The good are better made by ill,

As odours crushed are sweeter still.

Samuel Rogers (1763-1855): Jacqueline. Stanza 3.

Ill can he rule the great that cannot reach the small.

Edmund Spenser (1553-1599): Faerie Queene. Book v. Canto ii. St. 43.

What constitutes a state?

 .   .   .   .   .   .   .

Men who their duties know,

But know their rights, and knowing, dare maintain.

 .   .   .   .   .   .   .

And sovereign law, that state's collected will,

O'er thrones and globes elate,

Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill.

Sir William Jones (1746-1794): Ode in Imitation of Alcaeus.

And oftentimes excusing of a fault

Doth make the fault the worse by the excuse.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King John. Act iv. Sc. 2.

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,

Where wealth accumulates, and men decay.

Princes and lords may flourish or may fade,—

A breath can make them, as a breath has made;

But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,

When once destroy'd, can never be supplied.

Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774): The Deserted Village. Line 51.

Oh yet we trust that somehow good

Will be the final goal of ill.

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892): In Memoriam. liv. Stanza 1.

And oft, though wisdom wake, suspicion sleeps

At wisdom's gate, and to simplicity

Resigns her charge, while goodness thinks no ill

Where no ill seems.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book iii. Line 686.

Ill habits gather by unseen degrees,—

As brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas.

John Dryden (1631-1701): Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book xv. The Worship of Aesculapius, Line 155.

Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act iii. Sc. 2.

A man of sovereign parts he is esteem'd;

Well fitted in arts, glorious in arms:

Nothing becomes him ill that he would well.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Love's Labour's Lost. Act ii. Sc. 1.

There's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple:

If the ill spirit have so fair a house,

Good things will strive to dwell with 't.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Tempest. Act i. Sc. 2.

Wilt thou seal up the avenues of ill?

Pay every debt, as if God wrote the bill?

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882): Suum Cuique.

So his life has flowed

From its mysterious urn a sacred stream,

In whose calm depth the beautiful and pure

Alone are mirrored; which, though shapes of ill

May hover round its surface, glides in light,

And takes no shadow from them.

Thomas Noon Talfourd (1795-1854): Ion. Act i. Sc. 1.

For patience, sov'reign o'er transmuted ill.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784): Vanity of Human Wishes. Line 362.

There's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple:

If the ill spirit have so fair a house,

Good things will strive to dwell with 't.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Tempest. Act i. Sc. 2.

The good are better made by ill,

As odours crushed are sweeter still.

Samuel Rogers (1763-1855): Jacqueline. Stanza 3.

For patience, sov'reign o'er transmuted ill.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784): Vanity of Human Wishes. Line 362.

Ill weede growth fast.

John Heywood (Circa 1565): Proverbes. Part i. Chap. x.

And oft, though wisdom wake, suspicion sleeps

At wisdom's gate, and to simplicity

Resigns her charge, while goodness thinks no ill

Where no ill seems.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book iii. Line 686.

Falstaff.  What wind blew you hither, Pistol?

Pistol.  Not the ill wind which blows no man to good.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry IV. Part II. Act v. Sc. 3.

An ill winde that bloweth no man to good.

John Heywood (Circa 1565): Proverbes. Part i. Chap. ix.

Except wind stands as never it stood,

It is an ill wind turns none to good.

Thomas Tusser (Circa 1515-1580): Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry. A Description of the Properties of Wind.

O, what a world of vile ill-favour'd faults

Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year!

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act iii. Sc. 4.

An ill-favoured thing, sir, but mine own.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): As You Like It. Act v. Sc. 4.

A woman moved is like a fountain troubled,—

Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Taming of the Shrew. Act v. Sc. 2.

The good he scorn'd

Stalk'd off reluctant, like an ill-used ghost,

Not to return; or if it did, in visits

Like those of angels, short and far between.

Robert Blair (1699-1747): The Grave. Part ii. Line 586.