Stephen Gosson

Stephen Gosson (April 1554 – 13 February 1624) was an English satirist.

• He is forced to go whom the devil drives.
  • The Ephemerides of Phialo (1579) p. 2

• Pleasure is a sweet tickling of sense, with a present joy.
  • The Ephemerides of Phialo (1579) p. 66

• After-wittes are ever best.
  • "To the Reader"

• Poets are the whetstones of wit.
  • Par. 3

• The Syrens song is the Saylers wrack.
  • Par. 3

• The Harpies have Virgins faces, and vultures Talentes.
  • Par. 3

• Hyena speakes like a friend, and devoures like a Foe.
  • Par. 3

• The Woolf jettes in Weathers felles.
  • Par. 3

• He that readeth good writers, and pickes out their flowers for his owne nose, is lyke a foole.
  • "Loyterers"

• A bad excuse is better, they say, than none at all.
  • "Players compared to Lucinius"

• He that goes to sea, must smel of the ship; and he that sayles into Poets wil savour of Pitch.
  • "Qualities allowed in women"

• The same water that drives the mill, decayeth it.
  • "Dicers and Carders"

• Cedant arma togæ, concedat laurea linguæ.
  • Let gunns to gouns, and bucklers yeeld to bookes.
    • "Souldiers" (Tully, [De Officiis, bk. 1, sec. 77])

• Encyclopedic article on Stephen Gosson on Wikipedia