold can gild a rotten stick, and dirt sully an ingot.”

— Philip Sidney

95. “Reason! how many eyes hast thou to see evils, and how dim, nay, blind, thou art in preventing them.”

— Philip Sidney

96. “Whether your time calls you to live or die, do both like a prince.”

— Philip Sidney

97. “There is nothing evil but what is within us; the rest is either natural or accidental.”

— Philip Sidney

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

— Philip Sidney

99. “In shame there is no comfort but to be beyond all bounds of shame.”

— Philip Sidney

100. “A noble cause doth ease much a grievous case.”

— Philip Sidney