"Naught so sweet as melancholy."

Anatomy of Melancholy. The Author's Abstract.

"I would help others, out of a fellow-feeling."

Anatomy of Melancholy. Democritus to the Reader.

"They lard their lean books with the fat of others' works."

Anatomy of Melancholy. Democritus to the Reader.

"We can say nothing but what hath been said. Our poets steal from Homer. . . . Our story-dressers do as much; he that comes last is commonly best."

Anatomy of Melancholy. Democritus to the Reader.

"I say with Didacus Stella, a dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant may see farther than a giant himself."

Anatomy of Melancholy. Democritus to the Reader.

"It is most true, stylus virum arguit,--our style bewrays us."

Anatomy of Melancholy. Democritus to the Reader.

"I had not time to lick it into form, as a bear doth her young ones."

Anatomy of Melancholy. Democritus to the Reader.

"As that great captain, Ziska, would have a drum made of his skin when he was dead, because he thought the very noise of it would put his enemies to flight."

Anatomy of Melancholy. Democritus to the Reader.

"Like the watermen that row one way and look another."

Anatomy of Melancholy. Democritus to the Reader.

"Smile with an intent to do mischief, or cozen him whom he salutes."

Anatomy of Melancholy. Democritus to the Reader.

"Him that makes shoes go barefoot himself."

Anatomy of Melancholy. Democritus to the Reader.

"Rob Peter, and pay Paul."

Anatomy of Melancholy. Democritus to the Reader.

"Penny wise, pound foolish."

Anatomy of Melancholy. Democritus to the Reader.

"Women wear the breeches."

Anatomy of Melancholy. Democritus to the Reader.

"Like Æsop's fox, when he had lost his tail, would have all his fellow foxes cut off theirs."

Anatomy of Melancholy. Democritus to the Reader.

"Our wrangling lawyers . . . are so litigious and busy here on earth, that I think they will plead their clients' causes hereafter,--some of them in hell."

Anatomy of Melancholy. Democritus to the Reader.

"Hannibal, as he had mighty virtues, so had he many vices; he had two distinct persons in him."

Anatomy of Melancholy. Democritus to the Reader.

"Carcasses bleed at the sight of the murderer."

Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 1, Memb. 2, Subsect. 5.

"Every man hath a good and a bad angel attending on him in particular, all his life long."

Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 1, Subsect. 2.

"[Witches] steal young children out of their cradles, ministerio dæmonum, and put deformed in their rooms, which we call changelings."

Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 1, Subsect. 3.

"Can build castles in the air."

Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 1, Subsect. 3.

"Joh. Mayor, in the first book of his "History of Scotland," contends much for the wholesomeness of oaten bread; it was objected to him, then living at Paris, that his countrymen fed on oats and base grain. . . . And yet Wecker out of Galen calls it horse-meat, and fitter juments than men to feed on."

Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 2, Subsect. 1.

"Cookery is become an art, a noble science; cooks are gentlemen."

Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 2, Subsect. 2.

"As much valour is to be found in feasting as in fighting, and some of our city captains and carpet knights will make this good, and prove it."

Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 2, Subsect. 2.

"No rule is so general, which admits not some exception."

Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 2, Subsect. 3.

"Idleness is an appendix to nobility."

Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 2, Subsect. 6.

"Why doth one man's yawning make another yawn?"

Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 3, Subsect. 2.

"A nightingale dies for shame if another bird sings better."

Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 3, Subsect. 6.

"They do not live but linger."

Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 3, Subsect. 10.

"[Diseases] crucify the soul of man, attenuate our bodies, dry them, wither them, shrivel them up like old apples, make them so many anatomies."

Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 3, Subsect. 10.

"[Desire] is a perpetual rack, or horsemill, according to Austin, still going round as in a ring."

Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 3, Subsect. 11.

"[The rich] are indeed rather possessed by their money than possessors."

Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 3, Subsect. 12.

"Like a hog, or dog in the manger, he doth only keep it because it shall do nobody else good, hurting himself and others."

Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 3, Subsect. 12.

"Were it not that they are loath to lay out money on a rope, they would be hanged forthwith, and sometimes die to save charges."

Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 3, Subsect. 12.

"A mere madness, to live like a wretch and die rich."

Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 3, Subsect. 12.

"I may not here omit those two main plagues and common dotages of human kind, wine and women, which have infatuated and besotted myriads of people; they go commonly together."

Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 3, Subsect. 13.

"All our geese are swans."

Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 3, Subsect. 14.

"Though they [philosophers] write contemptu gloriæ, yet as Hieron observes, they will put their names to their books."

Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 3, Subsect. 14.

"They are proud in humility; proud in that they are not proud."

Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 3, Subsect. 14.

"We can make majors and officers every year, but not scholars; kings can invest knights and barons, as Sigismund the emperor confessed."

Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 3, Subsect. 15.

"Hinc quam sic calamus sævior ense, patet. The pen worse than the sword."

Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 4, Subsect. 4.

"Homer himself must beg if he want means, and as by report sometimes he did "go from door to door and sing ballads, with a company of boys about him.""

Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 4, Subsect. 6.

"See one promontory (said Socrates of old), one mountain, one sea, one river, and see all."

Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 4, Subsect. 7.

"Felix Plater notes of some young physicians, that study to cure diseases, catch them themselves, will be sick, and appropriate all symptoms they find related of others to their own persons."

Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 3, Memb. 1, Subsect. 2.

"Aristotle said melancholy men of all others are most witty."

Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 3, Memb. 1, Subsect. 3.

"Like him in Æsop, he whipped his horses withal, and put his shoulder to the wheel."

Anatomy of Melancholy. Part ii. Sect. 1, Memb. 2.

"Fabricius finds certain spots and clouds in the sun."

Anatomy of Melancholy. Part ii. Sect. 2, Memb. 3.

"Seneca thinks the gods are well pleased when they see great men contending with adversity."

Anatomy of Melancholy. Part ii. Sect. 2, Memb. 1, Subsect. 1.

"Machiavel says virtue and riches seldom settle on one man."

Anatomy of Melancholy. Part ii. Sect. 2, Memb. 2.

"Almost in every kingdom the most ancient families have been at first princes' bastards; their worthiest captains, best wits, greatest scholars, bravest spirits in all our annals, have been base [born]."

Anatomy of Melancholy. Part ii. Sect. 2, Memb. 2.