Philip Sidney
Philip Sidney
Sir Philip Sidneywas an English poet, courtier, scholar, and soldier, who is remembered as one of the most prominent figures of the Elizabethan age. His works include Astrophel and Stella, The Defence of Poesy, and The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth30 November 1554
reading government gathering
It is manifest that all government of action is to be gotten by knowledge, and knowledge best, by gathering many knowledges, which is reading.
pain honor world
High honor is not only gotten and born by pain and danger, but must be nursed by the like, else it vanisheth as soon as it appears to the world.
greatness quality goodness
For as much as to understand and to be mighty are great qualities, the higher that they be, they are so much the less to be esteemed if goodness also abound not in the possessor.
friendship benefits made
Friendship is made fast by interwoven benefits.
kings heaven world
The heavens do not send good haps in handfuls; but let us pick out our good by little, and with care, from out much bad, that still our little world may know its king.
evil natural
There is nothing evil but what is within us; the rest is either natural or accidental.
courage discipline manhood
Courage without discipline is nearer beastliness than manhood.
courage men skills
Courage ought to be guided by skill, and skill armed by courage. Neither should hardiness darken wit, nor wit cool hardiness. Be valiant as men despising death, but confident as unwonted to be overcome.
mind contentment miserable
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.
forgiveness revenge men
The truly great man is as apt to forgive as his power is able to revenge.
beauty beautiful children
Liking is not always the child of beauty; but whatsoever is liked, to the liker is beautiful.
hate ambition like-love
Ambition, like love, can abide no lingering; and ever urgeth on his own successes, hating nothing but what may stop them.
affirm ancient carried cause drawn gently human industry learned partly poet ready since strength
Poesy must not be drawn by the ears: it must be gently led, or rather, it must lead, which was partly the cause that made the ancient learned affirm it was a divine, and no human skill, since all other knowledges lie ready for any that have strength of wit; a poet no industry can make, if his own genius be not carried into it.
behalf cannot curse die earth favour itself lacking lift love memory mind poetry send skill sky thus
If you have so earth-creeping a mind that it cannot lift itself up to look to the sky of poetry... thus much curse I must send you, in the behalf of all poets, that while you live, you live in love, and never get favour for lacking skill of a sonnet; and, when you die, your memory die from the earth for want of an epitaph.