"When Greeks joined Greeks, then was the tug of war."—Nathaniel Lee (1655-1692).
"The end must justify the means" is from Matthew Prior. We are indebted to Colley Cibber for the agreeable intelligence that "Richard is himself again." Johnson tells us of "A good hater"; and Sir James Mackintosh, in 1791, used the phrase often attributed to John Randolph, "Wise and masterly inactivity."
"Variety's the very spice of life," and "Not much the worse for wear," Cowper; "Man proposes, but God disposes," Thomas à Kempis.
Christopher Marlowe gave forth the invitation so often repeated by his brothers in a less public way, "Love me little, love me long." Sir Edward Coke was of the opinion that "A man's house is his castle." To Milton we owe "The paradise of fools," "Fresh woods and pastures new," and "Peace hath her victories no less renowned than war."
Edward Young tells us "Death loves a shining mark," "A fool at forty is indeed a fool," but alas for his knowledge of human nature when he adds that "Man wants but little, nor that little long"!
From Bacon comes "Knowledge is power."
A good deal of so-called slang is classic. "Escape with the skin of my teeth" is from Job. "He is a brick" is from Plutarch. That historian tells of a king of Sparta who boasted that his army was the only wall of the city, "and every man is a brick." We call a fair and honest man "a square man," but the Greeks describe the same person as tetragonos—"a four-cornered man."
"Every dog has its day" is commonly attributed to Shakespeare, in Hamlet's speech, "The cat will mew and dog will have his day." But forty years before "Hamlet" Heywood wrote, "But, as every man saith, a dog hath his daie."