The Devil is an Ass, I do acknowledge it. - Ben Jonson

Yet must I not give nature all: thy art, My gentle Shakspeare, must enjoy a part. For though the poet's matter nature be, His art doth give the fashion. And that he Who casts to write a living line, must sweat, (Such as thine arc) and strike the second heat Upon the muses anvil; turn the fame, And himself with it, that he thinks to frame; Or for the laurel, he may gain a scorn, For a good poet's made, as well as born. And such wert thou. Look how the father's face Lives in his issue, even so the race Of Shakspeare's mind and manners brightly shines In his well-turned, and true filed lines: In each of which he seems to shake a lance, As brandish'd at the eyes of ignorance.

In small proportions we just beauties see; And in short measures, life may perfect be.

Subtle.
No egg but differs from a chicken more
Than metals in themselves.
Surly.
That cannot be.
The egg's ordained by nature to that end
And is a chicken in potentia.
Subtle.
The same we say of lead and other metals,
Which would be gold if they had time.
...for 'twere absurd
To think that nature in the earth bred gold
Perfect in the instant; something went before.
There must be remote matter.