I could be content that we might procreate like trees, without conjunction, or that there were any way to perpetuate the world without this trivial a… - Thomas Browne

All cannot be happy at once, for because the glory of one State depends upon the ruine of another, there is a revolution and vicissitude of their greatnesse, which must obey the swing of that wheele, not moved by Intelligences, but by the hand of God, whereby all Estates arise to their Zenith and vertical points, according to their predestinated periods. For the lives not onely of men but of Commonweales, and the whole World, nin not upon an Helix that still enlargeth, but on a Circle where arriving to their Meridian, they decline in obscurity, and fall under the Horizon againe.

Happy are they that go to bed with grave music like Pythagoras.

But the Quincunx of Heaven runs low, and 'tis time to close the five ports of knowledge. We are unwilling to spin out our awaking thoughts into the phantasmes of sleep, which often continueth præcogitations; making Cables of Cobwebbes and Wildernesses of handsome Groves. Beside Hippocrates hath spoke so little and the Oneirocriticall Masters, have left such frigid Interpretations from plants, that there is little encouragement to dream of Paradise it self. Nor will the sweetest delight of Gardens afford much comfort in sleep; wherein the dulnesse of that sense shakes hands with delectable odours; and though in the Bed of Cleopatra, can hardly with any delight raise up the ghost of a Rose.