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
men faults virtue
Men are almost always cruel in their neighbors' faults; and make others' overthrow the badge of their own ill-masked virtue.
men virtue pedigree
I am no herald to inquire into men's pedigree; it sufficeth me if I know their virtues.
mind virtue hiding
In the clear mind of virtue treason can find no hiding-place.
virtue servant willing
We become willing servants to the good by the bonds their virtues lay upon us.
lovers virtue scorn
Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess? Do they call virtue there ungratefulness?
heaven world virtue
As the love of the heavens makes us heavenly, the love of virtue virtuous, so doth the love of the world make one become worldly.
virtue
In the truly great, virtue governs with the sceptre of knowledge.
likes virtue ill
I willingly confess that it likes me better when I find virtue in a fair lodging than when I am bound to seek it in an ill-favored creature.
judging may clemency
Much more may a judge overweigh himself in cruelty than in clemency.
moon sky faces
With how sad steps, O moon, thou climb'st the skies! How silently, and with how wan a face!
learned
For conclusion, I say the philosopher teacheth, but he teacheth obscurely, so as the learned only can understand him; that is to say, he teacheth them that are already taught.
The poet nothing affirmeth and therefore never lieth.
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.
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.