Sourced

• What doth it serve to see sun's burning face,
  And skies enamelled with both the Indies' gold?
  Or moon at night in jetty chariot roll'd,
  And all the glory of that starry place?
• "What doth it Serve?" Poems (1616)

• For what doth serve all that this world contains,
  Sith she for whom those once to me were dear,
  No part of them can have now with me here?
• "What doth it Serve?" Poems (1616)

• The last and greatest herald of Heaven's King,
  Girt with rough skins, hies to the deserts wild,
  Among that savage brood the woods forth bring,
  Which he than man more harmless found and mild.
  • "For the Baptist" Flowers of Sion (1623)

• My lute, be as thou wert when thou didst grow
  With thy green mother in some shady grove,
  When immelodious winds but made thee move,
  And birds their ramage did on thee bestow.
  • Sonnet To His Lute

• My thoughts hold mortal strife;
  I do detest my life,
  And with lamenting cries
  Peace to my soul to bring
  Oft call that prince which here doth monarchise:
  —But he, grim-grinning King,
  Who caitiffs scorns, and doth the blest surprise,
  Late having deck'd with beauty's rose his tomb,
  Disdains to crop a weed, and will not come.
  • Poem Inexorable

• This Life, which seems so fair,
  Is like a bubble blown up in the air
  By sporting children's breath,
  Who chase it everywhere
  • Poem This Life, which seems so fair

• Of this fair volume which we World do name
  If we the sheets and leaves could turn with care,
  Of him who it corrects, and did it frame,
  We clear might read the art and wisdom rare.
  • Poem Human Folly

• Doth then the world go thus, doth all thus move?
  Is this the justice which on Earth we find?
  Is this that firm decree which all doth bind?
  Are these your influences, Powers above?
  • Sonnet The Problem

• God never had a church but there, men say,
  The Devil a chapel hath raised by some wyles.
  I doubted of this saw, till on a day
  I westward spied great Edinburgh’s Saint Gyles.
  • Posthumous Poems, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "Where God hath a temple, the Devil will have a chapel", Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, Part iii, Section 4, Member 1, Subsection 1 .

"Phoebus Arise" Poems (1616)

• Phœbus, arise!
  And paint the sable skies
  With azure, white, and red.

• Make an eternal spring;
  Give life to this dark world which lieth dead.
  Spread forth thy golden hair
  In larger locks than thou wast wont before,
  And emperor-like decore
  With diadem of pearl thy temples fair.

• This is the morn should bring unto this grove
  My love, to hear and recompense my love.

• Here is the pleasant place,
  And nothing wanted is, save She, alas!

Unsourced

• As we had no part of our will on our entrance into this life, we should not presume to any on our leaving it, but soberly learn to will which He wills.

• I study myself more than any other subject; it is my metaphysic, and my physic.

• Iron sharpens iron; scholar, the scholar.

• Put a bridle on thy tongue; set a guard before thy lips, lest the words of thine own mouth destroy thy peace... on much speaking cometh repentance, but in silence is safety.

• Sleep, Silence's child, sweet father of soft rest, Prince whose approach peace to all mortals brings Indifferent host to shepherds and kings; Sole comforter to minds with grief opprest

• Study what thou art Whereof thou art a part What thou knowest of this art This is really what thou art. All that is without thee also is within.

• There is a silence, the child of love, which expresses everything, and proclaims more loudly than the tongue is able to do.
  • This statement is also attributed to the Italian writer and statesman Vittorio Alfieri