“Who says that fictions only and false hair Become a verse? Is there in truth no beauty?”

— George Herbert, Jordan, The Temple (1633), ll. 1-2

About George Herbert

1593 – 1633

Welsh-born English poet and Anglican priest, compiler of the proverb collection 'Jacula Prudentum' (1651).

“Before you make a friend, eat a bushel of salt with him.”

“My house, my house, though thou art small, thou art to me the Escurial.”

“Laugh not too much; the witty man laughs least: for wit is news only to ignorance.”

“Beauty is the mark God sets upon virtue.”

“Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.”

“A novel is never anything but a philosophy put into images.”

“A poet soaring in the high reason of his fancies, with his garland and singing robes about him.”

“Art is long, life short, judgment difficult, opportunity transient.”

“It is a beautiful truth that all men contain something of the artist in them.”