“All, that in this world is great or gay, / Doth as a vapour vanish, and decay.”

— Edmund Spenser, Complaints (1591), The Ruins of Time, line 55

About Edmund Spenser

1552 – 1599

English poet, author of the epic "The Faerie Queene".

“The noblest mind the best contentment has.”

“I trow that countenance cannot lie, / Whose thoughts are legible in the eie.”

“Death slue not him, but he made death his ladder to the skies.”

“He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.”

Attribution note: Source disputed or unverified.

“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”

Attribution note: Source disputed or unverified.

“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”

“He who knows others is wise; he who knows himself is enlightened.”

Attribution note: Source disputed or unverified.

“The man who asks a question is a fool for a minute, the man who does not ask is a fool for life.”

“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”