Meaning of “When sorrows come, they come not single spies,…”

Paradise Lost (1667), Book II, lines 432–433; Satan addresses the infernal council before undertaking the journey out of Hell. The line describes the epic’s literal route from Hell toward light and remains character speech, not a general promise of recovery.

Jo's Boys; the reassurance follows a setback and reframes a difficult year as experience that may later prove unusually helpful rather than simply wasted time.

As You Like It, Act II, Scene 1, Duke Senior; 1919 Yale Shakespeare edition edited by Jack R. Crawford, printed page 24 / Wikisource scan leaf 36. “Sweet are the uses of adversity” occurs in Duke Senior’s Forest of Arden reflection on exile, winter and the lessons he claims to find outside court life. It remains fictional dramatic speech rather than Shakespeare’s autobiographical advice or a modern psychological claim about hardship.

De Profundis, public-domain 1913 Methuen text; the sentence appears in Wilde’s description of prison time and the apparent sameness of suffering.

Final line of Ode to the West Wind; the changing seasons become a metaphor for historical and personal renewal.

De Profundis; Wilde reflects on suffering as a source of seriousness, humility, and transformed perception.