And first Satan's endeavours have ever been, and they cease not yet to instill a belief in the minde of man, There is no God at all. . . . that the necessity of his entity dependeth upon ours, and is but a Politicall Chymera. . . . Where he succeeds not thus high, he labours to introduce a secondary and deductive Atheisme; that although, men concede there is a God, yet . . . that he intendeth only the care of the species or common natures, but letteth loose the guard of individuals, and single existencies therein: That he looks not below the Moon, but hath designed the regiment of sublunary affairs unto inferiour deputations. To promote which apprehensions or empuzzell their due conceptions, he casteth in the notions of fate, destiny, fortune, chance and necessity. . . . Whereby extinguishing in mindes the compensation of vertue and vice, the hope and fear of heaven or hell; they comply in their actions unto the drift of his delusions. . . .
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Come, fair repentance, daughter of the skies! Soft harbinger of soon returning virtue; The weeping messenger of grace from heaven.
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Though it be in the power of the weakest arm to take away life, it is not in the strongest to deprive us of death.
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I cannot tell by what logic we call a toad, a bear, or an elephant ugly; they being created in those outward shapes and figures which best express the actions of their inward forms.
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It is we that are blind, not fortune; because our eye is too dim to discern the mystery of her effects, we foolishly paint her blind, and hoodwink the providence of the Almighty.
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Now nature is not at variance with art, nor art with nature; they being both the servants of his providence. Art is the perfection of nature. Were the world now as it was the sixth day, there were yet a chaos. Nature hath made one world, and art another. In brief, all things are artificial; for nature is the art of God.
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Sure there is music even in the beauty, and the silent note which Cupid strikes, far sweeter than the sound of an instrument. For there is music wherever there is harmony, order and proportion; and thus far we may maintain the music of the spheres; for those well ordered motions, and regular paces, though they give no sound unto the ear, yet to the understanding they strike a note most full of harmony.
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There is surely a piece of divinity in us, something that was before the elements, and owes no homage unto the sun.
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To believe only possibilities is not faith, but mere philosophy.
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Life is a pure flame, and we live by an invisible sun within us.
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Nor will the sweetest delight of gardens afford much comfort in sleep; wherein the dullness of that sense shakes hands with delectable odours; and though in the bed of Cleopatra, can hardly with any delight raise up the ghost of a rose.
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Forcible ways make not an end of evil, but leave hatred and malice behind them.
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Be charitable before wealth makes thee covetous.
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Man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave.
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I could be content that we might procreate, without conjunction, or that there were any way to perpetuate the world without this trivial and vulgar way of coition it is the most foolish act a wise man commits in all his life.
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I have often admired the mystical way of Pythagoras, and the secret magic of numbers.
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Obstinacy in a bad cause is but constancy in a good.
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It is the common wonder of all men, how among so many million faces, there should be none alike.
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I could be content that we might procreate like trees, without conjunction, or that there were any way to perpetuate the world without this trivial and vulgar way of coition.
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The long habit of living indisposeth us for dying.
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Be substantially great in thyself, and more than thou appearest unto others.
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We all labor against our own cure, for death is the cure of all diseases.
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We term sleep a death by which we may be literally said to die daily; in fine, so like death, I dare not trust it without my prayers.
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Sure there is music even in the beauty, and the silent note which Cupid strikes, far sweeter than the sound of an instrument. For there is music where ever there is a harmony, order, or proportion: and thus far we may maintain the music of the spheres.
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Be able to be alone. Lose not the advantage of solitude, and the society of thyself.
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It is we that are blind, not fortune.
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A man may be in as just possession of truth as of a city, and yet be forced to surrender.
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