The voices / 36 fragments

John Webster

Dates not recorded

Listed in the author section of Bartlett’s ninth-edition anthology, in the linked 1905 printing. Dates reflect that historical edition and may differ from modern scholarship.

Author and source reference ↗

▷ Play this voice Search within this voice ↗Place in time ↗death knowledge justice love nature character happiness truth

Historical source references

Duchess of Malfi
The White Devil
Westward Hoe
Printed citation: John Webster
Page 19 · printed citation: John Webster · subject: AFFLICTION
Page 408 · printed citation: John Webster · subject: MURDER
Page 558 · printed citation: John Webster · subject: SORROW
Printed page 17 · quotation 22 · John Webster · Westward Ho
Printed page 314 · quotation 20 · John Webster · The White Devil Act V
Printed page 341 · quotation 26 · John Webster · The White Devil; or, Vittoria Corombona Act V

Archive entries

01Undated

I know death hath ten thousand several doors For men to take their exit.

John Webster / quote

02Undated

'T is just like a summer bird-cage in a garden,—the birds that are without despair to get in, and the birds that are within despair and are in a consumption for fear they shall never get out.

John Webster / quote

03Undated

Condemn you me for that the duke did love me? So may you blame some fair and crystal river For that some melancholic, distracted man Hath drown'd himself in 't.

John Webster / quote

04Undated

Glories, like glow-worms, afar off shine bright, But look'd too near have neither heat nor light.

John Webster / quote

05Undated

Call for the robin-redbreast and the wren, Since o'er shady groves they hover, And with leaves and flowers do cover The friendless bodies of unburied men.

John Webster / quote

06Undated

Is not old wine wholesomest, old pippins toothsomest, old wood burns brightest, old linen wash whitest? Old soldiers, sweetheart, are surest, and old lovers are soundest.

John Webster / quote

07Undated

I saw him now going the way of all flesh.

John Webster / quote

08Undated

The element of water moistens the earth, but blood flies upwards and bedews the heavens.

John Webster / quote

09Undated

Perfumes, the more they’re chafed, the more they render Their pleasant scents, and so affliction Expresseth virtue fully.

John Webster / quote

10Undated

Other sins only speak; murder shrieks out. The element of water moistens the earth, But blood mounts upwards.

John Webster / quote

11Undated

I suffer now for what hath former been, Sorrow is held the eldest son of sin.

John Webster / quote

12Undated

Is not old wine wholesomest, old pippins toothsomest, old wood burn brightest, old linen wash whitest? Old soldiers, sweetheart, are surest, and old lovers are soundest.

John Webster / quote

13Undated

Glories, like glow-worms, afar off shine bright, But look'd to near have neither heat nor light.

John Webster / quote

14Undated

O, happy they that never saw the court, Nor ever knew great men but by report!

John Webster / quote

15Undated

Whether we fall by ambition, blood, or lustLike diamonds we are cut with our own dust

John Webster / quote

16Undated

What a strange creature is a laughing fool,As if a man were created to no useBut only to show his teeth.

John Webster / quote

17Undated

Princes give rewards with their own hands,But death or punishment by the hands of other.

John Webster / quote

18Undated

O that I were a man, or that I had powerTo execute my apprehended wishes!I would whip some with scorpions.

John Webster / quote

19Undated

Our believing has no power of itself; we certainly aren’t saved by belief. We’re saved by the grace and goodness and majesty of him in whom we believe—by the one whom we confess as we believe. In a real sense, our belief is nothing in and of itself. It’s simply a looking to him, a listening to him, in which we are wholly absorbed by that which we see and hear.

John Webster / quote

20Undated

Take it for words. O woman’s poor revenge,Which dwells but in the tongue!

John Webster / quote

21Undated

Through darkness diamonds spread their richest light.

John Webster / quote

22Undated

Oft gay and honoured robes those tortures try: We think caged birds sing, when indeed they cry.

John Webster / quote

23Undated

Fortune’s a right whore:If she give aught, she deals it in small parcels,That she may take away all at one swoop.

John Webster / quote

24Undated

As in this world there are degrees of evils, So in this world there are degrees of devils.

John Webster / quote