Quotes by William Shakespeare – Part 2

Good night, sweet prince, And flights of angels sing them to thy rest! 

Ah me, how weak a thing The heart of woman is! 

Dar’st thou die? The sense of death is most in apprehension, And the poor beetle that we tread upon In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great As when a giant dies. 

This is a devil, and no monster. I will leave him; I have no long spoon. 

We are oft to blame in this, ‘Tis too much proved, that with devotion’s visage And pious action we do sugar o’er The devil himself. 

To Milan let me hear from thee by letters Of thy success in love, and what news else Betideth here in absence of thy friend, And I likewise will visit thee with mine. 

Alas, why gnaw you so your nether lip? Some bloody passion shakes your very frame. These are portents; but yet I hope, I hope, They do not point on me. 

In sickness let me not so much say, am I getting better of my pain? as am I getting better for it? 

Go not my horse the better, I must become a borrower of the night For a dark hour or twain. 

Sometimes she driveth o’er a soldier’s neck, And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats, Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades, Of healths five fathom deep; and then anon Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes, And being thus frighted, swears a prayer or tow And sleeps again. 

God pardon them that are the cause thereof! A virtuous and a Christian-like conclusion, to pray for them that have done scath to us. 

O, your desert speaks loud, and I should wrong it To lock it in the wards of covert bosom, When it deserves with characters of brass A forted residence ‘gainst the tooth of time And razure of oblivion. 

In framing an artist, art hath thus decreed, To make some good, but others to exceed; And you are her labored scholar. 

Virtue, as it never will be moved, Though Lewdness court it in a shape of Heav’n; So Lust, though to a radiant angel link’d, Will sate itself in a celestial bed, And prey on garbage. 

Let me be your servant; Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty, For in my youth I never did apply Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood, Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo The means of weakness and debility; Therefore my age is as a lusty winter, Frosty, but kindly. 

Tush, never tell me! I take it much unkindly That thou, Iago, who hast had my purse As if the strings were thine, shouldst know of this. 

Her pretty action did outsell her gift, And yet enriched it too. She gave it me and said She prized it once. 

Some book there is that she desires to see. Which is it, girl, of these? Open them, boy. But thou art deeper read and better skilled: Come and take choice of all my library, And so beguile thy sorrow, till the heavens Reveal the damned contriver of this deed. 

Divines and dying men may talk of hell, But in my heart her several torments dwell. 

And being thus frighted swears a prayer or two, And sleep’s again. 

When they him spy, As wild geese that the creeping fowler eye, Or russet-pated choughs, many in sort, Rising and cawing at the gun’s report, Sever themselves and madly sweep the sky; So at his sight away his fellows fly, And at our stamp here o’er and o’er one falls; He murder cries and help from Athens calls. 

(Pedro:) Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you for out o’ question you were born in a merry hour. (Beatrice:) No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star danced, and under that was I born. 

If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottages, princes’ palaces. It is a good divine that follows his own instructions: I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching. 

Give him no breath, but now Make boot of his distraction: never anger Made good guard for itself. 

Let’s take the instant by the forward top; for we are old, and on our quickest decrees, the inaudible and noiseless foot of time steals, ere can effect them. 

Do not for ever with thy vailed lids Seek for thy noble father in the dust. Thou know’st ’tis common. All that lives must die, Passing through nature to eternity. 

O Cicero, I have seen tempests when the scolding winds Have rived the knotty oaks, and I have seen Th’ ambitious ocean swell and rage and foam To be exalted with the threat’ning clouds; But never till to-night, never till now, Did I go through a tempest dropping fire. 

So cowards fight when they can fly no further; So doves do peck the falcon’s piercing talons; So desperate thieves, all hopeless of their lives, Breathe out invectives ‘gainst the officers. 

And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods Make heaven drowsy with the harmony. 

Is Brutus sick, and is it physical To walk unbraced and suck up the humors Of the dank morning? What, is Brutus sick, And will he steal out of his wholesome bed To dare the vile contagion of the night, And tempt the rheumy and unpurged air, To add unto his sickness? 

(Falstaff:) By the Lord, thou say’st true, lad – and is not my hostess of the tavern a most sweet wench? (Prince Henry:) As the honey of Hybla, my old lad of the castle – and is not a buff jerkin a most sweet robe of durance? 

While you here do snoring lie, Open-eyed conspiracy His time doth take. 

The grief that does not speak whispers the overfraught heart and bids it break. 

This fellow is wise enough to play the fool, And to do that well craves a kind of wit. 

Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead; excessive grief the enemy to the living. 

All the other gifts appertinent to man, as the malice of this age shapes them, are not worth a gooseberry. 

I have that within which passeth show; These, but the trappings and the suits of woe. 

My high-blown pride At length broke under me, and now has left me Weary and old with service. 

Yea this man’s brow, like to a tragic leaf, Foretells the nature of a tragic volume. 

O my lord, Press not a falling man too far! ‘Tis virtue His faults lie open to the laws; let them, Not you, correct him. 

You play the spaniel, And think with wagging of your tongue to win me. 

Spirits of peace, where are ye? are ye all gone? And leave me here in wretchedness behind ye? 

O dearest soul, your cause doth strike my heart With pity that doth make me sick. 

Her hair is auburn, mine is perfect yellow – If that be all the difference in his love, I’ll get me such a colored periwig. 

Such duty as the subject owes the prince, Even such a woman oweth to her husband. 

His promises were, as he then was, mighty; But his performance, as he is now, nothing. 

Are there no stones in heaven But what serves for thunder? 

The charm dissolves apace; And as the morning steals upon the night, Melting the darkness, so their rising senses Begin to chase the ignorant fumes that mantle Their clearer reason. 

So many miseries have craz’d my voice, That my woe-wearied tongue is still and mute. 

E’en a crow o’ th’ same nest; not altogether so great as the first in goodness, but greater a great deal in evil. He excels his brother for a coward, yet his brother is reputed one of the best that is. In a retreat he outruns any lackey; marry, in coming on he has the cramp. 

Thou said’st – O, it comes o’er my memory As doth the raven o’er the infected house, Boding to all! – He had my handkerchief. 

Come away, come away, death, And in sad cypress let me be laid. Fly away, fly away, breath; I am slain by a fair cruel maid. My shroud of white, stuck all with yew, O, prepare it. My part of death, no one so true Did share it. 

From this time forth My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth! 

So please your majesty, my master hath been an honourable gentleman. Tricks he hath had in him, which gentleman have. 

By how much unexpected, by so much We must awake endeavor for defense, For courage mounteth with occasion. 

Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen, Th’ imperial jointress to this warlike state, Have we, as ’twere with a defeated joy, With an auspicious and a dropping eye, With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage, In equal scale weighing delight and dole, Taken to wife. 

You may as well Forbid the sea for to obey the moon, As, or by oath, remove, or counsel, shake The fabric of his folly, whose foundation Is pil’d upon his faith. 

Rightly to be great Is not to stir without great argument, But greatly to find a quarrel in a straw When honor’s at the stake. 

The tide is now: nay, not thy tide of tears, That tide will stay me longer than should. 

But neither bended knees, pure hands held up, Sad sighs, deep groans, nor silver-shedding tears, Could penetrate her uncompassionate sire. 

What is your parentage?’ ‘Above my fortunes, yet my state is well. I am a gentleman.’ I’ll be sworn thou art. Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions, and spirit Do give thee fivefold blazon. 

His overthrow heaped happiness upon him; For then, and not till then, he felt himself, And found the blessedness of being little. 

Not for because Your brows are blacker. Yet black brows, they say, Become some women best, so that there be not Too much hair there, but in a semicircle, Or a half-moon made with a pen. 

And writers say, as the most forward bud Is eaten by the canker ere it blow, Even so by love the young and tender wit Is turned to folly, blasting in the bud, Losing his verdure even in the prime. 

That what we have we prize not to the worth Whiles we enjoy it, but being lack’d and lost, Why, then we rack the value, then we find The virtue that possession would not show us While it was ours. 

He hath a pair of cast lips of Diana. A nun of winter’s sisterhood kisses not more religiously; the very ice of chastity is in then. 

May that soldier a mere recreant prove That means not, hath not, or is not in love! 

Master, master, old news! And such news as you never heard of! 

What we oft do best, By sick interpreters (once weak ones) is Not ours, or not allowed; what worst, as oft Hitting a grosser quality, is cried up For our best act. 

We’ll set thee to school to an ant. to teach thee there’s no laboring i’ th’ winter. 

A murderer and a villain, A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe Of your precedent lord, a vice of kings, A cutpurse of the empire and the rule, That from a shelf the precious diadem stole And put it in his pocket 

Turning these jests out of service, let us talk in good earnest. 

Was there ever any man thus beaten out of season, When in the why and the wherefore is neither rime nor reason? 

Say ‘a day,’ without the ‘ever.’ No, no, Orlando; men are April when they woo, December when they wed. Maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives. 

To make society The sweeter welcome, we will keep ourself Till supper time alone. 

And for an entrance to my entertainment I do present you with a man of mine, Cunning in music and the mathematics, To instruct her fully in those sciences, Whereof I know she is not ignorant. 

with a child of our grandmother Eve, a female; or, for thy more sweet understanding, a woman… 

That is honor’s scorn Which challenges itself as honor’s born And is not like the sire. Honors thrive When rather from our acts we them derive Than our foregoers. 

Oh! I have pass’d a miserable night, So full of ugly sights, of ghastly dreams, That, as I am a Christian faithful man, I would not spend another such a night, Though ’twere to buy a world of happy days. 

I did not think to shed a tear In all my miseries; but thou hast forc’d me, Out of thy honest truth, to play the woman. 

His years are young, but his experience old; His head unmellow’d, but his judgment ripe; And in a word (for far behind his worth) Come all the praises that I now bestow) He is complete in feature and in mind, With all good grace to grace a gentleman. 

But, poor old man, thou prun’st a rotten tree That cannot so much as a blossom yield In lieu of all thy pains and husbandry. 

Decrepit miser! base ignoble wretch! I am descended of a gentler blood. Thou art no father nor friend of mine. 

Against ill chances men are ever merry, But heaviness foreruns the good event. 

Then a soldier, Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon’s mouth. 

Muse not that I thus suddenly proceed, For what I will, I will, and there an end. 

[First Fisherman:] Master, I marvel how the fishes live in the sea. [Third Fisherman:] Why, as men do a-land: the great ones eat up the little ones. 

Where souls do couch on flowers we”ll hand in hand… 

She should have died hereafter: There would have been a time for such a word. 

O, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note, to drown me in thy sister’s flood of tears. 

For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth, Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech, To stir men’s blood: I only speak right on; I tell you that which you yourselves do know; 

Striving to better, oft we mar what’s well. 

A pox o” your throat, you bawling, blasphemous, incharitable dog! 

Oh, she doth teach the torches to burn bright! It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope’s ear, Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear. So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows As yonder lady o’er her fellows shows. The measure done, I”ll watch her place of stand, And, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand. Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight! For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night. 

What sadness lengthens Romeo’s hours? 

Alas, that love, so gentle in his view, Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof! *It’s sad. Love looks like a nice thing, but it’s actually very rough when you experience it.* 

Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs; Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes; Being vexed, a sea nourished with loving tears. What is it else? A madness most discreet, A choking gall, and a preserving sweet. *Here’s what love is: a smoke made out of lovers’ sighs. When the smoke clears, love is a fire burning in your lover’s eyes. If you frustrate love, you get an ocean made out of lovers’ tears. What else is love? It’s a wise form of madness. It’s a sweet lozenge that you choke on.* 

Care keeps his watch in every old man’s eye, And where care lodges, sleep will never lie. 

A peevish self-willed harlotry it is. *She’s a stubborn little brat.* 

Have I thought long to see this morning’s face, And doth it give me such a sight as this? 

If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottages princes” palaces. It is a good divine that follows his own instructions: I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching. 

Were I the Moor I would not be Iago. In following him I follow but myself; Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty, But seeming so for my peculiar end. For when my outward action doth demonstrate The native act and figure of my heart In compliment extern, “tis not long after But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve For daws to peck at. I am not what I am 

My noble father, I do perceive here a divided duty. To you I am bound for life and education. My life and education both do learn me How to respect you. You are the lord of my duty, I am hitherto your daughter. But here’s my husband, And so much duty as my mother showed To you, preferring you before her father, So much I challenge that I may profess Due to the Moor my lord. 

Haply for I am black, And have not those soft parts of conversation That chamberers have; or for I am declined Into the vale of years-yet that’s not much- She’s gone. I am abused, and my relief Must be to loathe her. O curse of marriage, That we can call these delicate creatures ours And not their appetites! I had rather be a toad And live upon the vapor of a dungeon Than keep a corner in the thing I love For others” uses. Yet “tis the plague of great ones; Prerogatived are they less than the base. “Tis destiny unshunnable, like death. 

O, then I see Queen Mab hath been with you. . . . She is the fairies” midwife, and she comes In shape no bigger than an agate stone On the forefinger of an alderman, Drawn with a team of little atomi Athwart men’s noses as they lie asleep. 

For death remembered should be like a mirror, Who tells us life’s but breath, to trust it error. 

Still it cried “Sleep no more!” to all the house: “Glamis hath murder”d sleep, and therefore Cawdor shall sleep no more,-Macbeth shall sleep no more! 

Infirm of purpose! Give me the daggers: the sleeping and the dead are but as pictures: “tis the eye of childhood that fears a painted devil 

What hands are here? ha! they pluck out mine eyes! Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red.” “My hands are of your colour; but I shame to wear a heart so white. A little water clears us of this deed: How easy it is then! Your constancy hath left you unattended. 

I have almost forgotten the taste of fears: The time has been, my senses would have cool”d to hear a night-shriek; and my fell of hair would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir as life were i’: I have supt full with horrors; Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts, cannot once start me. 

And what’s he then that says I play the villain? 

Death is my son-in-law. Death is my heir. My daughter he hath wedded. I will die, And leave him all. Life, living, all is Death”s. 

Tam: What begg”st thou then? fond woman, let me go. Lav: “Tis present death I beg; and one thing more That womanhood denies my tongue to tell. O! keep me from their worse than killing lust, And tumble me into some loathsome pit, Where never man’s eye may behold my body: Do this, and be a charitable murderer. Tam: So should I rob my sweet sons of their fee: No, let them satisfy their lust on thee. Dem: Away! for thou hast stay”d us here too long. Lav: No grace! no womanhood! Ah, beastly creature, The blot and enemy to our general name. Confusion fall- 

What is your substance, whereof are you made, That millions of strange shadows on you tend? Since everyone hath every one, one shade, And you, but one, can every shadow lend. Describe Adonis, and the counterfeit Is poorly imitated after you. On Helen’s cheek all art of beauty set, And you in Grecian tires are painted new. Speak of the spring and foison of the year; The one doth shadow of your beauty show, The other as your bounty doth appear, And you in every blessed shape we know. In all external grace you have some part, But you like none, none you, for constant heart. 

It is not politic in the commonwealth of nature to preserve virginity. Loss of virginity is rational increase, and there was never virgin got till virginity was first lost. That you were made of is metal to make virgins. Virginity, by being once lost, may be ten times found: by being ever kept, it is ever lost. “Tis too cold a companion: away with “t! 

There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray, love, remember; and there is pansies, that’s for thoughts… There’s fennel for you, and columbines; there’s rue for you, and here’s some for me; we may call it herb of grace o” Sundays. O, you must wear your rue with a difference. There’s a daisy. I would give you some violets, but they wither”d all when my father died. They say he made a good end,- [Sings.] “For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy. 

O God of battles! steel my soldiers” hearts. Possess them not with fear. 

We know what we are, but know not what we may be. 

This life, which had been the tomb of his virtue and of his honour, is but a walking shadow; a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. 

It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves. 

If music be the food of love, play on. 

Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow. 

A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool. 

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. 

Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move. Doubt truth to be a liar, But never doubt I love. 

God has given you one face, and you make yourself another. 

There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so. 

If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge? 

All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages. 

No legacy is so rich as honesty. 

Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven. 

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. 

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. 

Listen to many, speak to a few. 

There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures. 

This above all; to thine own self be true. 

Hell is empty and all the devils are here. 

The wheel is come full circle. 

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind. 

How far that little candle throws its beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world. 

When a father gives to his son, both laugh; when a son gives to his father, both cry. 

As soon go kindle fire with snow, as seek to quench the fire of love with words. 

The course of true love never did run smooth. 

Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs. 

Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once. 

Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind. 

Better a witty fool than a foolish wit. 

Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt. 

Better three hours too soon than a minute too late. 

Men are April when they woo, December when they wed. Maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives. 

The golden age is before us, not behind us. 

Let me embrace thee, sour adversity, for wise men say it is the wisest course. 

To be, or not to be, that is the question. 

When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions. 

Now is the winter of our discontent. 

My crown is called content, a crown that seldom kings enjoy. 

Talking isn’t doing. It is a kind of good deed to say well; and yet words are not deeds. 

Speak low, if you speak love. 

And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything. 

We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep. 

Brevity is the soul of wit. 

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose. 

The very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream. 

Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall. 

Most dangerous is that temptation that doth goad us on to sin in loving virtue. 

We cannot conceive of matter being formed of nothing, since things require a seed to start from… Therefore there is not anything which returns to nothing, but all things return dissolved into their elements. 

What’s done can’t be undone. 

The empty vessel makes the loudest sound. 

To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man. 

Now, God be praised, that to believing souls gives light in darkness, comfort in despair. 

Who could refrain that had a heart to love and in that heart courage to make love known? 

Our peace shall stand as firm as rocky mountains. 

What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god. 

Farewell, fair cruelty. 

Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving. 

Love sought is good, but given unsought, is better. 

O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil. 

Death is a fearful thing. 

Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart. 

How poor are they that have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees? 

Nothing can come of nothing. 

If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak then unto me. 

The robbed that smiles, steals something from the thief. 

O! Let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven; keep me in temper; I would not be mad! 

Teach not thy lip such scorn, for it was made For kissing, lady, not for such contempt. 

False face must hide what the false heart doth know. 

Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice. 

Let every eye negotiate for itself and trust no agent. 

Poor and content is rich, and rich enough. 

I see that the fashion wears out more apparel than the man. 

Come, gentlemen, I hope we shall drink down all unkindness. 

Sweet mercy is nobility’s true badge. 

What is past is prologue. 

Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have Immortal longings in me. 

The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils. 

My pride fell with my fortunes. 

But if it be a sin to covet honour, I am the most offending soul alive. 

O! for a muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention. 

Go to you bosom: Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know. 

We are time’s subjects, and time bids be gone. 

Like as the waves make towards the pebbl’d shore, so do our minutes, hasten to their end. 

The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones. 

A peace is of the nature of a conquest; for then both parties nobly are subdued, and neither party loser. 

With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come. 

I must be cruel, only to be kind. 

Life every man holds dear; but the dear man holds honor far more precious dear than life. 

The lady doth protest too much, methinks. 

And why not death rather than living torment? To die is to be banish’d from myself; And Silvia is myself: banish’d from her Is self from self: a deadly banishment! 

It is a wise father that knows his own child. 

If you have tears, prepare to shed them now. 

Wisely, and slow. They stumble that run fast. 

Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise. 

Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds. 

How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child! 

Things won are done, joy’s soul lies in the doing. 

‘Tis not enough to help the feeble up, but to support them after. 

‘Tis one thing to be tempted, another thing to fall. 

Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot that it do singe yourself. 

If we are marked to die, we are enough to do our country loss; and if to live, the fewer men, the greater share of honor. 

I dote on his very absence. 

They say miracles are past. 

There was never yet fair woman but she made mouths in a glass. 

They do not love that do not show their love. 

No, I will be the pattern of all patience; I will say nothing. 

Let no such man be trusted. 

I was adored once too. 

By that sin fell the angels. 

I like not fair terms and a villain’s mind. 

There’s place and means for every man alive. 

An overflow of good converts to bad. 

I had rather have a fool to make me merry than experience to make me sad and to travel for it too! 

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, are of imagination all compact. 

Things done well and with a care, exempt themselves from fear. 

When words are scarce they are seldom spent in vain. 

O God, O God, how weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world! 

He does it with better grace, but I do it more natural. 

Praise us as we are tasted, allow us as we prove. 

And oftentimes excusing of a fault doth make the fault the worse by the excuse. 

Such as we are made of, such we be. 

The fashion of the world is to avoid cost, and you encounter it. 

Sweet are the uses of adversity which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head. 

When we are born we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools. 

I wasted time, and now doth time waste me. 

There’s many a man has more hair than wit. 

Neither a borrower nor a lender be. 

But O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes. 

I say there is no darkness but ignorance. 

If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottage princes’ palaces. 

Thou know’st the first time that we smell the air we wawl and cry. When we are born we cry, that we are come to this great state of fools. 

Pleasure and action make the hours seem short. 

O, had I but followed the arts! 

Love is too young to know what conscience is. 

But men are men; the best sometimes forget. 

As he was valiant, I honour him. But as he was ambitious, I slew him. 

Lawless are they that make their wills their law. 

There are many events in the womb of time, which will be delivered. 

The most peaceable way for you, if you do take a thief, is, to let him show himself what he is and steal out of your company. 

Boldness be my friend. 

If it be a sin to covet honor, I am the most offending soul. 

Maids want nothing but husbands, and when they have them, they want everything. 

Desire of having is the sin of covetousness. 

There’s not a note of mine that’s worth the noting. 

I were better to be eaten to death with a rust than to be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion. 

The valiant never taste of death but once. 

Women may fall when there’s no strength in men. 

Life is as tedious as twice-told tale, vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man. 

There’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face. 

Faith, there hath been many great men that have flattered the people who ne’er loved them. 

O’ What may man within him hide, though angel on the outward side! 

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. 

Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage. 

I bear a charmed life. 

He that loves to be flattered is worthy o’ the flatterer. 

How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds makes ill deeds done! 

Fishes live in the sea, as men do a-land; the great ones eat up the little ones. 

God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another. 

The love of heaven makes one heavenly. 

Having nothing, nothing can he lose. 

Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful. 

How well he’s read, to reason against reading! 

It is the stars, The stars above us, govern our conditions. 

Suit the action to the word, the word to the action. 

The stroke of death is as a lover’s pinch, which hurts and is desired. 

There have been many great men that have flattered the people who ne’er loved them. 

In a false quarrel there is no true valor. 

I shall the effect of this good lesson keeps as watchman to my heart. 

For my part, it was Greek to me. 

Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time. 

Where every something, being blent together turns to a wild of nothing. 

Well, if Fortune be a woman, she’s a good wench for this gear. 

Virtue itself scapes not calumnious strokes. 

Words without thoughts never to heaven go. 

I am not bound to please thee with my answer. 

In time we hate that which we often fear. 

Alas, I am a woman friendless, hopeless! 

I will praise any man that will praise me. 

Time and the hour run through the roughest day. 

I never see thy face but I think upon hell-fire. 

Men shut their doors against a setting sun. 

Fortune brings in some boats that are not steered. 

So foul and fair a day I have not seen. 

A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. 

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff. 

I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano; A stage where every man must play a part, And mine is a sad one. 

Children wish fathers looked but with their eyes; fathers that children with their judgment looked; and either may be wrong. 

As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport. 

The undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns. 

Is it not strange that desire should so many years outlive performance? 

Men’s vows are women’s traitors! 

Truly, I would not hang a dog by my will, much more a man who hath any honesty in him. 

He that is giddy thinks the world turns round. 

‘Tis better to bear the ills we have than fly to others that we know not of. 

What, man, defy the devil. Consider, he’s an enemy to mankind. 

Mind your speech a little lest you should mar your fortunes. 

O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath! 

Use every man after his desert, and who should scape whipping? 

Exceeds man’s might: that dwells with the gods above. 

It will have blood, they say; blood will have blood. 

I may neither choose who I would, nor refuse who I dislike; so is the will of a living daughter curbed by the will of a dead father. 

For I can raise no money by vile means. 

Lord, Lord, how subject we old men are to this vice of lying! 

‘Tis best to weigh the enemy more mighty than he seems. 

He is winding the watch of his wit; by and by it will strike. 

The attempt and not the deed confounds us. 

All things are ready, if our mind be so. 

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our English dead! In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man As modest stillness and humility: But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger. 

The rain, it raineth every day. 

The small amount of foolery wise men have makes a great show. 

Like madness is the glory of life. 

Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably. 

The world must be peopled! 

Though those that are betray’d Do feel the treason sharply, yet the traitor stands in worse case of woe 

Last scene of all that ends this strange, eventful history, is second childishness and mere oblivion. I am sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. 

A light heart lives long. 

Make the doors upon a woman’s wit, and it will out at the casement; shut that, and ’twill out at the key-hole; stop that, ’twill fly with the smoke out at the chimney. 

Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind. 

I must be cruel only to be kind; Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind. 

If you love and get hurt, love more. If you love more and hurt more, love even more. If you love even more and get hurt even more, love some more until it hurts no more… 

To move is to stir, and to be valiant is to stand; therefore, if tou art mov’d, thou runst away. (To be angry is to move, to be brave is to stand still. Therefore, if you’re angry, you’ll run away.) 

Cease thy counsel, for thy words fall into my ears as priceless as water into a seive. 

There is some soul of goodness in things evil, Would men observingly distill it out. 

Your tale, sir, would cure deafness. 

Now get you to my lady’s chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come; make her laugh at that. 

Thou weedy elf-skinned canker-blossom! 

Thou frothy tickle-brained hedge-pig! 

It is not, nor it cannot, come to good, But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue. 

Summer’s lease hath all too short a date. 

Sit by my side, and let the world slip: we shall ne’er be younger. 

Not proud you have, but thankful that you have. Proud can I never be of what I hate, but thankful even for hate that is meant love. 

See how she leans her cheek upon her hand. O, that I were a glove upon that hand That I might touch that cheek! 

The weight of this sad time we must obey, Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say. The oldest hath borne most: we that are young Shall never see so much, nor live so long. 

Thou seest we are not all alone unhappy: This wide and universal theatre Presents more woeful pageants than the scene Wherein we play in. 

Men should be what they seem. 

Lay not that flattering unction to your soul, That not your trespass but my madness speaks. 

O me, you juggler, you canker-blossom, you thief of love! 

true apothecary thy drugs art quick 

whats here a cup closed in my true loves hand poisin i see hath been his timeless end. oh churl drunk all and left no friendly drop to help me after. i will kiss thy lips some poisin doth hang on them, to help me die with a restorative. thy lips are warm. yea noise then ill be brief oh happy dagger this is thy sheath. there rust and let me die. 

My affection hath an unknown bottom, like the Bay of Portugal. 

I drink to the general joy o’ the whole table.” Macbeth 

Muster your wits; stand in your own defence… 

The native hue of resolution is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought; and enterprises of great pitch and moment, With this regard, their currents turn awry, and lose the name of action. 

A beggar’s book outworths a noble’s blood. 

Why, what’s the matter, That you have such a February face, So full of frost, of storm and cloudiness? 

Let us not burden our remembrances with a heaviness that’s gone. 

Madness in great ones must not unwatched go. 

Conversation should be pleasant without scurrility, witty without affectation, free without indecency, learned without conceitedness, novel without falsehood. 

Lady, you are the cruel’st she alive If you will lead these graces to the grave And leave the world no copy. 

thou art the best o’ the cut-throats 

A Devil, a born Devil on whose nature, nurture can never stick, on whom my pain, humanly taken, all lost, quite lost… 

Who buys a minute’s mirth to wail a week? Or sell eternity to get a toy? For one grape who will the vine destroy? 

Finish, good lady; the bright day is done, And we are for the Dark. 

Is this a vision? Is this a dream? Do I sleep? 

And since you know you cannot see yourself, so well as by reflection, I, your glass, will modestly discover to yourself, that of yourself which you yet know not of. 

Eternity was in our lips and eyes. 

What, my dear Lady Disdain! are you yet living? Beatrice: Is it possible disdain should die while she hath such meet food to feed it as Signior Benedick? 

If her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her, she would infect to the north star! 

Quote: What angel wakes me from my flowery bed? 

Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows. 

My soul is in the sky. 

I’ll go find a shadow, and sigh till he come” (Phebe) 

More fools know Jack Fool than Jack Fool knows. 

But she makes hungry Where she most satisfies… 

While he was drunk asleep, or in his rage, or in the incestuous pleasure of his bed. 

Despair and die. The ghosts 

Get thee to a nunnery. 

Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy. 

Make the upcoming hour overflow with joy, and let pleasure drown the brim. 

My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, Shakes so my single state of man That function is smothered in surmise, And nothing is but what is not. 

Foul whisperings are abroad 

But Kate, dost thou understand thus much English? Canst thou love me?” Catherine: “I cannot tell.” Henry: “Can any of your neighbours tell, Kate? I’ll ask them. 

This making of Christians will raise the price of hogs. 

Death, a necessary end, will come when it will come 

O, but they say, the tongues of dying men enforce attention, like deep harmony: where words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain: for they breathe truth, that breathe their words in pain. he, that no more must say, is listened more than they whom youth and ease have taught to gloze; more are men’s ends marked, than their lives before: the setting sun, and music at the close, as the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last; writ in rememberance more than things long past 

The quality of nothing hath not such need to hide itself 

Hath Romeo slain himself? Say thou but ay, And that bare vowel ay shall poison more Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice. I am not I,if there be such an ay, Or those eyes shut,that make thee answer ay: If he be slain say ay,or if not,no: Brief sounds,determine of my weal or woe. 

No sooner met but they looked; no sooner looked but they loved; no sooner loved but they sighed; no sooner sighed but they asked one another the reason; no sooner knew the reason but they sought the remedy; and in these degrees have they made a pair of stairs to marriage… 

Men are April when they woo, December when they wed… 

Now I will believe that there are unicorns… 

Cannot you tell that? Every fool can tell that. It was the very day that young Hamlet was born, he that is mad and sent into England.” “Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?” “Why, because he was mad. He shall recover his wits there, or, if he do not, it’s no great matter there.” “Why?” “‘Twill not be seen in him there. There the men are as mad as he. 

Things base and vile, holding no quantity, Love can transpose to form and dignity. Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind. Nor hath Love’s mind of any judgment taste; Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste. 

Happy thou art not; for what thou hast not, still thou strivest to get; and what thou hast, forgettest. 

My crown is in my heart, not on my head; not decked with diamonds and Indian stones, nor to be seen: my crown is called content, a crown it is that seldom kings enjoy. 

Virtue is chok’d with foul ambition 

Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more. 

Some are born great, others achieve greatness. 

for Mercutio’s soul Is but a little way above our heads, Staying for thine to keep him company: Either thou, or I, or both, must go with him. 

Why are our bodies soft, and weak, and smooth But that our soft conditions and our hearts Should well agree with our external parts? 

Strong reasons make strong actions. 

I have neither the scholar’s melancholy, which is emulation; nor the musician’s, which is fantastical; nor the courtier’s, which is proud; not the soldier’s which is ambitious; nor the lawyer’s, which is politic; nor the lady’s, which is nice; nor the lover’s, which is all these: but it is a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted from many objects, and indeed the sundry contemplation of my travels, which, by often rumination, wraps me in a most humorous sadness. 

I always feel happy, you know why? Because I don’t expect anything from anyone; expectations always hurt. Life is short. So love your life. Be happy. And keep smiling. Just Live for yourself and always remember: Before you speak… Listen. Before you write… Think. Before you spend… Earn. Before you pray… Forgive. Before you hurt… Feel. Before you hate… Love. Before you quit… Try. Before you die… Live… That’s Life…Feel it, Live it and Enjoy it. 

Why, then the world ‘s mine oyster, Which I with sword will open. 

Death, that hath suck’d the honey of thy breath hath had no power yet upon thy beauty. 

Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave My heart into my mouth. 

Love is begun by time and time qualifies the spark and fire of it. 

Come, swear it, damn thyself, lest, being like one of heaven, the devils themselves should fear to seize thee; therefore be double-damned, swear,-thou art honest. 

Yet but three come one more. Two of both kinds make up four. Ere she comes curst and sad. Cupid is a knavish lad. Thus to make poor females mad. 

The best is yet to come. 

Seek happy nights to happy days.W 

There is plenty of time to sleep in the grave 

Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting That would not let me sleep. 

Now entertain conjecture of a time, When creeping murmur and the pouring dark Fill the wide vessel of the universe… Chorus Henry V 

Done to death by slanderous tongue 

We make trifles of terrors, Ensconcing ourselves into seeming knowledge, When we should submit ourselves to an unknown fear. 

Love’s fire heats water, water cools not love. 

All the world’s a stage … and you better have a zoning variance or it’s coming down. 

The Devil hath power To assume a pleasing shape. 

Olivia: What’s a drunken man like, fool? Feste: Like a drowned man, a fool, and a madman: one draught above heat makes him a fool; the second mads him; and a third drowns him. 

What showers arise, blown with the windy tempest of my heart 

Methought I heard a voice cry, Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep, – the innocent sleep; Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care, The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath, Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course, Chief nourisher in life’s feast. 

The more pity, that fools may not speak wisely what wise men do foolishly. 

So quick bright things come to confusion.?????? 

We are oft to blame in this, – ’tis too much proved, – that with devotion’s visage, and pios action we do sugar o’er the devil himself. 

You common cry of curs! whose breath I hate As reek o’ the rotten fens, whose loves I prize As the dead carcasses of unburied men That do corrupt my air, I banish you; And here remain with your uncertainty! 

In me thou see’st the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west, Which by and by black night doth take away Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest. -Sonnet 73 

So. Lie there, my art. 

Do not, as some ungracious pastors do, Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven; Whilst, like a puff’d and reckless libertine, Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads And recks not his own read. 

Give me mine angle, we’ll to th’ river: there, My music playing far off, I will betray Tawny-finned fishes. My bended hook shall pierce Their slimy jaws; and as I draw them up, I’ll think them every one an Antony, And say, ‘Ah, ha! are caught!’ 

The pleasant’st angling is to see the fish Cut with her golden oars the silver stream And greedily devour the treacherous bait. 

‘Twas merry when You wagered on your angling, when your diver Did hang a salt fish on his hook, which he With fervency drew up. 

What have we here? a man or a fish? dead or alive? A fish: he smells like a fish; a very ancient and fishlike smell; a kind of not of the newest poor-John. A strange fish! 

So dear I love him that with him, All deaths I could endure. Without him, live no life 

So we’ll live, And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh at gilded butterflies. 

By my soul I swear, there is no power in the tongue of man to alter me. 

She moves me not, or not removes at least affection’s edge in me. 

He kills her in her own humor. 

Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice; Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment. 

Neither a borrower nor a lender be, for loan oft loses both itself and friend, and borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. 

There was a star danced, and under that was I born. 

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank Here we will sit, and let the sounds of music Creep in our ears; soft stillness, and the night Become the touches of sweet harmony 

Your cause of sorrow must not be measured by his worth, for then it hath no end. 

Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus. Our bodies are our gardens to the which our wills are gardeners. 

Tell me, daughter Juliet, How stands your dispositions to be married” It is an honor that I dream not of 

Captain of our fairy band, Helena is here at hand, And the youth, mistook by me, Pleading for a lover’s fee. Shall we their fond pageant see? Lord, what fools these mortals be! 

And worse I may be yet: the worst is not So long as we can say ‘This is the worst. 

In scorn of nature, art gave lifeless life. 

I shall show the cinders of my spirits Through the ashes of my chance. 

I’ll be supposed upon a book, his face is the worst thing about him. 

Highly fed and lowly taught. 

The very instant I saw you, did My heart fly to your service; there resides To make me slave to it. …mine unworthiness, that dare not offer What I desire to give, and much less take What I shall die to want. 

And gentlemen in England now-a-bed Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day. 

Where souls do couch on flowers we’ll hand in hand… 

The worm is not to be trusted… 

Virtue and genuine graces in themselves speak what no words can utter. 

A knavish speech sleeps in a fool’s ear. 

Men must endure Their going hence, even as their coming hither. Ripeness is all. 

Where shall we three meet again in thunder, lightning, or in rain? When the hurlyburly ‘s done, when the battle ‘s lost and won 

Pardon’s the word to all. 

No longer mourn for me when I am dead than you shall hear the surly sullen bell give warning to the world that I am fled from this vile world with vilest worms to dwell: nay, if you read this line, remember not the hand that writ it, for I love you so, that I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot, if thinking on me then should make you woe. O! if, I say, you look upon this verse when I perhaps compounded am with clay, do not so much as my poor name rehearse; but let your love even with my life decay; lest the wise world should look into your moan, and mock you with me after I am gone. 

I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at my beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in. 

Comfort’s in heaven, and we are on the earth 

I have supped full with horrors. 

Blood will have blood. 

O, full of scorpions is my mind! 

A little more than kin, a little less than kind. 

Thou know’st ’tis common; all that lives must die, Passing through nature to eternity. 

Under loves heavy burden do I sink. -Romeo 

Don’t judge a man’s conscience by looking at his face cause he may have a bad heart. 

As I love the name of honour more than I fear death. 

Now let it work. Mischief, thou art afoot. Take thou what course thou wilt. 

In religion, What damned error but some sober brow Will bless it, and approve it with a text, Hiding the grossness with fair ornament? 

Thrust your head into the public street, to gaze on Christian fools with varnish’d faces. 

His worst fault is, he’s given to prayer; he is something peevish that way. 

I always thought it was both impious and unnatural that such immanity and bloody strife should reign among professors of one faith. 

For I am he am born to tame you, Kate; and bring you from a wild Kate to a Kate conformable as other household Kates. 

I dreamt my lady came and found me dead . . . . . . . . . . . . And breathed such life with kisses in my lips That I revived and was an emperor. 

O, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note, to drown me in thy sister’s flood of tears. 

Journeys end in lovers meeting. 

Love goes toward love as schoolboys from their books, But love from love, toward school with heavy looks. 

Cursed be the hand that made these fatal holes. 

For it falls out That what we have we prize not to the worth Whiles we enjoy it, but being lacked and lost, Why, then we rack the value, then we find The virtue that possession would not show us While it was ours. 

Are you sure/That we are awake? It seems to me/That yet we sleep, we dream 

O,speak to me no more;these words like daggers enter my ears.(a fancy way of saying SHUT UP!)” – William Shakespeare “hamlet 

You lie, in faith; for you are call’d plain Kate, And bonny Kate and sometimes Kate the curst; But Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom Kate of Kate Hall, my super-dainty Kate, For dainties are all Kates, and therefore, Kate, Take this of me, Kate of my consolation; Hearing thy mildness praised in every town, Thy virtues spoke of, and thy beauty sounded, Yet not so deeply as to thee belongs, Myself am moved to woo thee for my wife. 

Men’s eyes were made to look, let them gaze, I will budge for no man’s pleasure. 

I go, I go, look how I go, swifter than an arrow from a bow 

POLONIUS: What do you read, my lord? HAMLET: Words, words, words. 

Fair is foul, and foul is fair, hover through fog and filthy air. 

Too nice, and yet too true! 

I have drunk and seen the spider. 

O serpent heart hid with a flowering face! Did ever a dragon keep so fair a cave? Beautiful tyrant, feind angelical, dove feather raven, wolvish-ravening lamb! Despised substance of devinest show, just opposite to what thou justly seemest – A dammed saint, an honourable villain! 

Conscience doth make cowards of us all. 

Thou shalt not stir one foot to seek a foe. 

Oh, I am fortune’s fool! 

And all this day an unaccustomed spirit lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts. 

And thus I clothe my naked villainy With odd old ends stol’n out of holy writ; And seem a saint, when most I play the devil. 

Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise. 

Presume not that I am the thing I was. 

All of Creation’s a farce. Man was born as a joke. In his head his reason is buffeted Like wind-blown smoke. Life is a game. Everyone ridicules everyone else. But he who has the last laugh Laughs longest. 

Enjoy’d no sooner but despised straight, Past reason hunted, and no sooner had Past reason hated 

Alas, the frailty is to blame, not we For such as we are made of, such we be 

Music, moody food Of us that trade in love. 

Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight! For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night. 

To weep is to make less the depth of grief. 

I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw. 

Men at some time are masters of their fates. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings. 

Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in shape of a camel? Polonius: By the mass, and ’tis like a camel, indeed. Hamlet: Methinks it is like a weasel. Polonius: It is backed like a weasel. Hamlet: Or like a whale? Polonius: Very like a whale. 

I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men. 

woah is me to have seen what i seen see what i see 

And too soon Marred are those so early Made. 

There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. 

No matter where; of comfort no man speak: Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs; Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth 

Full fathom five thy father lies; Of his bones are coral made; Those are pearls that were his eyes: Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange. Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell: Ding-dong Hark! now I hear them,-Ding-dong, bell. 

Me, poor man, my library Was dukedom large enough. 

I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was. 

Do you not know I am a woman? when I think, I must speak. 

Lord, what fools these mortals be! 

World, world, O world! But that thy strange mutations make us hate thee/ Life would not yield to age. 

If there is a good will, there is great way. 

In such business Action is eloquence, and the eyes of th’ ignorant More learned than the ears. 

If there were reason for these miseries, then into limits could I bind my woes. If the winds rages, doth not the sea wax mad, threat’ning the welkin with its big-swoll’n face? And wilt though have a reason for this coil? I am the sea. Hark how her sighs doth blow. She is the weeping welkin, I the earth. 

Sweets to the sweet. 

O, beware, my lord, of jealousy; It is the green-ey’d monster, which doth mock The meat it feeds on. 

There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow. 

From this day to the ending of the world, But we in it shall be remembered- We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile, This day shall gentle his condition; And gentlemen in England now-a-bed Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day. 

Is it not strange that sheep’s guts could hail souls out of men’s bodies? 

But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks, Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass; I, that am rudely stamped, and want love’s majesty To strut before a wanton ambling nymph; I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion, Cheated of feature by dissembling nature, Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time Into this breathing world, scarce half made up, And that so lamely and unfashionable That dogs bark at me as I halt by them,- Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace, Have no delight to pass away the time, Unless to spy my shadow in the sun. 

On the bat’s back I do fly After summer merrily. 

The object of Art is to give life a shape. 

If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended, That you have but slumber’d here While these visions did appear. 

God’s will! my liege, would you and I alone, Without more help, could fight this royal battle! 

Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war! 

And to be merry best becomes you; for, out of question, you were born in a merry hour. BEATRICE No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star danced, and under that was I born. 

Men in rage strike those that wish them best. 

what cannot be saved when fate takes, patience her injury a mockery makes 

But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve For daws to peck at: I am not what I am. 

The clamorous owl, that nightly hoots and wonders At out quaint spirits. 

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage! Blow! You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout Till you have drenched our teeples, drowned the cocks! You sulphurour and thought-executing fires, Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts, Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder, Strike flat the thick rotundity o’ the world! Crack nature’s molds, all germens spill at once That make ingrateful man! 

Do you bite your thumb at us, sir? 

I can see he’s not in your good books,’ said the messenger. ‘No, and if he were I would burn my library. 

A Loud Laugh Bespeaks a Vacant Mind! 

Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more, Men were deceivers ever,- One foot in sea and one on shore, To one thing constant never. 

Then is courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted: and I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart; for, truly, I love none. Beatrice: A dear happiness to women: they would else have been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that: I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me. -Much Ado About Nothing 

Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps. 

And therefore, – since I cannot prove a lover, To entertain these fair well-spoken days, – I am determined to prove a villain, And hate the idle pleasures of these days. 

There’s small choice in rotten apples. 

Frame your mind to mirth and merriment which bars a thousand harms and lengthens life. 

The Play’s the Thing, wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King. 

They say best men are molded out of faults, And, for the most, become much more the better For being a little bad 

Then others for breath of words respect, Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect. 

Good name in man and woman, dear my lord, Is the immediate jewel of their souls: Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis something, nothing; ’twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands; But he that filches from me my good name Robs me of that which not enriches him, And makes me poor indeed. 

To die, to sleep – To sleep, perchance to dream – ay, there’s the rub, For in this sleep of death what dreams may come… 

Your “if” is the only peacemaker; much virtue in “if. 

The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, doth glance from heaven to Earth, from Earth to heaven; and as imagination bodies forth the forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen turns them to shape, and gives to airy nothing a local habitation and a name; such tricks hath strong imagination. 

Love like a shadow flies when substance love pursues Pursuing that that flies, and flying what pursues. 

I am in blood Stepp’d in so far, that, should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o’er. 

Tis within ourselves that we are thus or thus 

The rarer action is in virtue than in vengeance. 

Truly thou art damned, like an ill-roasted egg, all on one side. 

I like this place and could willingly waste my time in it. 

What soilders whey-face? The English for so please you. Take thy face hence. 

Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t. 

This we prescribe, though no physician; Deep malice makes too deep incision; Forget, forgive; conclude and be agreed; Our doctors say this is no month to bleed. 

I am afeard there are few die well that die in battle, for how can they charitably dispose of anything when blood is their argument? 

I feel within me a peace above all earthly dignities, a still and quiet conscience. 

Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day And make me travel forth without my cloak, To let base clouds o’ertake me in my way, Hiding they brav’ry in their rotten smoke? 

it is my lady! *sighs* o, it is my love! o, that she knew she were! she speaks, yet she sais nothing. what of that? her eye discourses; i will answer it. i am too bold, ’tis not to me she speaks; two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, having some business, do entreat her eyes to twinkle in their spheres till they return. 

What is a man, if his chief good and market of his time be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more. Sure he that made us with such large discourse, looking before and after, gave us not that capability and god-like reason to fust in us unused. 

I am a man more sinned against than sinning 

Nor shall this peace sleep with her; but as when The bird of wonder dies, the maiden phoenix, Her ashes new-create another heir As great in admiration as herself. 

When beggars die, there are no comets seen; the heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes. 

For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds; Lillies that fester smell far worse than weeds. 

There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will. 

I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano! 

Rude am I in my speech, And little blessed with the soft phrase of peace. 

This wimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy, this Senior Junior, giant dwarf…Cupid. 

Double, double, toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble! 

To climb steep hills requires a slow pace at first. 

Love comforteth like sunshine after rain. 

What’s his offense? Groping for trout in a peculiar river. 

Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes every one to the world but I, and I am sunburnt; I may sit in a corner and cry heigh-ho for a husband! 

They do not love that do not show their love. The course of true love never did run smooth. Love is a familiar. Love is a devil. There is no evil angel but Love. 

Silence is the perfectest herault of joy. I were but little happy if I could say how much. 

Look, how this ring encompasseth thy finger, Even so thy breast encloseth my poor heart; Wear both of them, for both of them are thine. 

Well, in that hit you miss. She’ll not be hit With Cupid’s arrow. She hath Dian’s wit, And, in strong proff of chastity well armed, From Love’s weak childish bow she lives uncharmed. She will not stay the siege of loving terms, Nor bide th’ encounter of assailing eyes, Nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold. O, she is rich in beauty; only poor That, when she dies, with dies her store. Act 1,Scene 1, lines 180-197 

Exit, pursued by a bear. 

I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers could not, with all their quantity of love, make up my sum. 

Let me have men about me that are fat… Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look. He thinks too much: such men are dangerous. 

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rims at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen? 

There are no tricks in plain and simple faith. 

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun. 

He that is thy friend indeed, He will help thee in thy need: If thou sorrow, he will weep; If thou wake, he cannot sleep: Thus of every grief in heart He with thee does bear a part. These are certain signs to know Faithful friend from flattering foe. 

Is it thy will, thy image should keep open My heavy eyelids to the weary night? Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken, While shadows like to thee do mock my sight? Is it thy spirit that thou send’st from thee So far from home into my deeds to pry, To find out shames and idle hours in me, The scope and tenor of thy jealousy? O, no! thy love, though much, is not so great: It is my love that keeps mine eye awake: Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat, To play the watchman ever for thy sake: For thee watch I, whilst thou dost wake elsewhere, From me far off, with others all too near. 

Thou art a very ragged Wart. 

[Thine] face is not worth sunburning. 

[Thou] mad mustachio purple-hued maltworms! 

In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke. 

When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married. 

His jest shall savour but a shallow wit, when thousands more weep than did laugh it. 

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. 

What a fool honesty is. 

But whate’er I am, nor I nor any man that but man is, With nothing shall be pleased ’til he be eased With being nothing. 

You cannot, sir, take from me any thing that I will more willingly part withal: except my life, except my life, except my life. 

Cupid is a knavish lad, Thus to make poor mortals mad! 

Your face, my thane, is as a book where men May read strange matters. To beguile the time, Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye, Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower, But be the serpent under’t. 

Love’s stories written in love’s richest books. To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes. 

I wasted time, and now doth time waste me; For now hath time made me his numbering clock: My thoughts are minutes; and with sighs they jar Their watches on unto mine eyes, the outward watch, Whereto my finger, like a dial’s point, Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears. Now sir, the sound that tells what hour it is Are clamorous goans, which strike upon my heart, Which is the bell: so sighs and tears and groans Show minutes, times, and hours. 

Petruchio: Come, come, you wasp; i’ faith, you are too angry. Katherine: If I be waspish, best beware my sting. Petruchio: My remedy is then, to pluck it out. Katherine: Ay, if the fool could find where it lies. Petruchio: Who knows not where a wasp does wear his sting? In his tail. Katherine: In his tongue. Petruchio: Whose tongue? Katherine: Yours, if you talk of tails: and so farewell. Petruchio: What, with my tongue in your tail? Nay, come again, Good Kate; I am a gentleman. 

Danger knows full well that Caesar is more dangerous than he. We are two lions litter’d in one day, and I the elder and more terrible. 

Do thou amend thy face, and I’ll amend my life. 

Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul But I do love thee! and when I love thee not, Chaos is come again. 

The pow’r I have on you is to spare you / The malice towards you, to forgive you. Posthumus 

It is excellent / To have a giant’s strenght / But it is tyrannous / To use it like a giant (Isabella) 

And yet by heaven I think my love as rare / as any that she belie with false compare Sonnett CXXX, ll, 13-14 

Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand? 

So fair and foul a day i had not seen. 

If all the year were playing holidays; To sport would be as tedious as to work. 

People’s good deeds we write in water. The evil deeds are etched in brass. 

He is the half part of a blessed man, Left to be finished by such as she; And she a fair divided excellence, Whose fullness of perfection lies in him. 

Juliet is the east and i am the sun. 

Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me, Knowing thy heart torment me with disdain, Have put on black and loving mourners be, Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain. And truly not the morning sun of heaven Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east, Nor that full star that ushers in the even, Doth half that glory to the sober west, As those two mourning eyes become thy face: O! let it then as well beseem thy heart To mourn for me since mourning doth thee grace, And suit thy pity like in every part. Then will I swear beauty herself is black, And all they foul that thy complexion lack 

This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune,-often the surfeit of our own behavior,-we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars: as if we were villains by necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on: an admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition to the charge of a star. 

in black ink my love may still shine bright. 

Thou weigh’st thy words before thou givest them breath. 

It is far easier for me to teach twenty what were right to be done, than be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching. 

The quality of mercy is not strain’d, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest; It blesseth him that gives and him that takes: ‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes The throned monarch better than his crown; His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, The attribute to awe and majesty, Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings; But mercy is above this sceptred sway; It is enthroned in the hearts of kings, It is an attribute to God himself; And earthly power doth then show likest God’s When mercy seasons justice. 

For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground And tell sad stories of the death of kings… 

Drown thyself? Drown cats and blind puppies. 

But shall we wear these glories for a day? Or shall they last, and we rejoice in them? 

Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin, as self-neglecting. 

In thy foul throat thou liest. 

Out of my sight! Thou dost infect mine eyes. 

Dispute not with her: she is lunatic. 

So wise so young, they say, do never live long. 

I have set my life upon a cast, And I will stand the hazard of the die. 

But I am constant as the Northern Star, Of whose true fixed and resting quality There is no fellow in the firmament. 

As full of spirit as the month of May, and as gorgeous as the sun in Midsummer. 

The villany you teach me I shall execute; and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction. 

Absence from those we love is self from self – a deadly banishment. 

He that is strucken blind can not forget the precious treasure of his eyesight lost. 

Why should we rise because ’tis light? Did we lie down because t’was night? 

This goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? 

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine. 

Discretion is the better part of valor. 

For we, which now behold these present days, Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise. 

The crown o’ the earth doth melt. My lord! O, wither’d is the garland of the war, The soldier’s pole is fall’n: young boys and girls Are level now with men; the odds is gone, And there is nothing left remarkable Beneath the visiting moon. 

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought… 

O God, I could be bound in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space – were it not that I have bad dreams. 

When I bestride him, I soar, I am a hawk: he trots the air; the earth sings when he touches it; the basest horn of his hoof is more musical than the pipe of Hermes. 

He’s of the colour of the nutmeg. And of the heat of the ginger…. he is pure air and fire; and the dull elements of earth and water never appear in him, but only in patient stillness while his rider mounts him; he is indeed a horse, and all other jades you may call beasts. 

Let still woman take An elder than herself: so wears she to him, So sways she level in her husband’s heart, For, boy, however we do praise ourselves, Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm, More longing, wavering, sooner to be lost and warn, Than women’s are. 

Is it possible he should know what he is, and be that he is? 

Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears Had left the flushing of her galled eyes, She married. O, most wicked speed, to post With such dexterity to incestuous sheets! 

Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, Which we ascribe to Heaven. 

O, that this too too solid flesh would melt Thaw and resolve itself into a dew! Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter! O God! God! How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable, (135) Seem to me all the uses of this world! Fie on’t! ah fie! ’tis an unweeded garden, That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature Possess it merely. That it should come to this! But two months dead: nay, not so much, not two: (140) So excellent a king; that was, to this, 

I would challenge you to a battle of wits, but I see you are unarmed! 

I will speak daggers to her, but use none. 

Come away, come away, Death, And in sad cypress let me be laid; Fly away, fly away, breath, I am slain by a fair cruel maid. My shroud of white stuck all with yew, O prepare it! My part of death no one so true did share it. Not a flower, not a flower sweet, On my black coffin let there be strewn: Not a friend, not a friend greet My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown. A thousand thousand sighs to save, lay me O where Sad true lover never find my grave, to weep there! 

My only love sprung from my only hate! Too early seen unknown, and known too late! Prodigious birth of love it is to me, That I must love a loathed enemy. 

Sir Andrew Ague-Cheek: I’ll stay a month longer. I am a fellow o’ the strangest mind i’ the world; I delight in masques and revels sometimes altogether (He’s an oddity in that he enjoys having fun) 

Hide not thy poison with such sugar’d words 

Scratching could not make it worse. . . such a face as yours. 

Out, you tallow-face! You baggage! 

Let me be that I am and seek not to alter me. 

Passion lends them power, time means to meet, tempering extremities with extremes sweet. 

So will I turn her virtue into pitch, And out of her own goodness make the net That shall enmesh them all. 

What win I, if I gain the thing I seek? A dream, a breath, a froth of fleeting joy. Who buys a minute’s mirth to wail a week? Or sells eternity to get a toy? For one sweet grape who will the vine destroy? Or what fond beggar, but to touch the crown, Would with the sceptre straight be strucken down? 

Let him smell his way to Dover! 

In springtime, the only pretty ring time Birds sing, hey ding A-ding, a-ding Sweet lovers love the spring- 

Tell me where is fancy bred, Or in the heart, or in the head? 

All love’s pleasure shall not match its woe. 

Now the melancholy of God protect thee, and the tailor make thy doublet of changable taffata, for thy mind is a very opal. I would have men of such constancy put to sea, that their business might be everything, and their intent everywhere, for that’s it, that always makes a good voyage of nothing. 

I would we were all of one mind, and one mind good. 

Love is heavy and light, bright and dark, hot and cold, sick and healthy, asleep and awake- its everything except what it is! (Act 1, scene 1) 

There’s an old saying that applies to me: you can’t lose a game if you don’t play the game. (Act 1, scene 4) 

A lover goes toward his beloved as enthusiastically as a schoolboy leaving his books, but when he leaves his girlfriend, he feels as miserable as the schoolboy on his way to school. (Act 2, scene 2) 

Go wisely and slowly. Those who rush stumble and fall. 

Educated men are so impressive. 

thus with a kiss I die 

Though I am not naturally honest, I am sometimes so by chance. 

France is a dog-hole, and it no more merits the tread of a man’s foot. 

All hoods make not monks. 

When we mean to build, We first survey the plot, then draw the model; And when we see the figure of the house, Then must we rate the cost of the erection. 

But as the unthought-on accident is guilty To what we wildly do, so we profess Ourselves to be the slaves of chance, and flies Of every wind that blows. 

The people are the city. 

Loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud. 

Twere to consider too curiously, to consider so. 

But clay and clay differs in dignity, Whose dust is both alike. 

Let none presume To wear an undeserved dignity. 

Promising is the very air o’ the time; it opens the eyes of expectation. 

Light seeking light doth light of light beguile: So, ere you find where light in darkness lies, Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes. 

To stand against the deep dread-bolted thunder, In the most terrible and nimble stroke Of quick, cross lightning. 

Lions make leopards tame. 

Divers philosophers hold that the lips is parcel of the mouth. 

Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer. 

The loyalty, well held to fools, does make Our faith mere folly. 

Good luck lies in odd numbers. 

Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth. 

For my part, if a lie may do thee grace, I’ll gild it with the happiest terms I have. 

War is no strife To the dark house and the detested wife. 

Full oft we see Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly. 

A sentence is but a cheveril glove to a good wit; How quickly the wrong side may be turned outward! 

Youth to itself rebels, though none else near. 

Charity itself fulfills the law. And who can sever love from charity? 

Unquiet meals make ill digestions. 

Equality of two domestic powers Breeds scrupulous faction. 

Mean and mighty, rotting Together, have one dust. 

Extreme fear can neither fight nor fly. 

It is a basilisk unto mine eye, Kills me to look on’t. 

Truly the souls of men are full of dread: Ye cannot reason almost with a man That looks not heavily and full of fear. 

Mine honor is my life, both grow in one. Take honor from me, and my life is done. Then, dear my liege, mine honor let me try; In that I live, and for that I will die. 

I doubt not then but innocence shall makeFalse accusation blush, and tyrannyTremble at patience. 

I stand for judgment: answer: shall I have it? 

I see men’s judgments are A parcel of their fortunes; and things outward Do draw the inward quality after them, To suffer all alike. 

The urging of that word, judgment, hath bred a kind of remorse in me. 

Mend when thou canst; be better at thy leisure. 

I wonder men dare trust themselves with men. 

I have thought some of Nature’s journeymen had made men and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably. 

Men that make Envy and crooked malice nourishment, Dare bite the best. 

And fearless minds climb soonest unto crowns. 

Preposterous ass, that never read so far to know the cause why music was ordain’d! Was it not to refresh the mind of man, after his studies or his usual pain? 

Diseased Nature oftentimes breaks forth In strange eruptions. 

How hard it is to hide the sparks of Nature! 

Be not thy tongue thy own shame’s orator. 

Grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle. 

Light vanity, insatiate cormorant, Consuming means, soon preys upon itself. 

Stones have been known to move and trees to speak. 

A sympathy in choice. 

Thou art most rich, being poor; Most choice, forsaken; and most lov’d, despis’d! Thee and thy virtues here I seize upon. 

Some glory in their birth , some in their skill , Some in their wealth , some in their bodies’ force , Some in their garments, though new-fangled ill; Some in their hawks and hounds , some in their horse ; And every humor hath his adjunct pleasure , Wherein it finds a joy above the rest . 

Unless the old adage must be verified, That beggars mounted, run their horse to death. 

Now he’ll outstare the lightning. To be furious Is to be frightened out of fear. 

Ambition’s debt is paid. 

Nothing teems But hateful docks, rough thistles, kecksies, burs, Losing both beauty and utility. 

The very firstlings of my heart shall be The firstlings of my hand. 

It is great sin to swear unto a sin, But greater sin to keep a sinful oath. 

Words pay no debts, give her deeds. 

I hold him but a fool that will endanger His body for a girl that loves him not. 

I am not in the roll of common men. 

Faults that are rich are fair. 

Great floods have flown From simple sources. 

What is done cannot be now amended. 

My will enkindled by mine eyes and ears, Two traded pilots ‘twixt the dangerous shores Of will and judgment. 

Never anger made good guard for itself. 

Our content Is our best having. 

I think the devil will not have me damned, lest the oil that’s in me should set hell on fire. 

Spirits are not finely touched But to fine issues. 

Let gentleness my strong enforcement be. 

Small herbs have grace, great weeds do grow apace. 

A lover’s eyes will gaze an eagle blind. 

If the boy have not a woman’s gift To rain a shower of commanded tears, An onion will do well for such a shift. 

A good man’s fortune may grow out at heels. 

Our praises are our wages. 

Nature hath meal and bran, contempt and grace. 

Prosperity’s the very bond of love. 

Unnatural deeds Do breed unnatural troubles: infected minds To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets. 

It is the witness still of excellency to put a strange face on his own perfection. 

Drink down all unkindness. 

Mirth cannot move a soul in agony. 

There’s husbandry in heaven; Their candles are all out. 

Words are grown so false, I am loath to prove reason with them. 

Your wisdom is consum’d in confidence. Do not go forth to-day. 

When Fortune means to men most good, She looks upon them with a threatening eye. 

So all my best is dressing old words new. 

Pray, love, remember: and there is pansies, that’s for thoughts. 

The wound of peace is surety, Surety secure. 

Fools are not mad folks. 

Things at the worst will cease or else climb upward To what they were before. 

If circumstances lead me, I will find Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed Within the centre. 

Our holy lives must win a new world’s crown. 

Covering discretion with a coat of folly. 

When a man’s verses cannot be understood, nor a man’s good wit seconded with the forward child understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room. Truly, I would the gods had made thee poetical. 

The strawberry grows underneath the nettle And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best Neighbour’d by fruit of baser quality. 

You are a lover. Borrow Cupid’s wings and soar with them above a common bound. 

The ides of March are come. Soothsayer: Ay, Caesar; but not gone. 

Life… is a paradise to what we know of death. 

Why, i’ faith, methinks she’s too low for a high praise, too brown for a fair praise and too little for a great praise: only this commendation I can afford her, that were she other than she is, she were unhandsome; and being no other but as she is, I do not like her. (Benedick, from Much Ado About Nothing) 

Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner. BENEDICK Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains. BEATRICE I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to thank me: if it had been painful, I would not have come. BENEDICK You take pleasure then in the message? BEATRICE Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knife’s point … You have no stomach, signior: fare you well. Exit BENEDICK Ha! ‘Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner;’ there’s a double meaning in that… (Much Ado About Nothing) 

LEONATO Neighbours, you are tedious. DOGBERRY It pleases your worship to say so, but we are the poor duke’s officers; but truly, for mine own part, if I were as tedious as a king, I could find it in my heart to bestow it all of your worship. 

Officers, what offence have these men done? DOGBERRY Marry, sir, they have committed false report; moreover, they have spoken untruths; secondarily, they are slanders; sixth and lastly, they have belied a lady; thirdly, they have verified unjust things; and, to conclude, they are lying knaves. 

Sweet Beatrice, wouldst thou come when I called thee? BEATRICE Yea, signior, and depart when you bid me. BENEDICK O, stay but till then! BEATRICE ‘Then’ is spoken; fare you well now… (Much Ado About Nothing) 

A miracle. Here’s our own hands against our hearts. Come, I will have thee, but by this light I take thee for pity. Beatrice: I would not deny you, but by this good day, I yield upon great persuasion, and partly to save your life, for I was told you were in a consumption. Benedick: Peace. I will stop your mouth. 

Blind is his love and best befits the dark- Benvolio (in Romeo and Juliet) 

She speaks poniards, and every word stabs. 

All days are nights to see till I see thee, And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me. 

Two households, both alike in dignity In fair Verona, where we lay our scene From ancient grudge break to new mutiny Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. From forth the fatal loins of these two foes A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life Whose misadventured piteous overthrows Do with their death bury their parents’ strife. 

If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide, By self-example mayst thou be denied. 

Confusion now hath made his masterpiece. 

Thus I die. Thus, thus, thus. Now I am dead, Now I am fled, My soul is in the sky. Tongue, lose thy light. Moon take thy flight. Now die, die, die, die. 

When truth kills truth, O devilish holy fray! 

That man that hath a tongue, I say is no man, if with his tongue he cannot win a woman. 

What are you doing sister? / Killing swine. 

I am indeed not her fool, but her corrupter of words. (Act III, sc. I, 37-38) 

You are an alchemist; make gold of that. 

That truth should be silent I had almost forgot. (Enobarbus) 

For what good turn? Messenger: For the best turn of the bed. 

Use every man according to his desert and who should ‘scape whipping? Use them after your own honor and dignity, the less they deserve … the more merit in your bounty. 

Now my charms are all o’erthrown… 

Knowing I lov’d my books, he furnish’d me From mine own library with volumes that I prize above my dukedom. 

Young men’s love then lies not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes. 

In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man as modest stillness and humility. 

Blest are those Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled, That they are not a pipe for fortune’s finger To sound what stop she please. 

I’ll look to like, if looking liking move; But no more deep will I endart mine eye than your consent gives strength to make it fly. 

O, swear not by the moon, the fickle moon, the inconstant moon, that monthly changes in her circle orb, Lest that thy love prove likewise variable 

For never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo. 

From women’s eyes this doctrine I derive: They sparkle still the right Promethean fire; They are the books, the arts, the academes, That show, contain and nourish all the world. 

Assume a virtue, if you have it not. That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat, Of habits devil, is angel yet in this, That to the use of actions fair and good He likewise gives a frock or livery That aptly is put on. Refrain tonight, And that shall lend a kind of easiness To the next abstinence; the next more easy; For use almost can change the stamp of nature. 

The tempter or the tempted, who sins most? 

I would there were no age between sixteen and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest; for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting 

He that is proud eats up himself: pride is his own glass, his own trumpet, his own chronicle. 

It hurts not the tongue to give fair words. 

My love to thee is sound, sans crack or flaw. 

Out of this nettle – danger – we pluck this flower – safety. 

And yet,to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays. 

Therefore was I created with a stubborn outside, with an aspect of iron, that when I come to woo ladies, I fright them. But, in faith, Kate, the elder I wax, the better I shall appear. My comfort is that old age, that ill layer-up of beauty, can do no more spoil upon my face. Thou hast me, if thou hast me, at the worst, and thou shalt wear me, if thou wear me, better and better. 

it is not enough to speak, but to speak truee 

Come, Lady, die to live. 

The prince of darkness is a gentleman! 

The miserable have no other medicine But only hope. 

Which can say more than this rich praise, that you alone are you? 

Friendship is constant in all other things, save in the office and affairs of love. 

Truth is truth to the end of reckoning. 

Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires. 

We, ignorant of ourselves, Beg often our own harms, which the wise powers Deny us for our good; so find we profit By losing of our prayers. 

O Mistress mine, where are you roaming? O, stay and hear; your true love’s coming, That can sing both high and low: Trip no further, pretty sweeting; Journeys end in lovers meeting, Every wise man’s son doth know. What is love? ‘Tis not hereafter; Present mirth hath present laughter; What’s to come is still unsure: In delay there lies not plenty; Then, come kiss me, sweet and twenty, Youth’s a stuff will not endure. 

More matter with less art. 

To me, fair friend, you never can be old, For as you were when first your eye I ey’d, Such seems your beauty still. 

Lovers and madmen have such seething brains Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend More than cool reason ever comprehends. 

How much salt water thrown away in waste/ To season love, that of it doth not taste. 

to early seen unknown…and known to late 

O, here Will I set up my everlasting rest, And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars From this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last! Arms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O you The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss A dateless bargain to engrossing death! 

We will have rings and things and fine array 

How low am I, thou painted maypole? (Hermia to Helena) 

Let life be short, else shame will be too long. 

O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend The brightest heaven of invention, A kingdom for a stage, princes to act And monarchs to behold the swelling scene! 

For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth, Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech, To stir men’s blood: I only speak right on; I tell you that which you yourselves do know; 

Foolery, sir, does walk about the orb like the sun; it shines everywhere. 

A happy ending cannot come in the middle of the story 

The latter end of a fray, and the beginning of a feast, Fits a dull fighter, and a keen guest. 

A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm 

What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, That he should weep for her? 

Why, what is pomp, rule, reign, but earth and dust? And, live we how we can, yet die we must. 

Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye Than twenty of their swords: look thou but sweet, And I am proof against their enmity. 

Striving to better, oft we mar what’s well. 

‘Tis sweet to kiss a girl on Spring’s first day, but only half so sweet as ’tis to kiss a girl on her bootyhole. 

A pox o’ your throat, you bawling, blasphemous, incharitable dog! 

To pore upon a book, to seek the light of truth. 

Do not spread the compost on the weeds. 

You have but mistook me all the while… I live by bread like you, taste grief, feel want, need friends. Conditioned thus how can you call me king? 

Hot blood begets hot thoughts, And hot thoughts beget Hot deeds, And hot deeds is love. 

Golden lads and girls all must as chimney sweepers come to dust. 

Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep; To sleep, perchance to dream-For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause, there’s the respect, That makes calamity of so long life 

One may smile, and smile, and be a villain. 

where civil blood makes civil hands unclean 

He hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink; his intellect is not replenished; he is only an animal, only sensible in the duller parts. (Shakespeare, Love’s Labor’s Lost, IV) 

For which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me? 

I do love nothing in the world so well as you- is not that strange? 

There is nothing serious in Mortality 

Grief fills the room up of my absent child, Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me, Puts on his pretty look, repeats his words, Remembers me of his gracious parts, Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form 

But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, All losses are restored and sorrows end. 

Sycorax has grown into a hoop 

O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth, / That I am meek and gentle with these butchers! 

Give me that man that is not passion’s slave, and I will wear him in my heart’s core, in my heart of heart, as I do thee. 

The one I love is the son of the one I hate! -Juliet p. 75 

If one good deed in all my life I did, I do repent it from my very soul. 

And keep you in the rear of your affection, Out of the shot and danger of desire, The chariest maid is prodigal enough If she unmasks her beauty to the moon. 

A good leg will fall, a straight back will stoop, a black beard will turn white, a curled pate will grow bald, a fair face will wither, a full eye will wax hollow. But a good heart…is the sun and moon…for it shines bright and never changes, but keeps its course truly. Henry V, Act V, Scene 2 

The breaking of so great a thing should make A greater crack: the round world Should have shook lions into civil streets, And citizens to their dens. 

we are the lords of all eternity 

Too much of water hast thou poor Ophelia, and therefore I forbid my tears. But yet it is our trick, let shame say what it will. when these are gone the women will be out! Adieu my lord, I have a speech of fire that fane would blaze, But that this folly doubts it. 

Oh, she doth teach the torches to burn bright! It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope’s ear, Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear. So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows As yonder lady o’er her fellows shows. The measure done, I’ll watch her place of stand, And, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand. Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight! For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night. 

There are three people in yourself:Who people think you are, Who you think you are, and who you really are. 

Cordelia! stay a little. Ha! What is’t thou say’st? Her voice was ever soft. 

This feather stirs; she lives! if it be so, it is a chance which does redeem all sorrows that ever I have felt. 

If I be waspish, best beware my sting. 

Women speak two languages – one of which is verbal. 

O teach me how I should forget to think (1.1.224) 

True hope is swift, and flies with swallow’s wings. 

Teach me, dear creature, how to think and speak; Lay open to my earthy-gross conceit, Smother’d in errors, feeble, shallow, weak, The folded meaning of your words’ deceit. 

Things without all remedy should be without regard: what’s done is done. 

He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear His hopes ‘bove wisdom, grace and fear: And you all know, security Is mortals’ chiefest enemy. 

I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow, than a man swear he loves me. 

Art thou afeard To be the same in thine own act and valour As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that Which thou esteem’st the ornament of life, And live a coward in thine own esteem, Letting ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would,’ Like the poor cat i’ the adage? 

This rough magic I here abjure and when I have required some heavenly music, which even now I do, to work mine end upon their senses that this airy charm is for, I’ll break my staff, bury it certain fathoms in the earth, and deeper than did ever plummet sound, I’ll drown my book. 

O, when she’s angry, she is keen and shrewd! She was a vixen when she went to school; And though she be but little, she is fierce. 

For this relief much thanks. ‘Tis bitter cold, and I am sick at heart. 

Conceal me what I am, and be my aid for such disguise as haply shall become the form of my intent. 

I have unclasp’d to thee the book even of my secret soul. 

Come unto these yellow sands, And then take hands. Curtsied when you have and kissed The wild waves whist, Foot is featly here and there; And, sweet sprites, the burden bear. Ariel’s song, scene II, Act I 

Tush! Fear not, my lord, we will not stand to prate; Talkers are no good doers: be assured We come to use our hands and not our tongues. 

Give me my sin again. 

Romeo: I dreamt a dream tonight. Mercutio: And so did I. Romeo: Well, what was yours? Mercutio: That dreamers often lie. Romeo: In bed asleep while they do dream things true. 

No, no, no, no! Come, let’s away to prison: We two alone will sing like birds i’ the cage: When thou dost ask me blessing, I’ll kneel down, And ask of thee forgiveness: so we’ll live, And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues Talk of court news; and we’ll talk with them too, Who loses and who wins; who’s in, who’s out; And take upon’s the mystery of things, As if we were God’s spies: and we’ll wear out, In a wall’d prison, packs and sects of great ones, That ebb and flow by the moon. 

I, measuring his affections by my own, Which then most sought where most might not be found, Being one too many by my weary self, Pursued my humor not pursuing his, And gladly shunned who gladly fled from me. 

What sadness lengthens Romeo’s hours? 

Alas, that love, so gentle in his view, Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof! *It’s sad. Love looks like a nice thing, but it’s actually very rough when you experience it.* 

Why then, O brawling love! O loving hate! O any thing, of nothing first create! O heavy lightness, serious vanity, Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms, Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health, Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is! This love feel I, that feel no love in this. 

Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs; Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes; Being vexed, a sea nourished with loving tears. What is it else? A madness most discreet, A choking gall, and a preserving sweet. *Here’s what love is: a smoke made out of lovers’ sighs. When the smoke clears, love is a fire burning in your lover’s eyes. If you frustrate love, you get an ocean made out of lovers’ tears. What else is love? It’s a wise form of madness. It’s a sweet lozenge that you choke on.* 

One fire burns out another’s burning, One pain is lessen’d by another’s anguish. 

I will make thee think thy swan a crow. 

One fairer than my love? The all-seeing sun Ne’er saw her match since first the world begun. 

she shall scant show well that now shows best. 

I have a soul of lead So stakes me to the ground I cannot move. 

He that hath the steerage of my course, Direct my sail. 

Ay me! sad hours seem long. 

He jests at scars that never felt a wound. 

What man art thou that, thus bescreened in night, So stumblest on my counsel? *Who are you? Why do you hide in the darkness and listen to my private thoughts?* 

wert thou as far As that vast shore washed with the farthest sea, I would adventure for such merchandise. 

Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell. Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace, Yet Grace must still look so. 

The rest, is silence. 

Ay me! for aught that ever I could read, could ever hear by tale or history, the course of true love never did run smooth. 

Care keeps his watch in every old man’s eye, And where care lodges, sleep will never lie. 

What early tongue so sweet saluteth me? 

How art thou out of breath when thou hast breath To say to me that thou art out of breath? 

These violent delights have violent ends. 

Love moderately. Long love doth so. Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow. *Love each other in moderation. That is the key to long-lasting love. Too fast is as bad as too slow.* 

They are but beggars that can count their worth. 

He is dead and gone, lady, He is dead and gone; At his head a grass-green turf, At his heels a stone. 

And will ‘a not come again? And will ‘a not come again? No, no, he is dead, Go to thy death bed: He will never come again. 

It were a grief so brief to part with thee. Farewell. 

These times of woe afford no time to woo. 

Some grief shows much of love, But much of grief shows still some want of wit. 

A peevish self-willed harlotry it is. *She’s a stubborn little brat.* 

Have I thought long to see this morning’s face, And doth it give me such a sight as this? 

There is thy gold, worse poison to men’s souls, Doing more murder in this loathsome world, Than these poor compounds that thou mayst not sell. 

Expectation is the root of all heartache. 

Age, I do abhor thee, youth, I do adore thee. 

Crabbed age and youth cannot live together; Youth is full of pleasure, age is full of care; Youth like summer morn, age like winter weather; Youth like summer brave, age like winter bare. Youth is full sport, age’s breath is short; Youth is nimble, age is lame; Youth is hot and bold, age is weak and cold; Youth is wild, age is tame. Age, I do abhor thee; youth, I do adore thee. 

The gods are deaf to hot and peevish vows. They are polluted off’rings, more abhorred! Than spotted livers in the sacrifice. 

Few things loves better Than to abhor himself. 

A rotten case abides no handling. 

I have shot mine arrow o’er the house And hurt my brother. 

Accommodated; that is, when a man is, as they say, accommodated; or when a man is, being, whereby a’ may be thought to be accommodated,?which is an excellent thing. 

Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs Piercing the night’s dull ear; and from the tents The armorers accomplishing the knights, With busy hammers closing rivets up, Give dreadful note of preparation. 

If it be true that good wine needs no bush, ’tis true that a good play needs no epilogue. 

Like a dull actor now, I have forgot my part, and I am out, Even to a full disgrace. 

A wretched soul, bruised with adversity, We bid be quiet when we hear it cry. But were we burd’ned with like weight of pain, As much or more we should ourselves complain: So thou, that hast no unkind mate to grieve thee, With urging helpless patience wouldst relieve me; But if thou live to see like right bereft, This fool-begged patience in thee will be left. 

He is the most wretched of men who has never felt adversity. 

Then know, that I have little wealth to lose. A man I am, crossed with adversity; My riches are these poor habiliments, Of which if you should here disfurnish me, You take the sum and substance that I have. 

When a wise man gives thee better counsel, give me mine again. 

Bosom upon my counsel; You’ll find it wholesome. 

Then let thy love be younger than thyself, Or thy affection cannot hold the bent. 

Affection faints not like a pale-faced coward, But then woos best when most his choice is froward. 

Henceforth, I’ll bear Affliction till it do cry out itself, ‘Enough, enough, and die. 

Affliction may one day smile again; and till then, sit thee down, sorrow!. 

Who can be wise, amazed, temperate and furious, Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man. 

No longer mourn for me when I am dead Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell Give warning to the world that I am fled From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell. 

I heard a bird so sing, Whose music, to my thinking, pleased the king. 

The benediction of these covering heavens Fall on their heads like dew, for they are worthy To inlay heaven with stars. 

Fortune is painted blind, with a muffler afore her eyes, to signify to you that Fortune is blind. 

Blind fear, that seeing reason leads, finds safer footing than blind reason stumbling without fear: to fear the worst oft cures the worse. 

I will go wash; And when my face is fair, you shall perceive Whether I blush or no. 

Be bloody, bold, and resolute; laugh to scorn the power of man. 

Tis gold Which buys admittance-oft it doth-yea, and makes Diana’s rangers false themselves, yield up This deer to th’ stand o’ th’ stealer: and ’tis gold Which makes the true man kill’d and saves the thief, Nay, sometimes hangs both thief and true man. 

What, shall one of us, That struck for the foremost man of all this world But for supporting robbers-shall we now Contaminate our fingers with base bribes, And sell the mighty space of our large honors For so much trash as may be grasped thus? 

Who finds the heifer dead and bleeding fresh And sees fast-by a butcher with an axe, But will suspect ’twas he that made the slaughter? 

No might nor greatness in mortality Can censure ‘scape; back- wounding calumny The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue? 

Things past redress are now with me past care 

I have more care to stay than will to go. 

What infinite heart’s-ease Must kings neglect that private men enjoy! And what have kings that privates have not too, Save ceremony, save general ceremony? 

And what art thou, thou idol Ceremony? What kind of god art thou, that suffer’st more Of mortal griefs than do thy worshippers? 

O Ceremony, show me but thy worth? What is thy soul of adoration? Art thou aught else but place, degree, and form, Creating awe and fear in other men? 

Ever note, Lucilius, When love begins to sicken and decay It useth an enforced ceremony. There are no tricks in plain and simple faith; But hollow men, like horses hot at hand, Make gallant show and promise of their mettle; But when they should endure the bloody spur, They fall their crests, and like deceitful jades Sink in the trial. 

I will not choose what many men desire, Because I will not jump with common spirits And rank me with the barbarous multitudes. 

Preferment goes by letter and affection, And not by old gradation, where each second Stood heir to th’s first. 

If it be aught toward the general good, Set honor in one eye and death i’ th’ other, And I will look on both indifferently; For let the gods so speed me as I love The name of honor more than I fear death. 

That is the way to lay the city flat, To bring the roof to the foundation, And bury all, which yet distinctly ranges, In heaps and piles of ruin. 

Thus we play the fool with the time and the spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us. 

If it be honor in your wars to seem The same you are not,-which, for your best ends, You adopt your policy-how is it less or worse, That it shall hold companionship in peace With honour, as in war: since that to both It stands in like request? 

Confess yourself to heaven, Repent what’s past, avoid what is to come, And do not spread the compost on the weeds To make them ranker. 

A stirring dwarf we do allowance give Before a sleeping giant. 

He that will have a cake out of the wheat must tarry the grinding. Have I not tarried? Ay, the grinding; but you must tarry the bolting. Have I not tarried? Ay, the bolting; but you must tarry the leavening. Still have I tarried. Ay, to the leavening; but here’s yet in the word ‘hereafter’ the kneading, the making of the cake, the heating of the oven, and the baking; nay, you must stay the cooling too, or you may chance to burn your lips. 

Would the cook were o’ my mind! 

By Jove, I am not covetous for gold, Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost; It yearns me not if me my garments wear; Such outward things dwell not in my desires: But if it be a sin to covet honor, I am the most offending soul alive. 

How many cowards whose hearts are all as false As stairs of sand, wear yet upon their chins The beards of Hercules and frowning Mars, Who inward searched, have livers white as milk! 

The even mead, that erst brought sweetly forth The freckled cowslip, burnet, and green clover, Wanting the scythe, all uncorrected, rank, Conceives by idleness, and nothing teems But hateful docks, rough thistles, kecksies, burrs, Losing both beauty and utility. 

The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark When neither is attended; and I think The nightingale, if she should sing by day When every goose is cackling, would be thought No better a musician than the wren. How many thing by season seasoned are To their right praise and true perfection! 

Come, seeling night, Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day, And with thy bloody and invisible hand Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond Which keeps me pale. Light thickens, and the crow Makes wing to th’ rooky wood. Good things of day begin to droop and drowse, While night’s black agents to their prey do rouse. 

Men so noble, However faulty, yet should find respect For what they have been: ’tis a cruelty To load a falling man. 

The seeming truth which cunning times put on to entrap the wisest. 

Thou speak’st like him’s untutored to repeat: Who makes the fairest show means most deceit. 

But when the fox hath once got in his nose, He’ll soon find means to make the body follow. 

So may the outward shows be least themselves; The world is still deceived with ornament. 

Whatever praises itself but in the deed, devours the deed in the praise. 

What, gone without a word? Ay, so true love should do; it cannot speak, For truth hath better deeds than words to grace it. 

For truth hath better deeds than words to grace it. 

Why, all delights are vain, but that most vain Which, with pain purchased, doth inherit pain: As, painfully to pore upon a book, To seek the light of truth, which truth the while Doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look. 

Discomfort guides my tongue And bids me speak of nothing but despair. 

Nay then, let the devil wear black, for I’ll have a suit of sables. 

Let me say amen betimes lest the devil cross my prayer, for here he comes in the likeness of a Jew. 

I have seen the day of wrong through the little hole of discretion, and I will right myself like a soldier. 

Let’s teach ourselves that honorable stop, Not to outsport discretion. 

I’ll forbear; And am fallen out with my more headier will To take the indisposed and sickly fit For the sound man. 

Before the curing of a strong disease, Even in the instant of repair and health, The fit is strongest. Evils that take leave, On their departure most of all show evil. 

The wound of peace is surety, Surety secure; but modest doubt is called The beacon of the wise, the tent that searches To th’ bottom of the worst. 

But now I am cabined, cribbed, confined, bound in To saucy doubts and fears. 

To be once in doubt Is once to be resolved. 

So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows As yonder lady o’er her fellows shows. 

My free drift Halts not particularly, but moves itself In a wide sea of wax; no levelled malice Infects one comma in the course I hold, But flies an eagle flight, bold and forth on, Leaving no tract behind. 

The eagle suffers little birds to sing, And is not careful what they mean thereby, Knowing that with the shadow of his wings He can at pleasure stint their melody: Even so mayest thou the giddy men of Rome. 

I almost die for food, and let me have it! 

If you love an addle egg as well as you love an idle head, you would eat chickens i’ th’ shell. 

He that keeps not crust nor crum Weary of all, shall want some. 

Fat paunches have lean pates, and dainty bits Make rich the ribs, but backrout quite the wits. 

What say you to a piece of beef and mustard? 

My cake is dough, but I’ll in among the rest, Out of hope of all but my share of the feast. 

All’s well that ends well; still the fine’s the crown. Whate’er the course, the end is the renown. 

We make ourselves fools to disport ourselves And spend our flatteries to drink those men Upon whose age we void it up again With poisonous spite and envy. 

No metal can-no, not the hangman’s axe-bear half the keenness of thy sharp envy. 

Still constant is a wondrous excellence. 

Promising is the very air o’ th’ time; it opens the eyes of expectation. Performance is ever duller for his act; and, but in the plainer and simpler kind of people, the deed of saying is quite out of use. To promise is most courtly and fashionable; performance is a kind of will or testament which argues a great sickness in his judgment that makes it. 

All men’s faces are true, whatsome’er their hands are. 

A countenance more in sorrow than in anger. 

Though men can cover crimes with bold, stern looks, poor women’s faces are their own faults’ books. 

Shakespeare scholars just sigh and consign the book to the great pantheon of revelations .. I am accustomed to fanatics who get a funny look in the eye when they come to speak to me how about the Earl of Oxford or Marlowe really wrote the plays. She spoke rationally, and it’s an intelligently readable book, but it floats way above the facts, as I told her. 

Let fancy still in my sense in Lethe steep; If it be thus to dream, still let me sleep! 

So full of shapes is fancy That it alone is high fantastical. 

Tell me where is fancy bred, Or in the heart, or in the head? How begot, how nourished? Reply, reply. It is engend’red in the eyes, With gazing fed, and fancy dies In the cradle where it lies. 

I’ll be at charges for a looking-glass And entertain a score or two of tailors To study fashions to adorn my body: Since I am crept in favor with myself, I will maintain it with some little cost. 

Condemn the fault and not the actor of it? 

I will chide no breather in the world but myself, against whom I know most faults. 

This night I hold an old accustomed feast, Whereto I have invited many a guest, Such as I love; and you among the store, One more, most welcome, makes my number more. 

Fire that’s closest kept burns most of all. 

It is a heretic that makes the fire, Not she which burns in it. 

A fool’s bolt is soon shot. 

O fortune, fortune! all men call thee fickle. 

The glowworm shows the matin to be near And gins to pale his uneffectual fire. 

Full many a lady I have eyed with best regard, and many a time Th’ harmony of their tongues hath into bondage Brought my too diligent ear; for several virtues Have I liked several women; never any With so full soul but some defect in her Did quarrel with the noblest grace she owed, And put it to the foil. 

Now the good gods forbid That our renowned Rome, whose gratitude Towards her deserved children is enrolled In Jove’s own book, like an unnatural dam Should now eat up her own! 

If thou engrossest all the griefs are thine, Thou robb’st me of a moiety. 

O, my lord, You said that idle weeds are fast in growth: The prince my brother hath outgrown me far. 

Methinks a father Is at the nuptial of his son a guest That best becomes the table. 

The mind of guilt is full of scorpions. 

A wicked conscience mouldeth goblins swift as frenzy thoughts. 

Guiltiness will speak, though tongues were out of use 

So holy and so perfect is my love, And I in such a poverty of grace, That I shall think it a most plenteous crop To glean the broken ears after the man That the main harvest reaps. 

Methinks I am a prophet new inspired And thus, expiring, do foretell of him: His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last, For violent fires soon burn out themselves; Small show’rs last long, but sudden storms are short; He tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes; With eager feeding doth choke the feeder; Light vanity, insatiate cormorant, Consuming means, soon preys upon itself. 

Dost thou love hawking? Thou hast hawks will soar Above the morning lark. 

An two men ride of a horse, one must ride behind. 

I have sounded the very base-string of humility. 

I think the King is but a man as I am: the violet smells to him as it doth to me. 

Ingratitude is monstrous; and for the multitude to be ingrateful were to make a monster of the multitude; of which we being members, should bring ourselves to be monstrous members. 

Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn but I shall have my pocket picked? 

We are not ourselves When nature, being oppressed, commands the mind To suffer with the body. 

Instinct is a great matter. I was now a coward on instinct. 

Boundless intemperance In nature is a tyranny. It hath been Th’ untimely emptying of the happy throne And fall of many kings. 

Great men may jest with saints; ’tis wit in them; But, in the less foul profanation. 

A woman that is like a German clock, Still a-repairing, ever out of frame, And never going aright, being a watch, But being watched that it may still go right! 

Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy. 

To offend and judge are distinct offices, And of opposed natures. 

Do all men kill the things they do not love? 

There’s never a villain dwelling in all Denmark But he’s an arrant knave. 

Knavery’s plain face is never seen till used. 

Like the lily That once was mistress of the field and flourished, I’ll hang my head and perish. 

Many a man’s tongue shakes out his master’s undoing. 

What many men desire-that ‘many’ may be meant By the fool multitude that choose by show, Not learning more than the fond eye doth teach, Which pries not to th’ interior, but like the martlet Builds in the weather on the outward wall, Even in the force and road of casualty. 

O, Men’s vows are women’s traitors! All good seeming, By thy revolt, O husband, shall be thought Put on for villainy, not born where’t grows, But worn a bait for ladies. 

If you shall marry, You give away this hand, and this is mine; You give away heaven’s vows, and those are mine; You give away myself, which is known mine; For I by vow am so embodied yours That she which marries you must marry me- Either both or none. 

A time, methinks, too short To make a world-without-end bargain in. 

Let husbands know Their wives have sense like them. They see, and smell, And have their palates both for sweet and sour, As husbands have. 

Take physic, pomp; Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel, That thou mayst shake the superflux to them And show the heavens more just. 

Mercy is not itself, that oft looks so; Pardon is still the nurse of second woe. 

Whereto serves mercy But to confront the visage of offense? 

Open thy gate of mercy, gracious God, My soul flies through these wounds to seek out thee. 

To move wild laughter in the throat of death? It cannot be; it is impossible: Mirth cannot move a soul in agony. 

What should a man do but be merry? For look you how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died within’s two hours. 

So holy writ in babes hath judgment shown When judges have been babes; great floods have flown From simple sources, and great seas have dried When miracles have by the greatest been denied. 

Can it be That modesty may more betray our sense Than woman’s lightness? Having waste ground enough, Shall we desire to raze the sanctuary And pitch our evils there? 

All impediments in fancy’s course Are motives of more fancy. 

No place indeed should murder sanctuarize; Revenge should have no bounds. 

For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak With most miraculous organ. 

Omission to do what is necessary Seals a commission to a blank of danger; And danger, like an ague, subtly taints Even then when we sit idly in the sun. 

If’t be summer news, Smile to’t before; if winterly, thou need’st But keep that count’nance still. 

I hourly learn a doctrine of obedience. 

For now I stand as one upon a rock environed with a wilderness of sea, who marks the waxing tide grow wave by wave, expecting ever when some envious surge will in his brinish bowels swallow him. 

Very good orators, when they are out, they will spit; and for lovers, lacking-God warn us!-matter, the cleanliest shift is to kiss. 

The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre Observe degree, priority, and place, Insisture, course, proportion, season, form, Office, and custom, in all line of order. 

I will not be sworn but love may transform me to an oyster; but I’ll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster of me he shall never make me such a fool. 

Tut, man, one fire burns out another’s burning; One pain is less’ned by another’s anguish; Turn giddy, and be holp by backward turning; One desperate grief cures with another’s languish. 

You undergo too strict a paradox, Striving to make an ugly deed look fair. 

O that my tongue were in the thunder’s mouth! Then with passion would I shake the world, And rouse from sleep that fell anatomy Which cannot hear a lady’s feeble voice, Which scorns a modern invocation. 

I do love My country’s good with a respect more tender, More holy and profound, then mine own life, My dear wife’s estimate, her womb increase, And treasure of my loins. 

Hear me profess sincerely: had I a dozen sons, each in my love alike, and none less dear than thine and my good Marcius, I had rather have eleven die nobly for their country than one voluptuously surfeit out of action. 

Let there be gall enough in thy ink, though thou write with a goose-pen, no matter. 

I have ventured, Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders, This many summers in a sea of glory, But far beyond my depth. My high-blown pride At length broke under me, and now has left me, Weary and old with service, to the mercy Of a rude stream that must for ever hide me. 

It may do good; pride hath no other glass To show itself but pride, for supple knees Feed arrogance and are the proud man’s fees. 

O, this life Is nobler than attending for a check, Richer than doing nothing for a robe, Prouder than rustling in unpaid-for silk: Such pain the cap of him that makes him fine Yet keeps his book uncrossed. 

I do not hate a proud man, as I do hate the engendering of toads. 

There is a history in all men’s lives, Figuring the nature of the times deceased, The which observed, a man may prophesy, With a near aim, of the main chance of things As yet not come to life, which in their seeds And weak beginnings lie intreasured. 

The best quarrels, in the heat, are cursed by those that feel their sharpness. 

Reflection is the business of man; a sense of his state is his first duty: but who remembereth himself in joy? Is it not in mercy then that sorrow is allotted unto us? 

My desolation does begin to make A better life. 

I could be well content To entertain the lag-end of my life With quiet hours. 

Abandon all remorse; On horror’s head horrors accumulate. 

Be stirring as the time; be fire with fire. Threaten the threat’ner, and outface the brow Of bragging horror. So shall inferior eyes, That borrow their behaviors from the great, Grow great by your example and put on The dauntless spirit of resolution. 

Vengeance is in my heart, death in my hand,Blood and revenge are hammering in my head. 

I speak of peace, while covert enmity under the smile of safety wounds the world 

The mightier man, the mightier is the thing That makes him honored or begets him hate; For greatest scandal waits on greatest state. 

No particular scandal one can touch but it confounds the breather. 

You know That I do fawn on men, and hug them hard, And after scandal them. 

Some say that ever ‘gainst the season comes Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated, The bird of dawning singeth all night long: And then, they say, no spirit can walk abroad; The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike, No fairy takes, nor wi 

Two may keep counsel putting one away! 

Some there be that shadows kiss; Such have but a shadow’s bliss. 

O shame, where is thy blush? 

Ships are but boards, sailors but men. 

O, I have suffered With those that I saw suffer! a brave vessel (Who had no doubt some noble creature in her) Dashed all to pieces! O, the cry did knock Against my very heart! Poor souls, they perished! 

My long sickness Of health and living now begins to mend, And nothing brings me all things. 

Base is the slave that pays. 

This world to me is like a lasting storm,Whirring me from my friends. 

When clouds are seen wise men put on their cloaks; When great leaves fall then winter is at hand. 

Robust grass endures mighty winds; loyal ministers emerge through ordeal. 

Study is like the heaven’s glorious sun, That will not be deep-searched with saucy looks: Small have continual plodders ever won, Save base authority from others’ books. 

Against self-slaughter There is a prohibition so divine That cravens my weak hand. 

And the more pity that great folk should have count’nance in this world to drown or hang themselves more than their even-Christen. 

Coal-black is better than another hue In that it scorns to bear another hue; For all the water in the ocean Can never turn the swan’s black legs to white, Although she lave them hourly in the flood. 

Ask God for temp’rance. That’s th’ appliance only Which your disease requires. 

Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace. Leave gormandizing. 

Great men should drink with harness on their throats. 

Do not give dalliance too much rein; the strongest oaths are straw to the fire in the blood. 

In limited professions there’s boundless theft. 

The language I have learnt these forty years, My native English, now I must forgo; And now my tongue’s use is to me no more Than an unstringed viol or a harp, Or like a cunning instrument cased up Or, being open, put into his hands That knows no touch to tune the harmony. 

I cannot, nor I will not hold me still; My tongue, though not my heart, shall have his will. 

To say the truth, so Judas kissed his master And cried, ‘All hail!’ when as he meant all harm. 

Treason and murder ever kept together, As two yoke-devils sworn to either’s purpose, Working so grossly in a natural cause That admiration did not whoop at them; But thou, ‘gainst all proportion, didst bring in Wonder to wait on treason and on murder; And whatsoever cunning fiend it was That wrought upon thee so preposterously Hath got the voice in hell for excellence. 

Supposition all our lives shall be stuck full of eyes; For treason is but trusted like the fox, Who, ne’er so tame, so cherished and locked up, Will have a wild trick of his ancestors. 

Know my name is lost, By treason’s tooth bare-gnawn and canker-bit; Yet am I noble as the adversary I come to cope. 

Who has a book of all that monarchs do, He’s more secure to keep it shut than shown; For vice repeated is like the wand’ring wind, Blows dust in others’ eye, to spread itself; And yet the end of all is bought thus dear, The breath is gone, and the sore eyes see clear To stop the air would hurt them. 

And either victory, or else a grave. 

A fellow by the hand of nature mark’d, Quoted, and sign’d, to do a deed of shame. 

How sometimes nature will betray its folly, Its tenderness, and make itself a pastime To harder bosoms! 

All gold and silver rather turn to dirt, An ’tis no better reckoned but of these Who worship dirty gods. 

Two starving men cannot be twice as hungry as one; but two rascals can be ten times as vicious as one. 

Give me a bowl of wine. I have not that alacrity of spirit Nor cheer of mind that I was wont to have. 

Of all complexions the culled sovereignty Do meet, as at a fair, in her fair cheek, Where several worthies make one dignity, Where nothing wants that want itself doth seek. 

Should all despair That have revolted wives, the tenth of mankind Would hang themselves. 

Why, universal plodding poisons up The nimble spirits in the arteries, As motion and long-during action tires The sinewy vigor of the traveller. 

The private wound is deepest. O time most accurst, ‘Mongst all foes that a friend should be the worst! 

For the poor wren (The most diminutive of birds) will fight, Her young ones in her nest, against the owl. 

In winter’s tedious nights sit by the fire With good old folks, and let them tell thee tales Of woeful ages, long ago betid 

Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear. 

For I am nothing if not critical. 

A poor thing, perhaps, but my own. 

Thank me no thankings, nor proud me no prouds. 

Where art thou, Muse, that thou forget’st so long / To speak of that which gives thee all thy might? 

O gentle son, / Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper, sprinkle cool patience. 

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounce it to you, trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. 

Determine on some course more than a wild exposure to each chance. 

The truest poetry is the most feigning. 

The Foole doth thinke he is wise, but the wiseman knowes himselfe to be a Foole. 

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. 

Love to faults is always blind, always is to joy inclined. Lawless, winged, and unconfined, and breaks all chains from every mind. 

I can no longer live by thinking. 

Zounds! I was never so bethumped with words since I first called my brother’s father dad. 

Past and to come, seems best; things present, worse. 

Hamlet: Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring? Ophelia: ‘Tis brief, my lord. Hamlet: As woman’s love. 

Thieves for their robbery have authority When judges steal themselves. 

Throw physic to the dogs; I’ll none of it. 

‘Tis thought the king is dead; we will not stay. The bay trees in our country are all wither’d. 

There’s rosemary and rue. These keep Seeming and savor all the winter long. Grace and remembrance be to you. 

For so work the honey bees, creatures that by a rule in nature teach the act of order to a peopled kingdom. 

‘Tis pride that pulls the country down. 

One pain is lessened by another’s anguish. 

Pain pays the income of each precious thing. 

The good I stand on is my truth and honesty. 

Tis mad idolatry To make the service greater than the god. 

That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. In me thou seest the twilight of such day, As after sunset fadeth in the west, Which by-and-by black night doth take away… 

Twas never merry world Since lowly feigning was called compliment. 

What should we speak of When we are old as you? when we shall hear The rain and wind beat dark December? how, In this our pinching cave, shall we discourse The freezing hours away?… 

Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs; Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth…. [W]hat can we bequeath, Save our deposed bodies to the ground?… [N]othing can we call our own, but death… [L]et us sit upon the ground, And tell sad stories of the death of kings:- How some have been depos’d, some slain in war; Some haunted by the ghosts they have depos’d… 

For night’s swift dragons cut the clouds full fast, And yonder shines Aurora’s harbinger; At whose approach ghosts wandring here and there Troop home to church-yards…. For fear lest day should look their shames upon, They willfully exile themselves from light, And must for aye consort with black brow’d night. 

We may outrun By violent swiftness And lose by over-running. 

How quickly nature falls into revolt When gold becomes her object! For this the foolish over-careful fathers Have broke their sleep with thoughts, their brains with care, Their bones with industry. 

I had rather be a Kitten, and cry mew, Than one of these same Meeter Ballad-mongers: I had rather heare a Brazen Candlestick turn’d, Or a dry Wheele grate on the Axle-tree, And that would set my teeth nothing an edge, Nothing so much, as mincing Poetrie… 

And be these juggling friends no more believ’d, That palter with us in a double sense; That keep the word of promise to our ear And break it to our hope. 

Oh! that you could turn your eyes towards the napes of your necks, and make but an interior survey of your good selves. 

To show our simple skill, That is the true beginning of our end. 

Take all the swift advantage of the hours. 

We bring forth weeds when our quick minds lie still. 

Why, all delights are vain; but that most vain, Which, with pain purchas’d, doth inherit pain. 

When you fear a foe, fear crushes your strength; and this weakness gives strength to your opponents. 

What is the city but the people? 

Courage and comfort, all shall yet go well 

Never shame to hear what you have nobly done 

Speak of me as I am. Nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice. 

Manhood is melted into courtesies, valor into compliment, and men are only turned into tongue, and trim ones, too. 

Get thee glass eyes, and like a scurvy politician, seem to see the things thou dost not. 

The proverb is something musty. 

I have bought golden opinions from all sorts of people. 

Every why has a wherefore. 

Who is so firm that can’t be seduced? 

For I am full of spirit and resolve to meet all perils very constantly. 

O, what a world of vile ill-favored faults, looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year! 

Security is the chief enemy of mortals. 

It comes to pass oft that a terrible oath, with a swaggering accent sharply twanged off, gives manhood more approbation than ever proof itself would have earned him. 

A whoreson jackanapes must take me up for swearing; as if I borrowed mine oaths of him and might not spend them at my pleasure. When a gentleman is disposed to swear, it is not for any standers-by to curtail his oaths, ha? 

Give thy thoughts no tongue, nor any unproportioned thought his act. Be thou familiar but by no means vulgar. 

It is the purpose that makes strong the vow; But vows to every purpose must not hold. 

Tis not the many oaths that make the truth; But the plain single vow, that is vow’d true. 

…an old man is twice a child. 

Let the end try the man. 

Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition: By that sin fell the angels … 

Tis but a base, ignoble mind That mounts no higher than a bird can soar. 

Season your admiration for a while. 

The brain may devise laws for the blood, but a hot temper leaps o’er a cold decree. 

Have more than thou showest, Speak less than thou knowest, Lend less than thou owest … 

Man, proud man, Drest in a little brief authority, Most ignorant of what he’s most assured. 

For where is any author in the world Teaches such beauty as a woman’s eye? 

Yield not thy neck To fortunes yoke, but let thy dauntless mind Still ride in triumph over all mischance. 

Every why hath a wherefore. 

Corruption wins not more than honesty. 

Every subject’s duty is the Kings, but every subject’s soul is his own. 

Diseases desperate grown By desperate appliances are relieved, Or not at all. 

Trust not your daughter’s minds By what you see them act. 

The sense of death is most in apprehension, And the poor beetle, that we tread upon, In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great As when a giant dies. 

… And death unloads thee. 

This fell sergeant, Death, Is strict in his arrest. 

I hold it cowardice To rest mistrustful where a noble heart Hath pawned an open hand in sign of love. 

O father Abram, what these Christians are, Whose own hard dealing teaches them suspect The thoughts of others! 

By-and-by is easily said. 

The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo. 

Civil dissension is a viperous worm That gnaws the bowels of the commonwealth. 

Policy sits above conscience. 

… by indirections find directions out. 

Be cheerful; wipe thine eyes: Some falls are means the happier to arise 

A little fire is quickly trodden out, Which, being suffer’d, rivers cannot quench. 

New customs, Though they be never so ridiculous (Nay, let em be unmanly), yet are followed. 

How ill white hairs become a fool and jester! 

Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold. 

For naught so vile that on the earth doth live But to the earth some special good doth give … 

They that stand high have many blasts to shake them. 

The apprehension of the good Gives but the greater feeling to the worse. 

Grief best is pleased with grief’s society … 

Beware of entrance to a quarrel, but, being in, bear t that th’ opposed may beware of thee. 

For many men that stumble at the threshold are well foretold that danger lurks within. 

Nature her custom holds, Let shame say what it will. 

Tis ever common That men are merriest when they are from home. 

What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted! Thrice is he arm’d, that hath his quarrel just … 

Unbidden guests Are often welcomest when they are gone. 

To show an unfelt sorrow is an office Which the false man does easy. 

Rightly to be great Is not to stir without great argument, But greatly to find quarrel in a straw When honour’s at the stake. 

Honour travels in a strait so narrow Where one but goes abreast. 

Such tricks hath strong imagination, That, if it would but apprehend some joy, It comprehends some bringer of that joy; Or in the night, imagining some fear, How easy is a bush supposed a bear! 

Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend … 

… I am At war ‘twixt will and will not. 

And how his audit stands who knows, save Heaven? 

I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? 

There is no sure foundation set on blood, No certain life achieved by others’ death. 

Learning is but an adjunct to ourself, And where we are our learning likewise is. 

Liberty plucks justice by the nose; The baby beats the nurse, and quite athwart Goes all decorum. 

We must not make a scarecrow of the law, Setting it up to fear the birds of prey, And let it keep one shape till custom make it Their perch, and not their terror. 

Base men being in love have then a nobility in their natures more than is native to them. 

I may command where I adore. 

We cannot all be masters, nor all masters Cannot be truly followed. 

Nothing comes amiss, so money comes withal. 

Let none presume To wear an undeserved dignity. O that estates, degrees, and offices Were not derived corruptly, and that clear honour Were purchased by the merit of the wearer! 

Give to a gracious message An host of tongues, but let ill tidings tell Themselves when they be felt. 

What Time hath scanted men in hair, he hath given them in wit. 

The daintiest last, to make the end most sweet. 

What to ourselves in passion we propose, The passion ending, doth the purpose lose. 

An habitation giddy and unsure Hath he that buildeth on the vulgar heart. 

Prosperity’s the very bond of love, Whose fresh complexion and whose heart together Affliction alters. 

The eagle suffers little birds to sing. 

That in the captains but a choleric word Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy. 

Within the hollow crown That rounds the mortal temples of a king Keeps Death his court. 

Rumor is a pipe Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures. 

Rumour doth double, like the voice and echo, The numbers of the feared. 

Greatest scandal waits on greatest state. 

I do know of these That therefore only are reputed wise For saying nothing. 

Slander lives upon succession, For ever housed where it gets possession. 

It is great To do that thing that ends all other deeds, Which shackles accidents and bolts up change. 

Light boats sail swift, though greater hulks draw deep. 

Tis a happy thing To be the father unto many sons. 

Gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite The man that mocks at it and sets it light. 

How many things by season seasoned are To their right praise and true perfection! 

Though it be honest, it is never good to bring bad news. 

Play out the play … 

Tis time to fear when tyrants seem to kiss. 

A woman moved is like a fountain troubled, Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty. 

A woman is a dish for the gods, if the devil dress her not. 

O war! thou son of Hell! 

Crabbed age and youth cannot live together: Youth is full of pleasance, age is full of care. 

This was the noblest Roman of them all. All the conspirators, save only he,Did that they did in envy of Caesar;He only, in a general honest thoughtAnd common good to all, made one of them. His life was gentle, and the elementsSo mixd in him that Nature might stand upAnd say to all the world, This was a man! 

He does me double wrong That wounds me with the flatteries of his tongue. 

Why should honor outlive honestly? Orthello 

O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name; Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love… ‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy; What’s in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet… 

Or art thou but / A dagger of the mind, a false creation, / Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain? 

Love sees with the heart and not with mind. 

Love’s gentle spring doth always fresh remain. 

Mercy but murders, pardoning those that kill. 

O, let my books be then the eloquence and dumb presages of my speaking breast. 

I have full cause of weeping, but this heart shall break into a hundred thousand flaws or ere I’ll weep. 

That which ordinary men are fit for, I am qualified in. and the best of me is diligence. 

Sweets grown common lose their dear delight. 

Heaven – the treasury of everlasting life. 

Can we outrun the heavens? 

It is thyself, mine own self’s better part; Mine eye’s clear eye, my dear heart’s dearer heart; My food, my fortune, and my sweet hope’s aim, My sole earth’s heaven, and my heaven’s claim. 

Heaven take my soul, and England keep my bones! 

Like a man made after supper of a cheese-paring: when a’ was naked, he was, for all the world, like a forked radish, with a head fantastically carved upon it with a knife. 

Britain is A world by itself, and we will nothing pay For wearing our own noses. 

I am a great eater of beef, and I believe that does harm to my wit. 

Report me and my cause aright. 

The elephant hath joints, but none for courtesy; his legs are legs for necessity, not for flexure. 

What need the bridge much broader than the flood? 

O for a horse with wings! 

He doth nothing but talk of his horses. 

His neigh is like the bidding of a monarch, and his countenance enforces homage. He is indeed a horse… 

Look, what a horse should have he did not lack, Save a proud rider on his back. 

Well could he ride, and often men would say, “That horse his mettle from his rider takes: Proud of subjection, noble by the sway, What rounds, what bounds, what course, what stop he makes!” And controversy hence a question takes, Whether the horse by him became his deed, Or he his manage by the well-doing steed. 

…Vaulted with such ease into his seat, As if an angel dropp’d down from the clouds, To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus, And witch the world with noble horsemanship. 

The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow We are such stuff as dreams are made of. 

Present mirth hath present laughter. What’s to come is still unsure. 

How my achievements mock me! 

The bashful virgin’s sidelong looks of love, The matron’s glance that would those looks reprove. 

You are my true and honourable wife; As dear to me as the ruddy drops That visit my sad heart. 

O, what damned minutes tells he o’er Who dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet fondly loves! 

No …. holy father, throw away that thought. Believe not that the dribbling dart of love Can pierce a complete bosom. 

Thyself and thy belongings Are not thine own so proper, as to waste Thyself upon thy virtues, they on thee. Heaven doth with us as we with torches do, Not light them for themselves; for if our virtues Did not go forth of us ‘t were all alike As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touch’d But to fine issues; nor Nature never lends The smallest scruple of her excellence, But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines Herself the glory of a creditor – Both thanks and use. 

There’s neither honesty, manhood, nor good fellowship in thee. 

Now, neighbor confines, purge you of your scum! Have you a ruffian that will swear, drink, dance, revel the night, rob, murder, and commit the oldest sins the newest kind of ways? 

My language! heavens!I am the best of them that speak this speech. Were I but where ’tis spoken. 

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounc’d it to you, trippingly on the tongue. 

Ay, is it not a language I speak? 

There’s nothing situate under heaven’s eye But hath his bond in earth, in sea, in sky. The beasts, the fishes, and the winged fowls Are their males’ subjects and at their controls. Man, more divine, the master of all these, Lord of the wide world and wild wat’ry seas, Indu’d with intellectual sense and souls, Of more pre-eminence than fish and fowls, Are masters to their females, and their lords; Then let your will attend on their accords. 

Many can brook the weather that love not the wind. 

When love begins to sicken and decay it uses an enforced ceremony. 

To business that we love we rise betime, and go to’t with delight. 

For ’tis the sport to have the engineerHoist with his own petard… 

A gentleman that loves to hear himself talk, will speak more in a minute than he will stand to in a month. 

O world, world! thus is the poor agent despised. O traitors and bawds, how earnestly are you set a-work, and how ill requited! Why should our endeavor be so loved, and the performance so loathed? 

Some men there are love not a gaping pig, some that are mad if they behold a cat, and others when the bagpipe sings I the nose cannot contain their urine. 

I am bewitched with the rogue’s company. If the rascal have not given me medicines to make me love him, I’ll be hanged. 

I have been studying how I may compare This prison where I live unto the world; And, for because the world is populous, And here is not a creature but myself, I cannot do it. Yet I’ll hammer it out. 

Care I for the limb, the thews, the stature, bulk, and big assemblance of a man! Give me the spirit. 

When great leaves fall, the winter is at hand. 

Flout ’em, and scout ’em; and scout ’em, and flout ’em; / Thought is free. 

This is the very coinage of your brain: this bodiless creation ecstasy. 

I’ll speak in a monstrous little voice. 

Thou hast not half that power to do me harm As I have to be hurt. 

Good counselors lack no clients. 

Murder most foul, as in the best it it; But this most foul, strange, and unnatural. 

Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good; a shining gloss that fadeth suddenly; a flower that dies when it begins to bud; a doubtful good, a gloss, a glass, a flower, lost, faded, broken, dead within an hour. 

I durst not laugh for fear of opening my lips and receiving the bad air. 

I have no other but a woman’s reason: I think him so, because I think him so. 

One man in his time plays many parts. 

O, here Will I set up my everlasting rest And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars From the world-wearied flesh 

For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night. 

By medicine life may be prolonged, yet death will seize the doctor too. 

GLOUCESTER: Yet so much is my poverty of spirit, So mighty and so many my defects, As I had rather hide me from my greatness, Being a bark to brook no mighty sea, Than in my greatness covet to be hid, And in the vapour of my glory smother’d. But God be thanked. . . . 

There is nothing so confining as the prisons of our own perceptions. 

Macduff: What three things does drink especially provoke? Porter: Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine. 

First Witch He knows thy thought: Hear his speech, but say thou nought. 

But wherefore could not I pronounce ‘Amen’? I had most need of blessing, and ‘Amen’ Stuck in my throat. 

There is none of my uncle’s marks upon you; he taught me how to know a man in love; in which cage of rushes I am sure you are not prisoner. 

This is his uncle’s teaching, this Worcester, Malevolent to you In all aspects, Which makes him prune himself and bristle up The crest of youth against your dignity. 

O powerful love, that in some respects makes a beast a man, in some other, a man a beast. 

Behold the threaden sails, Borne with the invisible and creeping wind, Draw the huge bottoms through the furrow’d sea, Breasting the lofty surge 

I am not mad; I would to heaven I were! For then, ’tis like I should forget myself; O, if I could, what grief should I forget! 

I am a true laborer: I earn that I eat, get that I wear, owe no man hate, envy no man’s happiness, glad of other men’s good, content with my harm. 

Such men as he be never at heart’s ease Whiles they behold a greater than themselves, And therefore are they very dangerous. 

Forever, and forever, farewell, Cassius! If we do meet again, why, we shall smile; If not, why then this parting was well made. 

We waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day. 

I cannot do it without comp[u]ters. 

I am ill at these numbers. 

Let never day nor night unhallowed pass, but still remember what the Lord hath done. 

It is the bright day that brings forth the adder, and that craves wary walking. 

Full many a glorious morn I have seen Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye, Kissing with golden face the meadows green, Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy… 

For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright, who art as black as hell, as dark as night. 

These earthly godfathers of Heaven’s lights, that give a name to every fixed star, have no more profit of their shining nights than those that walk and know not what they are. 

For he was likely, had he been put on, to have proved most royally. 

O how wretched is that poor man that hangs on princes favors! There is betwixt that smile we would aspire to, that sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin, more pangs and fears than wars or women have, and when he falls, he falls like Lucifer, never to hope again. 

It is the very error of the moon; She comes more nearer earth than she was wont, And makes men mad. 

Here will be an old abusing of God’s patience and the king’s English. 

Let’s meet as little as we can 

I knew when seven justices could not take up a quarrel, but when the parties were met themselves, one of them thought but of an If, as, ‘If you said so, then I said so;’ and they shook hands and swore brothers. Your If is the only peacemaker; much virtue in If. 

Then imitate the action of the tiger; stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood. 

Sweetest nut hath sourest rind. 

Everyone I meet is in some way my superior. 

A pair of star-crossed lovers. 

Waste not thy time in windy argument but let the matter drop. 

The icy precepts of respect. 

The nature of bad news affects the teller. 

There’s villainous news abroad. 

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date . . . 

Did he so often lodge in open field, In winter’s cold and summer’s parching heat, To conquer France, his true inheritance? 

These are the forgeries of jealousy; And never, since the middle summer’s spring, Met we on hill, in dale, forest, or mead, By paved fountain or by rushy brook, Or in the beached margent of the sea, To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind, But with thy brawls thou hast disturbed our sport. 

She’s gone. I am abused, and my relief must be to loathe her. 

If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well. It were done quickly. 

But yet I’ll make assurance double sure, and take a bond of fate: thou shalt not live. 

Our wills and fates do so contrary run, That our devices still are overthrown; Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own. 

Love bears it out even to the edge of doom. 

You are not worth another word, else I’d call you knave. 

He is deformed, crooked, old and sere, Ill-faced, worse bodied, shapeless everywhere; Vicious, ungentle, foolish, blunt, unkind; Stigmatical in making, worse in mind. 

Thou whoreson, senseless villain! 

Dissembling harlot, thou art false in all! 

You abilities are too infant-like for doing much alone. 

You wear out a good wholesome forenoon in hearing a cause between an orange wife and a fosset-seller. 

For such things as you, I can scarce think there’s any, ye’re so slight. 

There is no more mercy in him than there is milk in a male tiger. 

Away! Thou’rt poison to my blood. 

You had measured how long a fool you were upon the ground. 

They have a plentiful lack of wit. 

Take you me for a sponge? 

Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damned Dane, Drink off this potion! 

Thou hast the most unsavoury similes. 

This sanguine coward, this bed-presser, this horseback-breaker, this huge hill of flesh! 

‘Sblood, you starveling, you elf-skin, you dried neat’s tongue, you bull’s pizzle, you stock-fish! O for breath to utter what is like thee! you tailor’s-yard, you sheath, you bowcase; you vile standing-tuck! 

There’s no more faith in thee than in a stewed prune. 

Hang him, swaggering rascal! 

I scorn you, scurvy companion. 

Away, you mouldy rogue, away! 

Away, you cut-purse rascal! you filthy bung, away! By this wine, I’ll thrust my knife in your mouldy chaps, an you play the saucy cuttle with me. Away, you bottle-ale rascal! you basket-hilt stale juggler, you! 

O braggart vile and damned furious wight! 

Avaunt, you cullions! 

Such antics do not amount to a man. 

He is white-livered and red-faced. 

They were devils incarnate. 

They are hare-brain’d slaves. 

Take her away; for she hath lived too long, To fill the world with vicious qualities. 

I had rather chop this hand off at a blow, And with the other fling it at thy face. 

Teeth hadst thou in thy head when thou wast born, To signify thou camest to bite the world. 

I can see his pride Peep through each part of him. 

No man’s pie is freed From his ambitious finger. 

You are strangely troublesome. 

Thou whoreson zed! thou unnecessary letter! 

O you beast! I’ll so maul you and your toasting-iron, That you shall think the devil is come from hell. 

You are a tedious fool. 

O faithless coward! O dishonest wretch! Wilt thou be made a man out of my vice? 

Some report a sea-maid spawn’d him; some that he was begot between two stock-fishes. But it is certain that when he makes water his urine is congealed ice. 

A very scurvy fellow. 

Thou art a Castilian King urinal! 

Vile worm, thou wast o’erlook’d even in thy birth. 

I wonder that you will still be talking. Nobody marks you. 

My cousin’s a fool, and thou art another. 

Men from children nothing differ. 

Heaven truly knows that thou art false as hell. 

Thy food is such As hath been belch’d on by infected lungs. 

Thou lump of foul deformity! 

Thou unfit for any place but hell. 

A knot you are of damned bloodsuckers. 

You peasant swain! You whoreson malt-horse drudge! 

I shall laugh myself to death at this puppy-headed monster! 

Why, thou deboshed fish thou…Wilt thou tell a monstrous lie, being but half a fish and half a monster? 

Why, this hath not a finger’s dignity. 

I think thy horse will sooner con an oration than thou learn a prayer without book. 

Thou sodden-witted lord! thou hast no more brain than I have in mine elbows. 

A fusty nut with no kernel. 

Go hang yourself, you naughty mocking uncle! 

The setting sun, and the music at the close, As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last, Writ in rememberance more than long things past. 

You cannot make gross sins look clear: To revenge is no valour, but to bear. 

If I can catch him once upon the hip, I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him. 

If it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge. 

And where the offense is, let the great axe fall. 

‘Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed 

A king of infinite space 

Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile 

Sweet are the uses of adversity 

The man that hath no music in himself 

The patient must minister to himself 

There is a tide in the affairs of men 

There was never yet philosopher that could endure the toothache patiently 

What a piece of work is a man 

Tis a cruelty to load a fallen man. 

Music can minister to minds diseased, pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, raze out the written troubles of the brain, and with its sweet oblivious antidote, cleanse the full bosom of all perilous stuff that weighs upon the heart. 

There’s not the smallest orb which thou behold’st But in his motion like an angel sings. 

Their savage eyes turned to a modest gaze by the sweet power of music. 

He that is robbed, not wanting what is stolen, him not know t, and he’s not robbed at all. 

Oh God! that one might read the book of fate, And see the revolution of the times Make mountains level, and the continent, Weary of solid firmness, melt itself Into the sea. 

And teach me how To name the bigger light, and how the less, That burn by day and night … 

Graze on my lips; and if those hills be dry, stray lower, where the pleasant fountains lie. 

A flock of blessings light upon thy back 

Tis now the very witching time of night, when churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out Contagion to this world. 

Eye of newt, and toe of frog, Wool of bat, and tongue of dog, Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting, Lizard’s leg, and owlet’s wing, For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth boil and bubble. 

Be wary then; best safety lies in fear. 

Get thee a good husband, and use him as he uses thee. 

If men could be contented to be what they are, there were no fear in marriage. 

The fittest time to corrupt a man’s wife is when she’s fallen out with her husband. 

With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage. 

The instances that second marriage move Are base respects of thrift, but none of love. 

Marriage is a matter of more worth Than to be dealt in by attorneyship. 

For what is wedlock forced but a hell, An age of discord and continual strife? Whereas the contrary bringeth bliss, And is a pattern of celestial peace. 

Hasty marriage seldom proveth well. 

Hanging and wiving goes by destiny. 

In love the heavens themselves do guide the state; Money buys lands, and wives are sold by fate. 

Thou art sad; get thee a wife, get thee a wife! 

The curse of marriage That we can call these delicate creatures ours And not their appetites! 

I have thrust myself into this maze, Haply to wive and thrive as best I may. 

Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper, Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee, And for thy maintenance commits his body To painful labour both by sea and land, To watch the night in storms, the day in cold, Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe; And craves no other tribute at thy hands But love, fair looks and true obedience; Too little payment for so great a debt. 

This is a way to kill a wife with kindness. 

I will be master of what is mine own: She is my goods, my chattels; she is my house, My household stuff, my field, my barn, My horse, my ox, my ass, my any thing. 

Fools are as like husbands as pilchards are to herrings, the husband’s the bigger. 

I care not, a man can die but once; we owe God and death. 

The weariest and most loathed worldly life, that age, ache, penury and imprisonment can lay on nature is a paradise, to what we fear of death. 

Fear no more the heat o’ th’ sun Nor the furious winters’ rages; Thou thy worldly task hast done, Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages. Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney-sweepers, come to dust. 

Come my spade. There is no ancient gentlemen but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers; they hold up Adam’s profession. 

A merry heart goes all the way, – A sad one tires inan hour. 

Here’s that which is too weak to be a sinner, honest water, which ne’er left man i’ the mire. 

Come, Let’s have one other gaudy night. Call to me All my sad captains. Fill our bowls once more. Let’s mock the midnight bell. 

Is there no respect of place, persons, nor time in you? 

Love comforteth like sunshine after rain. Doubt thou the stars are fire; doubt that the sun doth move; doubt truth to be a liar; but never doubt I love you. I love thee, I love but thee with a love that shall not die. Till the sun grows cold and the stars grow old. 

The hind that would be mated by the lion Must die for love. 

Let’s go hand in hand, not one before another. 

The pleasing punishment that women bear. 

Let us be Diana’s foresters, gentlemen of the shade, minions of the moon 

Away, you trifler! Love! I love thee not, I care not for thee, Kate: this is no world To play with mammets and to tilt with lips: We must have bloody noses and cracked crowns. 

Thy tongue Makes Welsh as sweet as ditties highly penn’d, Sung by a fair queen in a summer’s bower, With ravishing division, to her lute. 

Swear me, Kate, like a lady as thou art, A good mouth-filling oath. 

Love for thy love , and hand for hand I give. 

A breath thou art, Servile to all the skyey influences. 

See where she comes apparelled like the spring. 

Was ever woman in this humour wooed? Was ever woman in this humour won? 

Grim-visaged war hath smoothed his wrinkled front; And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds To fright the souls of fearful adversaries, He capers nimbly in a lady’s chamber To the lascivious pleasing of a lute. 

But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks, Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass; I, that am rudely stamped, and want love’s majesty To strut before a wanton ambling nymph; 

Now, by the world, it is a lusty wench; I love her ten times more than e’er I did: O, how I long to have some chat with her! 

I am giddy, expectation whirls me round. The imaginary relish is so sweet That it enchants my sense. 

Fie, fie upon her! There’s language in her eye, her cheek, her lip, Nay, her foot speaks; her wanton spirits look out At every joint and motive of her body. 

Lechery, lechery; still, wars and lechery: nothing else holds fashion. 

Is she not passing fair? 

O heaven! were man, But constant, he were perfect. 

While we lie tumbling in the hay. 

I love a ballad in print o’ life, for then we are sure they are true. 

Conceit in weakest bodies works the strongest. 

Conceit, more rich in matter than in words, brags of his substance: they are but beggars who can count their worth. 

Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought. 

Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off … Do not for ever with thy vailed lids Seek for thy noble father in the dust. 

If by chance I talk a little wild, forgive me; I had it from my father. 

The Dear father Would with his daughter speak, commands her service; Are they inform’d of this? 

To you your father should be as a god. 

You have her father’s love, Demetrius; Let me have Hermia’s: do you marry him! 

O, that our fathers would applause our loves, To seal our happiness with hteir consents! 

As a decrepit father takes delight To see his active child do deeds of youth, So I, made lame by fortune’s dearest spite, Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth. 

Give them great meals of beef and iron and steel, they will eat like wolves and fight like devils. 

For I can raise no money by vile means. By heaven, I had rather coin my heart, And drop my blood for drachmas 

He that commends me to mine own content Commends me to the thing I cannot get. 

The trust I have is in mine innocence, and therefore am I bold and resolute. 

I thank God I am as honest as any man living that is an old man and no honester than I. 

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale Her infinite variety. 

I will be correspondent to command, And do my spiriting gently. 

I am wealthy in my friends. 

A kind Of excellent dumb discourse. 

I will make a Star-chamber matter of it. 

Although the last, not least. 

From this day forward until the end of the world…we in it shall be remembered…we band of brothers. 

Courage mounteth with occasion. 

I would fain die a dry death. 

Small to greater matters must give way. 

For Brutus is an honourable man; So are they all, all honourable men. 

He hath eaten me out of house and home. 

What seest thou else In the dark backward and abysm of time? 

The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept. 

Thou art all the comfort, The Gods will diet me with. 

How use doth breed a habit in a man. 

Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible To feeling as to sight? or art thou but A dagger of the mind, a false creation, Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain? 

How many ages hence Shall this our lofty scene be acted over In states unborn and accents yet unknown! 

Thou shalt be both the plaintiff and the judge of thine own cause. 

I cannot tell what the dickens his name is. 

Be great in act, as you have been in thought. 

Their understanding Begins to swell and the approaching tide Will shortly fill the reasonable shores That now lie foul and muddy. 

For they are yet ear-kissing arguments. 

I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God has given you one face, and you make yourselves another. 

Fill all thy bones with aches. 

Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground. 

I pray thee cease thy counsel, Which falls into mine ears as profitless as water in a sieve. 

I, thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated To closeness and the bettering of my mind. 

The hand that hath made you fair hath made you good. Pity is the virtue of the law, and none but tyrants use it cruelly. 

If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction. 

A hit, a very palpable hit. 

I shall despair. There is no creature loves me; And if I die no soul will pity me: And wherefore should they, since that I myself Find in myself no pity to myself? 

When he is best, he is a little worse than a man; and when he is worst, he is little better than a beast. 

See first that the design is wise and just: that ascertained, pursue it resolutely; do not for one repulse forego the purpose that you resolved to effect. 

When griping grief the heart doth wound, and doleful dumps the mind opresses, then music, with her silver sound, with speedy help doth lend redress. 

The gaudy, blabbing, and remorseful day Is crept into the bosom of the sea. 

Oh, that way madness lies; let me shun that. 

Some men never seem to grow old. Always active in thought, always ready to adopt new ideas, they are never chargeable with foggyism. Satisfied, yet ever dissatisfied, settled, yet ever unsettled, they always enjoy the best of what is, are the first to find the best of what will be. 

Each present joy or sorrow seems the chief. 

I have not slept one wink. 

But no perfection is so absolute, That some impurity doth not pollute. 

I wish you well and so I take my leave, I Pray you know me when we meet again. 

Speak to me as to thy thinkings, As thou dost ruminate, and give thy worst of thoughts The worst of words. 

We have some salt of our youth in us. 

He that dies pays all debts. 

My salad days, When I was green in judgment. 

So may he rest, his faults lie gently on him! 

Come not within the measure of my wrath. 

Like one Who having into truth, by telling of it, Made such a sinner of his memory, To credit his own lie. 

While thou livest keep a good tongue in thy head. 

Thou art the Mars of malcontents. 

Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments: love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds. 

Thy words, I grant are bigger, for I wear not, my dagger in my mouth. 

Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits. 

Your hearts are mighty, your skins are whole. 

I do begin to have bloody thoughts. 

This England never did, nor never shall, Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror. 

The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices Make instruments to plague us. 

It is meant that noble minds keep ever with their likes; for who so firm that cannot be seduced. 

What the great ones do, the less will prattle of 

My meaning in saying he is a good man, is to have you understand me that he is sufficient. 

Though inclination be as sharp as will, My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent, And, like a man to double business bound, I stand in pause where I shall first begin, And both neglect. 

Merrily, merrily shall I live now, Under the blossom that hangs on the bough. 

The peace of heaven is theirs that lift their swords, in such a just and charitable war. 

If there be no great love in the beginning, yet heaven may decrease it upon better acquaintance, when we are married and have more occasion to know one another: I hope, upon familiarity will grow more contempt. 

It is a familiar beast to man, and signifies love. 

Those that are good manners at the court are as ridiculous in the country, as the behavior of the country is most mockable at the court. 

We do not keep the outward form of order, where there is deep disorder in the mind. 

A very ancient and fish-like smell. 

Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing. 

Cursed be he that moves my bones. 

This is the short and the long of it. 

He wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat. 

Your face is a book, where men may read strange matters. 

I pray you bear me henceforth from the noise and rumour of the field, where I may think the remnant of my thoughts in peace, and part of this body and my soul with contemplation and devout desires. 

My grief lies all within, And these external manners of lament Are merely shadows to the unseen grief That swells with silence in the tortured soul. 

These signs have marked me extraordinary, And all the courses of my life do show I am not in the roll of common men. 

These blessed candles of the night. 

I’ll teach you differences. 

I am falser than vows made in wine. 

Good wine needs no bush. 

A cup of hot wine with not a drop of allaying Tiber in ‘t. 

A man cannot make him laugh; but that’s no marvel; he drinks no wine…. If I had a thousand sons, the first human principle I would teach them should be, to forswear thin potations and to addict themselves to sack. 

With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come. And let my liver rather heat with wine, than my heart cool with mortifying groans. 

Thou art thy mother’s glass, and she in thee Calls back the lovely April of her prime. 

Commit the oldest sins the newest kind of ways. 

A light wife doth make a heavy husband. 

This tyrant, whose sole name blisters our tongues,Was once thought honest. 

Tis the mind that makes the body rich. 

Words to deeds cold breath gives. 

This senior-junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid; Regent of love-rhymes, lord of folded arms, The anointed sovereign of sighs and groans, Liege of all loiterers and malcontents. 

You see me here, you gods, a poor old man, As full of grief as age; wretched in both. 

Orpheus with his lute made trees, And the mountain tops that freeze, Bow themselves, when he did sing; To his music, plants and flowers Ever sprung; as sun and showers There had made a lasting spring. Every thing that heard him play, Even the billows of the sea, Hung their heads, and then lay by. In sweet music is such art, Killing care and grief of heart Fall asleep, or hearing, die. 

Aand in the end, Having my freedom, boast of nothing else But that I was a journeyman to grief? 

Patch grief with proverbs. 

Sorrow breaks seasons and reposing hours, Makes the night morning, and the noontide night. 

No, no; ’tis all men’s office to speak patience To those that wring under the load of sorrow, But no man’s virtue nor sufficiency To be so moral when he shall endure The like himself. Therefore give me no counsel: My griefs cry louder than advertisement. 

There are many events in the womb of time which will be delivered. 

Ay, but to die and go we know not where; To lie in cold obstrution and to rot; This sensible warm motion to become A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit To bathe in fiery floods or to reside In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice; To be imprison’d in the viewless winds, And blown with restless violence round about The pendant world. 

O comfort-killing night, image of hell, Dim register and notary of shame, Black stage for tragedies and murders fell, Vast sin-concealing chaos, nurse of blame! 

Beauty’s a doubtful good, a glass, a flower, Lost, faded, broken, dead within an hour; And beauty, blemish’d once, for ever’s lost, In spite of physic, painting, pain, and cost. 

Cry “havoc!” and let loose the dogs of war, That this foul deed shall smell above the earth With carrion men, groaning for burial. 

Tis our fast intent To shake all cares and business from our age, Conferring them on younger strengths, while we Unburdened crawl toward death. 

When holy and devout religious men are at their beads, ’tis hard to draw them thence; so sweet is zealous contemplation. 

Who knows himself a braggart, Let him fear this; for it will come to pass That every braggart will be found an ass. 

The labor we delight in physics [cures] pain. 

If fortune torments me, hope contents me. 

Care is no cure, but rather corrosive, For things that are not to be remedied. 

When daisies pied and violets blue And lady-smocks all silver-white And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue Do paint the meadows with delight, The cuckoo then, on every tree, Mocks married men; for thus sings he, Cuckoo; Cuckoo, cuckoo; O, word of fear, Unpleasing to a married ear. 

ROSS You must have patience, madam. LADY MACDUFF He had none: His flight was madness: when our actions do not, Our fears do make us traitors. 

. . . yet do I fear thy nature; It is too full o’ the milk of human kindness To catch the nearest way: thou wouldst be great; Art not without ambition, but without The illness should attend it: what thou wouldst highly, That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false, And yet wouldst wrongly win: 

Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade To shepherds, looking on their silly sheep, Than doth a rich embroider’d canopy To kings that fear their subjects treachery? 

The fear’s as bad as falling. 

That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once: how the knave jowls it to the ground, as if it were Cain’s jaw-bone, that did the first murder! It might be the pate of a politician, which this ass now o’er-reaches; one that would circumvent God, might it not? 

So our virtues lie in the interpretation of the time 

Memory, the warder of the brain. 

We are not the first Who with best meaning have incurred the worst 

You are not worth the dust which the rude wind Blows in your face. 

For I am proverbed with a grandsire phrase… 

This fellow pecks up wit, as pigeons peas; And utters it again when God doth please: He is wit’s pedler; and retails his wares… 

He was ever precise in promise-keeping. 

Being of no power to make his wishes good: His promises fly so beyond his state That what he speaks is all in debt; he owes For every word. 

Let witchcraft join with beauty, lust with both! 

I prithee gentle friend, Let thy fair wisdom, not thy passions, sway In this uncivil and unjust extent Against thy peace. 

In brief, sir, study what you most affect. 

Instead of weeping when a tragedy occurs in a songbird’s life, it sings away its grief. I believe we could well follow the pattern of our feathered friends. 

Come, and take choice of all my library, And so beguile thy sorrow. 

I love him for his sake; And yet I know him a notorious liar, Think him a great way fool, solely a coward; Yet these fix’d evils sit so fit in him That they take place when virtue’s steely bones Looks bleak i’ th’ cold wind; withal, full oft we see Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly. 

Though age from folly could not give me freedom, It does from childishness. 

The amity that wisdom knits not, folly may easily untie. 

But I remember now I am in this earthly world, where to do harm Is often laudable, to do good sometime Accounted dangerous folly. 

The why is plain as way to parish church: He that a fool doth very wisely hit Doth very foolishly, although he smart, Not to seem senseless of the bob; if not, The wise man’s folly is anatomiz’d Even by the squand’ring glances of the fool. 

The common curse of mankind, folly and ignorance, be thine in great revenue! 

This man, lady, hath robb’d many beasts of their particular additions: he is as valiant as a lion, churlish as the bear, slow as the elephant-a man into whom nature hath so crowded humours that his valour is crush’d into folly, his folly sauced with discretion. 

To be in love- where scorn is bought with groans, Coy looks with heart-sore sighs, one fading moment’s mirth With twenty watchful, weary, tedious nights; If haply won, perhaps a hapless gain; If lost, why then a grievous labour won; However, but a folly bought with wit, Or else a wit by folly vanquished. 

She marking them begins a wailing note And sings extemporally a woeful ditty How love makes young men thrall and old men dote How love is wise in folly, foolish-witty Her heavy anthem still concludes in woe, And still the choir of echoes answer so. 

Some sins do bear their privilege on earth, And so doth yours: your fault was not your folly; Needs must you lay your heart at his dispose, Subjected tribute to commanding love, Against whose fury and unmatched force The aweless lion could not wage the fight Nor keep his princely heart from Richard’s hand. 

We that are true lovers run into strange capers; but as all is mortal in nature, so is all nature in love mortal in folly. 

Blow, blow, thou winter wind, Thou art not so unkind As mans ingratitude Thy tooth is not so keen, Because thou art not seen, Although thy breath be rude. Heigh-ho sing, heigh-ho unto the green holly Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly. Then heigh-ho the holly This life is most jolly. Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, That dost not bite so nigh As benefits forgot Though thou the waters warp, Thy sting is not so sharp As friend rememberd not. 

And writers say, as the most forward bud Is eaten by the canker ere it blow, Even so by love the young and tender wit Is turn’d to folly, blasting in the bud, Losing his verdure even in the prime, And all the fair effects of future hopes. 

Strikes deeper, grows with more pernicious root. 

Let me tell you, Cassius, you yourself are much condemned to have an itching palm. 

O that my tongue were in the thunder’s mouth! Then with passion would I shake the world… 

He uses his folly like a stalking-horse, and under the presentation of that he shoots his wit. 

What’s brave, what’s noble, let’s do it after the Roman fashion. 

Live in thy shame, but die not shame with thee! 

Have patience, and endure 

And oft, my jealousy shapes faults that are not. 

The venom clamours of a jealous woman poison more deadly than a mad dog’s tooth. 

If I shall be condemned Upon surmises, all proofs sleeping else But what your jealousies awake, I tell you ‘Tis rigor and not law. 

But jealous souls will not be answered so, They are not ever jealous for the cause, But jealous for they’re jealous. ‘Tis a monster Begot upon itself, born on itself. 

I do beseech you- Though I perchance am vicious in my guess , that your wisdom yet From one that so imperfectly conjects Would take no notice, nor build yourself a trouble Out of his scattering and unsure observance. 

Who is it can read a woman? 

There’s no better sign of a brave mind than a hard hand. 

. . . from this moment The very firstlings of my heart shall be The firstlings of my hand. And even now, To crown my thoughts with acts, be it thought and done: 

I thought my heart had been wounded with the claws of a lion. 

A heavy heart bears not a nimble tongue. 

O tiger’s heart wrapped in a woman’s hide! 

He’s truly valiant that can wisely suffer The worst that man can breathe, and make his wrongs His outsides, to wear them like his raiment, carelessly, And ne’er prefer his injuries to his heart, To bring it into danger. 

My heart is turned to stone; I strike it, and it hurts my hand. 

Well, I’ll repent, and that suddenly, while I am in some liking; I shall be out of heart shortly, and then I shall have no strength to repent. 

It warms the very sickness in my heart, That I shall live and tell him to his teeth, “Thus diddest thou;” 

He hath a heart as sound as a bell, and his tongue is the clapper; for what his heart thinks his tongue speaks. 

Two lovely berries molded on one stem: So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart. 

Take heed, dear heart, of this large privilege; The hardest knife ill-used doth lose his edge. 

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,Creeps in this petty pace from day to day 

Wise men never sit and wail their loss, but cheerily seek how to redress their harms. 

What’s done is done. The joy is in the doing. 

Love that well which thou must leave ere long. 

O horror! Horror! Horror! Tongue nor heart Cannot conceive nor name thee! 

It is as easy to count atomies as to resolve the propositions of a lover. 

That affable familiar ghost Which nightly gulls him with intelligence. 

Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud; Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun, And loathsome canker lies in sweetest bud. All men make faults. 

Dirty days hath September April June and November From January up to May The rain it raineth every day All the rest have thirty-one Without a blessed gleam of sun And if any of them had two-and-thirty They’d be just as wet and twice as dirty.” “April hath put a spirit of youth in everything. 

Do not be like the cat who wanted a fish but was afraid to get his paws wet. 

The king hath note of all that they intend, by interception which they dream not of. 

He that filches from me my good name robs me of that which enriches him and makes me poor indeed. 

Be to yourself as you would to your friend. 

The weakest kind of fruit drops earliest to the ground. 

Let me be ignorant, and in nothing good, but graciously to know I am no better. 

Bid the dishonest man mend himself; if he mend, he is no longer dishonest. 

The play’s the thing. 

When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept: Ambition should be made of sterner stuff: Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; And Brutus is an honourable man. 

To die: – to sleep: No more; and, by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished. 

God grant us patience! 

The cunning livery of hell. 

I am a Jew: Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with die same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? 

Thrice is he arm’d that hath his quarrel just, And he but naked, though lock’d up in steel, Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted. 

Yet do I fear thy nature; It is too full o’ the milk of human kindness. 

Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow. 

To hold, as ‘t were, the mirror up to nature. 

Making night hideous. 

I’ll take thy word for faith, not ask thine oath; Who shuns not to break one will sure crack both. 

The insolence of office. 

The clock upbraids me with the waste of time. 

Time is the king of men. 

Now I am past all comforts here, but prayer. 

Et tu Brute! (You too, Brutus!) 

To take arms against a sea of troubles. 

Adversity makes strange bedfellows. 

The leopard does not change his spots. 

This passion, and the death of a dear friend, would go near to make a man look sad. 

No reckoning made, but sent to my account with all my imperfections on my head. 

New friends may be poems but old friends are alphabets. Don’t forget the alphabets because you will need them to read the poems. 

Sometimes, less is more. 

Nor aught so good but strained from that fair use, Revolts from true birth stumbling on abuse. 

The bitter clamor of two eager tongues. 

Tis often seen Adoption strives with nature; and choice breeds A native slip to us from foreign lands. 

Wait for the season when to cast good counsels upon subsiding passion. 

Direct not him whose way himself will choose; ‘Tis breath not lack’st, and that breath wilt thou lose. 

Affection, mistress of passion, sways it to the mood of what it likes or loathes. 

Nature, as it grows again toward earth, is fashioned for the journey, dull and heavy. 

Nor age so eat up my invention. 

O sir, you are old; nature in you stands on the very verge of her confine; you should be ruled and led by some discretion, that discerns your fate better than you yourself. 

Some smack of age in you, some relish of the saltness of time. 

Your date is better in your pie and your porridge than in your cheek. 

Pray, do not mock me. I am a very foolish fond old man, Fourscore and upward, not an hour more nor less; And, to deal plainly, I fear I am not in my perfect mind. 

Time hath not yet so dried this blood of mine, Nor age so eat up my invention, Nor fortune made such havoc of my means, Nor my bad life reft me so much of friends, But they shall find awaked in such a kind Both strength of limb and policy of mind, Ability in means, and choice of friends, To quit me of them throughly. 

Though now this grained face of mine be hid In sap-consuming winter’s drizzled snow, And all the conduits of my blood froze up, Yet hath my night of life some memory, My wasting lamps some fading glimmer left, My dull deaf ears a little use to hear. 

Give me a staff of honor for mine age, But not a sceptre to control the world. 

Pastime passing excellent, if it he husbanded with modesty. 

There is no such sport as sport by sport o’erthrown. 

Have you not love enough to bear with me, when that rash humor which my mother gave me makes me forgetful. 

Scarce can I speak, my choler is so great. Oh! I could hew up rocks, and fight with flint. 

To be in anger is impiety, but who is man that is not angry? 

You are yoked with a lamb, That carries anger as the flint bears fire; Who, much enforced, shows a hasty spank, And straight is cold again. 

Anger’s my meat. I sup upon myself, And so shall starve with feeding. 

If it be you that stirs these daughters’ hearts Against their father, fool me not so much To bear it tamely; touch me with noble anger, And let not women’s weapons, water drops, Stain my man’s cheeks. 

Anger is like A full hot horse, who being allowed his way, Self-mettle tires him. 

Bait the hook well. This fish will bite. 

He receives comfort like cold porridge. 

Here is a rural fellow that will not be denied your Highness’ presence: he brings you figs. 

Mine eyes smell onions: I shall weep anon. 

The last taste of sweets is sweetest last. 

By the apostle Paul, shadows tonight Have struck more terror to the soul of Richard Than can the substance of ten thousand soldiers. 

GLOUCESTER: I do not know that Englishman alive With whom my soul is any jot at odds, More than the infant that is born to-night: I thank my God for my humility. 

Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound Upon a wheel of fire; that mine own tears Do scald like molten lead. 

Well, God’s above all; and there be souls must be saved, and there be souls must not be saved. 

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank! Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music Creep in our ears; soft stillness and the night Become the touches of sweet harmony. Sit, Jessica: look, how the floor of heaven Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold; There’s not the smallest orb which thou behold’st But in his motion like an angel sings, Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins. Such harmony is in immortal souls; But whilst this muddy vesture of decay Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it. 

You told a lie, an odious damned lie; Upon my soul, a lie, a wicked lie. 

Delivers in such apt and gracious words that aged ears play truant at his tales; And younger hearings are quite ravished; So sweet and voluble is his discourse. 

Romans, countrymen, and lovers, hear me for my cause, and be silent, that you may hear. 

And in some perfumes there is more delight than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak, yet well I know that music hath a far more pleasing sound. 

A jest’s prosperity lies in the ear Of him that hears it, never in the tongue Of him that makes it. 

To lapse in fulness Is sorer than to lie for need, and falsehood Is worse in kings than beggars. 

The horn, the horn, the lusty horn Is not a thing to laugh to scorn. 

Help, master, help! here’s a fish hangs in the net, like a poor man’s right in the law; ’twill hardly come out. 

I praise God for you, sir: your reasons at dinner have been sharp and sententious; pleasant without scurrility, witty without affectation, audacious without impudency, learned without opinion, and strange with-out heresy. 

When I have plucked the rose, I cannot give it vital growth again, It needs must wither. I’ll smell it on the tree. 

Dissembling courtesy! How fine this tyrant can trickle when she wounds! 

If thou art rich, thou art poor; for, like an ass, whose back with ingots bows, thou bearest thy heavy riches but a journey, and death unloads thee. 

My purpose is, indeed, a horse of that color. 

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you-trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and as I may say, the whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. 

Then to Silvia let us sing that Silvia is excelling. She excels each mortal thing upon the dull earth dwelling. 

When workmen strive to do better than well, they do confound their skill in covetousness. 

A golden mind stoops not to shows of dross. 

I have a bone to pick with Fate 

How now, wit! Whither wander you? 

Report of fashions in proud Italy Whose manners still our tardy-apish nation Limps after in base imitation 

A very honest woman but something given to lie 

Honesty is not the best policy – merely the safest 

And makes me poor indeed. 

Evermore thanks, the exchequer of the poor 

Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks 

To saucy doubts and fears. 

Never, never, never, never, never! Pray you, undo this button. 

Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself And falls on the other side 

The gallantry of his grief did put me into a towering passion. 

Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought, And with a green and yellow melancholy She sat like patience on a monument, Smiling at grief 

Thou mak’st me merry: I am full of pleasure; let us be jocund 

Go, write it in a martial hand; be curst and brief; it is no matter how witty, so it be eloquent and fun of invention: taunt him with the licence of ink: if thou thou’st him some thrice, it shall not be amiss; and as many lies as will lie in thy shee. 

O, she misused me past the endurance of a block. 

Falsehood falsehood cures 

Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own 

Literature is a comprehensive essence of the intellectual life of a nation. 

They have been grand-jurymen since before Noah was a sailor 

Every fair from fair sometime declines 

Maybe love won’t let you down. All of your failures are training grounds and just as your back’s turned you’ll be surprised…as your solitude subsides . 

Die for adultery! No: The wren goes to’t, and the small gilded fly does lecher in my sight 

Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth. 

Truth hath a quiet breast. 

This thought is as a death. 

For now they kill me with a living death. 

Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death. 

Death-counterfeiting sleep. 

The gloomy shade of death. 

What ugly sights of death within mine eyes! 

O wretched state! o bosom black as death! 

On pain of death, no person be so bold. 

Tired with all these, for restful death I cry. 

What is thy sentence then but speechless death. 

Why, thou owest god a death. 

Speak me fair in death. 

Let me be boiled to death with melancholy. 

Dream on, dream on, of bloody deeds and death. 

Whose heart the accustom’d sight of death makes hard. 

Thou ominous and fearful owl of death. 

Ay, but to die, and go we know not where. 

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come. 

When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover. 

O Death, made proud with pure and princely beauty! 

Though Death be poor, it ends a mortal woe. 

So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men. 

Death lies on her like an untimely frost. 

Death is my son-in-law, death is my heir. 

Crack’d in pieces by malignant Death. 

Death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead! 

Where hateful Death put on his ugliest mask. 

When Death doth close his tender dying eyes. 

Till our King Henry had shook hands with Death. 

The sudden hand of Death close up mine eye! 

Unsubstantial Death is amorous. 

Death rock me asleep. 

Then love-devouring Death do what he dare. 

I had rather be a dog, and bay the moon, Than such a Roman. 

Thou call’st me dog before thou hadst a cause, But since I am a dog, beware my fangs. 

I have very poor and unhappy brains for drinking. 

All things that are, are with more spirit chased than enjoyed. 

If I must die, I will encounter darkness as a bride, and hug it in mine arms. 

Hopeless and helpless doth Egeon wend, But to procrastinate his liveless end. 

I am ashes where I once was fire, And the bard in my bosom is dead; What I loved I now merely admire, And my heart is as grey as my head. 

He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous. 

Where is your ancient courage? You were used to say extremities was the trier of spirits; That common chances common men could bear; That when the sea was calm all boats alike showed mastership in floating. 

Laughing faces do not mean that there is absence of sorrow! But it means that they have the ability to deal with it 

The greatest thing about ? Facebook , is that you can quote something and totally make up the source. 

Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor. 

Hear my soul speak. Of the very instant that I saw you, did my heart fly at your service 

You cram these words into mine ears against The stomach of my sense. 

He that commends me to mine own content Commends me to the thing I cannot get. I to the world am like a drop of water That in the ocean seeks another drop, Who, falling there to find his fellow forth, Unseen, inquisitive, confounds himself: So I, to find a mother and a brother, In quest of them, unhappy, lose myself. 

Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel; But do not dull thy palm with entertainment Of each new-hatch’d, unfledg’d comrade. 

To be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether ’tis Nobler in the mind to suffer The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune, Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles, And by opposing end them: to die, to sleep No more; and by a sleep, to say we end The Heart-ache, and the thousand Natural shocks That Flesh is heir to? ‘Tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished. To die to sleep, To sleep, perchance to Dream; Aye, there’s the rub. 

Tis safter to be that which we destroy Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy. 

Fear not, Cesario, take thy fortunes up. Be that thou know’st thou art and then thou art as great as that thou fear’st. 

When the mind’s free, The Body’s delicate. 

This is the very ecstasy of love, whose violent property ordoes itself and leads the will to desperate undertakings. 

This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise, This fortress built by Nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war, This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall Or as a moat defensive to a house, Against the envy of less happier lands,-This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England. 

And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by, From this day to the ending of the world, But we in it shall be remembered- We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother 

He is well paid that is well satisfied. 

Nothing comes from doing nothing. 

Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red. 

Why what a fool was I to this drunken monster for a God. – Caliban 

If after every tempest come such calms, May the winds blow till they have waken’d death! 

My love is as a fever, longing still. 

Hamlet: Lady, shall I lie in your lap? Ophelia: No, my lord. Hamlet: DId you think I meant country matters? Ophelia: I think nothing, my lord. Hamlet: That’s a fair thought to lie between maids’ legs. Ophelia: What is, my lord? Hamlet: Nothing. 

Say as you think and speak it from your souls. 

Men should be what they seem; Or those that be not, would they might seem none!. 

All the world is a stage and we are merely players. 

The Brightness of her cheek would shame those stars as daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven would through the airy region stream so bright that birds would sing, and think it were not night. 

Enough no more; Tis not so sweet now as it was before. 

Well, God give them wisdom that have it; and those that are fools, let them use their talents. 

The summer’s flower is to the summer sweet Though to itself it only live and die 

When the age is in, the wit is out 

When I have seen by Time’s fell hand defaced The rich proud cost of outworn buried age; When sometime lofty towers I see down-razed And brass eternal slave to mortal rage; When I have seen the hungry ocean gain Advantage on the kingdom of the shore, And the firm soil win of the watery main, Increasing store with loss and loss with store; When I have seen such interchange of state, Or state itself confounded to decay; Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate, That Time will come and take my love away. This thought is as a death which cannot choose But weep to have that which it fears to lose. 

Will you walk out of the air, my lord? HAMLET Into my grave. 

Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania 

Through the forest have I gone. But Athenian found I none, On whose eyes I might approve This flower’s force in stirring love. Night and silence.-Who is here? Weeds of Athens he doth wear: This is he, my master said, Despised the Athenian maid; And here the maiden, sleeping sound, On the dank and dirty ground. Pretty soul! she durst not lie Near this lack-love, this kill-courtesy. Churl, upon thy eyes I throw All the power this charm doth owe. When thou wakest, let love forbid Sleep his seat on thy eyelid: So awake when I am gone; For I must now to Oberon. 

Out, damned spot! out, I say! 

The moon’s an arrant thief, And her pale fire she snatches from the sun. 

Love me or hate me, both are in my favor…If you love me, I’ll always be in your heart…If you hate me, I’ll always be in your mind. 

She never told her love, but let concealment, like a worm ‘i th’ bud, feed on her damask cheek. She pinned in thought; and, with a green and yellow melancholy, she sat like Patience on a monument, smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed? We men may say more, swear more; but indeed our shows are more than will; for we still prove much in our vows but little in our love. 

He’s mad that trusts in the tameness of a wolf. 

O sleep, O gentle sleep, Nature’s soft nurse, how have I frightened thee, 1710. That thou no more will weigh my eyelids down, And steep my senses in forgetfulness? 

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun. Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, Who is already sick and pale with grief, That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she. Be not her maid, since she is envious; Her vestal livery is but sick and green And none but fools do wear it; cast it off. It is my lady, O, it is my love! Oh, that she knew she were! 

In truth, fair Montague, I am too fond… 

Under the greenwood tree, Who loves to lie with me And tune his merry note, Unto the sweet bird’s throat; Come hither, come hither, come hither. Here shall he see No enemy But winter and rough weather. 

Here comes Monseiur Le Beau. Rosalind: With his mouth full of news. Celia: Which he will put on us, as pigeons feed their young. Rosalind: Then shall we be news-crammed. Celia: All the better; we shall be the more marketable. 

I was too young that time to value her, But now I know her. If she be a traitor, Why, so am I. We still have slept together, Rose at an instant, learned, played, eat together, And wheresoe’er we went, like Juno’s swans, Still we went coupled and inseparable. 

This fellow is wise enough to play the fool; And to do that well craves a kind of wit: He must observe their mood on whom he jests, The quality of persons, and the time, And, like the haggard, check at every feather That comes before his eye. This is a practise As full of labour as a wise man’s art For folly that he wisely shows is fit; But wise men, folly-fall’n, quite taint their wit. 

So every bondman in his own hand bears The power to cancel his captivity. 

the fire seven times tried this; seven times tried that judgement is that did never choose amiss some there be that shadows kiss; such have but a shadows bliss, there be fool alive, i wis silverd o’er, and so was this Take what wife you will to bed I will ever be your head. So be gone; you are sped. 

Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds. 

Oh, thou did’st then ne’er love so heartily. If thou rememb’rest not the slightest folly That ever love did make thee run inot, Thou has not loved. Of if thou has’t not sat as I do now, Wearying they hearer in thy mistress’s praise, Thou has not loved. Of if thou hast not broke from company Abruptly, as my passion now makes me, Thou has not loved. (Silvius) 

There is little choice in a barrel of rotten apples. 

The iron tongue of Midnight hath told twelve lovers, to bed; ’tis almost fairy time. I fear we shall outstep the coming morn as much as we this night over-watch’d. 

The day shall not be up so soon as I, To try the fair adventure of tomorrow. 

a wild dedication of yourselves To undiscovered waters, undreamed shores. 

My thoughts are whirled like a potter’s wheel; I know not where I am nor what I do. 

By my troth, I care not; a man can die but once; we owe God a death and let it go which way it will he that dies this year is quit for the next 

Love is a wonderful, terrible thing 

The third day comes a frost, a killing frost. 

She’s beautiful, and therefore to be wooed; She is a woman, therefore to be won. 

Is love a tender thing? It is too rough, too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn. 

She lov’d me for the dangers I had pass’d, And I lov’d her that she did pity them 

I am misanthropos, and hate mankind, For thy part, I do wish thou wert a dog, That I might love thee something. 

Sound trumpets! Let our bloody colours wave! And either victory, or else a grave. 

Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool no where but in’s own house. 

Never; he will not: Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale Her infinite variety: other women cloy The appetites they feed: but she makes hungry Where most she satisfies; 

Wooing, wedding, and repenting is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinque-pace: the first suit is hot and hasty like a Scotch jig-and full as fantastical; the wedding, mannerly modest, as a measure, full of state and ancientry; and then comes repentance and with his bad legs falls into the cinque-pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave. 

No, Cassius; for the eye sees not itself, But by reflection, by some other things. 

I was born free as Caesar; so were you 

I should think this a gull, but that the white-bearded fellow speaks it; knavery cannot, sure, hide himself in such reverence. 

I can again thy former light restore, Should I repent me: but once put out thy light, Thou cunning’st pattern of excelling nature, I know not where is that Promethean heat That can thy light relume. 

Into what dangers would you lead me, Cassius, That you would have me seek into myself For that which is not in me? 

Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear; Where little fears grow great, great love grows there. 

My only love sprung from my only hate. 

What e’er thou art, act well thy part. 

There is a world elsewhere. 

As in a theatre, the eyes of men, after a well-graced actor leaves the stage, are idly bent on him that enters next. 

For this relief, much thanks 

We will all laugh at gilded butterflies. 

If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottages princes’ palaces. It is a good divine that follows his own instructions: I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching. 

Don’t trust the person who has broken faith once. 

Had I no eyes but ears, my ears would love. That inward beauty and invisible; Or were I deaf, thy outward parts would move each part in me that were but sensible: Though neither eyes nor ears, to hear nor see, yet should I be in love by touching thee. ‘Say, that the sense of feeling were bereft me, and that I could not see, nor hear, nor touch, and nothing but the very smell were left me, yet would my love to thee be still as much; for from the stillitory of thy face excelling comes breath perfum’d that breedeth love by smelling. 

You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things! 

Therefore the moon, the governess of floods, Pale in her anger washes all the air, That rheumatic diseases do abound; And through this distemperature we see The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose. 

To be furious, is to be frighted out of fear. 

Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of light. 

Thy best of rest is sleep, And that thou oft provok’st; yet grossly fear’st Thy death, which is no more. 

O all you host of heaven! O earth! What else? And shall I couple Hell? 

Bulldogs are adorable, with faces like toads that have been sat on. My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind; So flew’d, so sanded; their heads are hung with ears that sweep away the morning dew… 

The little dogs and all, Tray, Blanch, and Sweetheart-see, they bark at me. 

Thou hast seen a farmer’s dog bark at a beggar? And the creature run from the cur. There thou mightst behold the great image of authority-a dog’s obeyed in office. 

Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men; As hounds, and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs, Shoughs, water-rugs, and demi-wolves, are ‘clept All by the name of dogs: the valued file Distinguishes the swift, the slow, the subtle, The housekeeper, the hunter, every one According to the gift which bounteous nature Hath in him closed. 

I am sir Oracle, and when I ope my lips, let no dog bark. 

We must love men, ere to us they will seem worthy of our love. 

A noble shalt thou have, and present pay; And liquor likewise will I give to thee, And friendship shall combine, and brotherhood. 

King Henry: But what a point, my lord, your falcon made, And what a pitch she flew above the rest! To see how God in all his creatures works! Yea, man and birds are fain of climbing high. Suffolk: No marvel, an it like your majesty, My lord protectors hawks do tower so well; They know their masters loves to be aloft, And bears his thoughts above his falcon’s pitch. Gloucester: My lord, ’tis but a base ignoble mind That mounts no higher than a bird can soar. 

But flies an eagle flight, bold and forth on, Leaving no tract behind. 

He that wants money, means, and content is without three good friends. 

Foul cankering rust the hidden treasure frets, but gold that’s put to use more gold begets. 

Gold were as good as twenty orators. 

Put forth thy hand, reach at the glorious gold. 

To wilful men, the injuries that they themselves procure must be their schoolmasters. 

All furnished, all in arms; All plum’d like estridges that with the wind Bated like eagles having lately bathed; Glittering in golden coats like images; As full of spirit as the month of May And gorgeous as the sun at midsummer; Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls. 

Four days will quickly steep themselves in nights; Four nights will quickly dream away the time; And then the moon, like to a silver bow new bent in heaven, shall behold the night of our solemnities. 

Pause awhile, And let my counsel sway you. 

I see a woman may be made a fool, If she had not a spirit to resist. 

In sooth I know not why I am so sad. It wearies me, you say it wearies you; But how I caught it, found it, or came by it, What stuff ’tis made of, whereof it is born, I am to learn;… 

Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them? 

Parting is such sweet sorrow 

Plain and not honest is too harsh a style. 

Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were but little happy, if I could say how much. Lady, as you are mine, I am yours: I give away myself for you and dote upon the exchange. 

It is not politic in the commonwealth of nature to preserve virginity. Loss of virginity is rational increase, and there was never virgin got till virginity was first lost. That you were made of is metal to make virgins. Virginity, by being once lost, may be ten times found: by being ever kept, it is ever lost. ‘Tis too cold a companion: away with ‘t! 

We will meet; and there we may rehearse most obscenely and courageously. Shakespeare, Midsummer Night’s Dream. Spoken by Bottom, Act I Sc. 2 

Either to die the death or to abjure For ever the society of men. Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires; Know of your youth, examine well your blood, Whether, if you yield not to your father’s choice, You can endure the livery of a nun, For aye to be in shady cloister mew’d, To live a barren sister all your life, Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon. Thrice-blessed they that master so their blood, To undergo such maiden pilgrimage; But earthlier happy is the rose distill’d, Than that which withering on the virgin thorn Grows, lives and dies in single blessedness. 

DEMETRIUS Relent, sweet Hermia: and, Lysander, yield Thy crazed title to my certain right. LYSANDER You have her father’s love, Demetrius; Let me have Hermia’s: do you marry him. 

QUINCE Francis Flute, the bellows-mender. FLUTE Here, Peter Quince. QUINCE Flute, you must take Thisby on you. FLUTE What is Thisby? a wandering knight? QUINCE It is the lady that Pyramus must love. FLUTE Nay, faith, let me not play a woman; I have a beard coming. 

In jest, there is truth. 

Many a true word hath been spoken in jest. 

Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust them. 

Demand me nothing: what you know, you know. 

Love’s best habit is a soothing tongue 

When I waked, I cried to dream again 

So musical a discord, such sweet thunder. 

We few. We happy few. We band of brothers, for he today That sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother. 

The fragrance of the rose lingers on the hand that casts it 

Romeo: Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much. Mercutio: No, ’tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door; but ’tis enough, ’twill serve. Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man. 

Believe then, if you please, that I can do strange things. [Act 5, Scene 2] 

So well thy words become thee as thy wounds; 

IAGO: She that was ever fair and never proud, Had tongue at will and yet was never loud, Never lack’d gold and yet went never gay, Fled from her wish and yet said ‘Now I may,’ She that being anger’d, her revenge being nigh, Bade her wrong stay and her displeasure fly, She that in wisdom never was so frail To change the cod’s head for the salmon’s tail; She that could think and ne’er disclose her mind, See suitors following and not look behind, She was a wight, if ever such wight were,- DESDEMONA: To do what? IAGO: To suckle fools and chronicle small beer. 

Unless hours were cups of sack, and minutes capons, and clocks the tongues of bawds, and dials the signs of leaping-houses, and the blessed sun himself a fair hot wench in flame-colored taffeta, I see no reason why thou shouldst be so superfluous to demand the time of the day. 

Were’t not for laughing, I should pity him. 

Hal, if I tell thee a lie, spit in my face, call me horse. 

Before, I loved thee as a brother, John, But now, I do respect thee as my soul. 

I am the Prince of Wales; and think not, Percy, To share with me in glory any more: Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere; 

This cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen. 

This thing of darkness I acknowlege mine. There is nothing more confining than the prison we don’t know we are in. 

There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray, love, remember; and there is pansies, that’s for thoughts… There’s fennel for you, and columbines; there’s rue for you, and here’s some for me; we may call it herb of grace o’ Sundays. O, you must wear your rue with a difference. There’s a daisy. I would give you some violets, but they wither’d all when my father died. They say he made a good end,- [Sings.] “For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy. 

Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? …If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? 

O, while you live, tell truth, and shame the Devil! 

It is not night when I do see your face, Therefore I think I am not in the night; Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company, For you in my respect are all the world: Then how can it be said I am alone, When all the world is here to look on me? 

You say that you love the rain, but you open your umbrella when it rains. You say that you love the sun, but you find a shadow spot when it shines. You say that you love the wind, but you close the windows when it blows. This is why I’m afraid, you said that you love me too. 

Sometimes when we are labeled, when we are branded our brand becomes our calling. 

Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate, Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving, 

Well, heaven forgive him! and forgive us all! Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall: Some run from brakes of ice, and answer none: And some condemned for a fault alone. 

Can I go forward when my heart is here? Turn back, dull earth, and find thy centre out. 

For man is a giddy thing, and this is my conclusion. 

O God of battles! steel my soldiers’ hearts. Possess them not with fear. 

There’s little of the melancholy element in her, my lord: she is never sad but when she sleeps; and not ever sad then; for I have heard my daughter say, she hath often dreamt of unhappiness, and waked herself with laughing. 

Men of few words are the best men.” (3.2.41) 

The art of our necessities is strange That can make vile things precious. 

You may my Glories and my State depose, But not my Griefes; still I am King of those. 

Demetrius: Villain, what hast thou done? Aaron: That which thou canst not undo. Chiron: Thou hast undone our mother. Aaron: Villain, I have done thy mother. 

Can I go forward when my heart is here? 

The moon shines bright. In such a night as this. When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees and they did make no noise, in such a night… 

You have too much respect upon the world; They lose it that do buy it with much care 

Spirits are not finely touched But to fine issues, nor Nature never lends The smallest scruple of her excellence But like a thrifty goddess she determines Herself the glory of a creditor,Both thanks and use. 

Macbeth to Witches: What are these So wither’d and so wild in their attire, That look not like th’ inhabitants o’ th’ earth, And yet are on ‘t? 

Blessed are the peacemakers on earth. 

Alas, how love can trifle with itself! 

How long a time lies in one little word? 

Pride went before, ambition follows him. 

Do not plunge thyself too far in anger. 

Every true man’s apparel fits your thief. 

Read o’er this And after, this, and then to breakfast with What appetite you have. 

Who riseth from a feast With that keen appetite that he sits down? 

Now, good digestion wait on appetite, and health on both! 

With these shreds They vented their complainings, which being answered And a petition granted them, a strange one, To break the heart of generosity, And make bold power look pale, they threw their caps As they would hang them on the horns o’ th’ moon, Shouting their emulation. 

If thou couldst, doctor, cast The water of my land, find her disease, And purge it to a sound and pristine health, I would applaud thee to the very echo, That should applaud you again. 

I’ll privily away; I love the people, But do not like to stage me to their eyes; Though it do well, I do not relish well Their loud applause and aves vehement, Nor do I think the man of safe discretion That does not affect it. 

When thou cam’st first, Thou strok’st me and made much of me; wouldst give me Water with berries in’t; and teach me how To name the bigger light, and how the less, That burn by day and night; and then I loved thee And showed thee all the qualities o’ th’ isle, The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place and fertile. 

My lord, they say five moons were seen to-night- Four fixed, and the fifth did whirl about The other four in wondrous motion. 

Shall remain! Hear you this Triton of the minnows? Mark you His absolute ‘shall’? 

Thus can the demigod Authority Make us pay down for our offense by weight The words of heaven; on whom it will, it will, On whom it will not, so: yet still ’tis just. 

Merciful heaven, Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt Splits the unwedgeable and gnarled oak Than the soft myrtle; but man, proud man, Dressed in a little brief authority, Most ignorant of what he’s most assured His glassy essence-like an angry ape Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven As makes the angels weep; who, with our spleens, would all themselves laugh mortal. 

Well, I must be patient; there is no fettering of authority. 

Shall I never see a bachelor of three score again? 

I had rather be a kitten and cry mew Than one of these same metre ballet-mongers. 

I love a ballad but even too well if it be doleful matter merrily set down, or a very pleasant thing indeed and sung lamentably. 

Were beauty under twenty locks kept fast, yet love breaks through and picks them all at last. 

The most peerless piece of earth, I think, that e’ er the sun shone bright on. 

I see, sir, you are liberal in offers. You taught me first to beg, and now methinks You teach me how a beggar should be answered. 

Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks, but I thank you; and sure, dear friends, my thanks are too dear a halfpenny. 

Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill. 

All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women mearly players. 

What: is the jay more precious than the lark because his feathers are more beautiful? 

Be not too tame neither, but let your own Discretion be your tutor; suit the action to the word, the word to the action. 

My tongue will tell the anger of my heart, or else my heart concealing it will break. 

All’s well if all ends well. 

No, no, I am but shadow of myself: You are deceived, my substance is not here; 

When heaven doth weep, doth not the earth o’erflow? If the winds rage, doth not the sea wax mad, Threatening the welking with his big-swoln face? And wilt though have a reason for this coil? I am the sea; hark, how her sighs do blow! She is the weeping welkin, I the earth: Then must my sea be moved with her sighs; Then must my earth with her continual tears Become a deluge, overflow’d and drown’d; For why my bowels cannot hide her woes, But like a drunkard must I vomit them. Then give me leave, for losers will have leave To ease their stomachs with their bitter tongues. 

A wretched soul, bruised with adversity, We bid be quiet when we hear it cry; But were we burdened with light weight of pain, As much or more we should ourselves complain. 

Beware the ides of March. 

His life was gentle; and the elements So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up And say to all the world, THIS WAS A MAN! 

Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits and Are melted into air, into thin air: And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep. 

Lord Polonius: What do you read, my lord? Hamlet: Words, words, words. Lord Polonius: What is the matter, my lord? Hamlet: Between who? Lord Polonius: I mean, the matter that you read, my lord. 

Thou hast nor youth nor age But as it were an after dinner sleep Dreaming of both. 

Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once. Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, It seems to me most strange that men should fear; Seeing that death, a necessary end, Will come when it will come. 

O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father refuse thy name, thou art thyself thou not a montegue, what is montegue? tis nor hand nor foot nor any other part belonging to a man What is in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, So Romeo would were he not Romeo called retain such dear perfection to which he owes without that title, Romeo, Doth thy name! And for that name which is no part of thee, take all thyself. 

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. 

These violent delights have violent ends And in their triump die, like fire and powder Which, as they kiss, consume 

By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes. 

O! she doth teach the torches to burn bright It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear; Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear. – Romeo – 

To sue to live, I find I seek to die; And, seeking death, find life: let it come on. 

If music be the food of love, play on, Give me excess of it; that surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die. 

They lie deadly that tell you have good faces. 

Tax not so bad a voice to slander music any more than once. 

You are thought here to the most senseless and fit man for the job. 

You speak an infinite deal of nothing. 

a young woman in love always looks like patience on a monument smiling at grief 

To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand. 

When he shall die, Take him and cut him out in little stars, And he will make the face of heaven so fine That all the world will be in love with night And pay no worship to the garish sun. 

And oftentimes, to win us to our harm, The instruments of darkness tell us truths, Win us with honest trifles, to betray’s In deepest consequence 

I dare do all that may become a man; Who dares do more, is none 

I count myself in nothing else so happy as in a soul remembering my good Friends 

He who has injured thee was either stronger or weaker than thee. If weaker, spare him; if stronger, spare thyself. 

Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak knits up the o-er wrought heart and bids it break. 

Kent. Where’s the king? Gent. Contending with the fretful elements; Bids the wind blow the earth into the sea, Or swell the curled waters ‘bove the main, That things might change or cease; tears his white hair, Which the impetuous blasts, with eyeless rage, Catch in their fury and make nothing of; Strives in his little world of man to outscorn The to-and-fro-conflicting wind and rain. This night, wherein the cub-drawn bear would couch, The lion and the belly-pinched wolf Keep their fur dry, unbonneted he runs, And bids what will take all. 

The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers. 

Alas, sir, how fell you besides your five wits?” Malvolio: “Fool, there was never a man so notoriously abused. I am as well in my wits, fool, as thou art.” Feste: “But as well? Then you are mad indeed, if you be no better in you wits than a fool. 

But, indeed, words are very rascals, since bonds [vows] disgraced them.” Viola: “Thy reason, man?” Feste: “Troth [Truthfully], sir, I can yield you none without words, and words are grown so false, I am loathe to prove reason with them. 

An old black ram is tupping your white ewe 

Therefore another prologue must tell he is not a lion 

Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love. 

O, wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, That has such people in’t! 

Thrift, thrift, Horatio! The funeral bak’d meats did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables. 

Take it in what sense thou wilt. 

This rudeness is a sauce to his good wit, Which gives men stomach to digest his words With better appetite. 

And it is very much lamented,… That you have no such mirrors as will turn Your hidden worthiness into your eye That you might see your shadow. 

it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance 

The fringed curtains of thine eye advance, And say what thou seest yond. 

I despised my arrival on this earth and I despise my departure; it is a tragedy. 

I feel it gone, yet know not when it left. 

Twas a clever quibble. Here, a garment for it. 

Doubt thou the stars are fire; Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love. 

He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man. He that is more than a youth is not for me, and he that is less than a man, I am not for him. 

The world is grown so bad, That wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch. 

Truth will come to sight; murder cannot be hid long. 

Love is merely a madness, and, I tell you, deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do. 

Why, thou knowest I am as valiant as Hercules, but beware instinct. The lion will not touch the true prince. Instinct is a great matter. I was a coward on instinct. 

Thou whoreson zed! Thou unnecessary letter! My lord, if you will give me leave, I will tread this unbolted villain into mortar, and daub the wall of a jakes with him. *all cheer for Shakespearean insults* 

I am a feather for each wind that blows 

And blind oblivion swallowed cities up. 

O time, thou must untangle this, not I. It is too hard a knot for me t’untie. 

In thy face I see the map of honour, truth and loyalty. 

O, she’s warm! If this be magic, let it be an art Lawful as eating. 

No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity. But I know none, and therefore am no beast. 

We all are men, in our own natures frail, and capable of our flesh; few are angels. 

When I was at home I was in a better place 

Fair thoughts and happy hours attend on you. 

Not a whit, we defy augury: there’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all. 

Therefore I tell my sorrows to the stones; Who, though they cannot answer my distress, Yet in some sort they are better than the tribunes, For that they will not intercept my tale: When I do weep, they humbly at my feet Receive my tears and seem to weep with me; And, were they but attired in grave weeds, Rome could afford no tribune like to these. 

She dreams of him that has forgot her love; You dote on her that cares not for your love. ‘Tis pity love should be so contrary; And thinking of it makes me cry ‘alas! 

You speak like a green girl / unsifted in such perilous circumstances. 

By innocence I swear, and by my youth, I have one heart, one bosom, and one truth, And that no woman has, nor never none Shall mistress be of it save I alone. 

Thus play I in one person many people, And none contented: sometimes am I king; Then treasons make me wish myself a beggar, And so I am: then crushing penury Persuades me I was better when a king; Then am I king’d again: and by and by Think that I am unking’d by Bolingbroke, And straight am nothing: but whate’er I be, Nor I nor any man that but man is With nothing shall be pleased, till he be eased With being nothing. 

You have dancing shoes with nimble soles. I have a soul of lead. 

So we grew together like to a double cherry, seeming parted, but yet an union in partition, two lovely berries molded on one stem. 

Glory is like a circle in the water 

Full fathom five thy father lies 

O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven 

All places that the eye of heaven visits Are to a wise man ports and happy havens. Teach thy necessity to reason thus; There is no virtue like necessity. 

A ministering angel shall my sister be. 

Frailty, thy name is woman! 

But it is a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted from many objects, and indeed the sundry contemplation of my travels, which, by often rumination, wraps me in the most humorous sadness. 

Words are easy, like the wind; Faithful friends are hard to find. 

To unpathed waters, undreamed shores. 

Tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers. 

The will is infinite and the execution confin’d, the desire is boundless and the act a slave to limit. 

God shall be my hope, my stay, my guide and lantern to my feet. 

I wish my horse had the speed of your tongue. 

love is blind and lovers cannot see the pretty follies that themselves commit 

Though she be but little, she is fierce! 

The cat will mew, and dog will have his day. 

Where the bee sucks, there suck I In the cow-slip’s bell i lie There I couch when owls do cry 

Who is it that can tell me who I am? 

The silence often of pure innocence persuades when speaking fails. 

Time does not have the same appeal for every one 

Do you know me, my lord?’ Excellent well. You are a fishmonger. 

Praising what is lost makes the remembrance dear 

Tis the times’ plague, when madmen lead the blind. 

Where is Polonius? HAMLET In heaven. Send hither to see. If your messenger find him not there, seek him i’ th’ other place yourself. But if indeed you find him not within this month, you shall nose him as you go up the stairs into the lobby. 

I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me, because I have railed so long against marriage: but doth not the appetite alter? a man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humour? No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married. 

And when love speaks, the voice of all the gods makes Heaven drowsy with the harmony. 

I love thee, I love thee with a love that shall not die. Till the sun grows cold and the stars grow old. 

Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises, Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears; and sometime voices, That, if I then had waked after long sleep, Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming, The clouds methought would open, and show riches Ready to drop upon me; that, when I waked, I cried to dream again. 

O, speak again, bright angel! for thou art As glorious to this night, being o’er my head As is a winged messenger of heaven 

This day’s black fate on more days doth depend; This but begins the woe, others must end. 

I do desire we may be better strangers. 

thy wit is a very bitter sweeting; it is a most sharp sauce. 

A glooming peace this morning with it brings; The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head: Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things; Some shall be pardon’d, and some punished: For never was a story of more woe Than this of Juliet and her Romeo. 

Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged! Give me my sin again. 

I can no other answer make, but, thanks, and thanks. 

I did never know so full a voice issue from so empty a heart: but the saying is true ‘The empty vessel makes the greatest sound’. 

All that glisters is not gold; Often have you heard that told: Many a man his life hath sold But my outside to behold: Gilded tombs do worms enfold. 

So, good night unto you all. Give me your hands, if we be friends, and Robin shall restore amends. 

Be patient, for the world is broad and wide. 

O, let me kiss that hand! KING LEAR: Let me wipe it first; it smells of mortality. 

So full of artless jealousy is guilt, It spills itself in fearing to be spilt. 

I hold my peace, sir? no; No, I will speak as liberal as the north; Let heaven and men and devils, let them all, All, all, cry shame against me, yet I’ll speak. 

To mourn a mischief that is past and gone Is the next way to draw new mischief on. 

Love is the greatest of dreams, yet the worst of nightmares. 

Prophet may you be! If I be false, or swerve a hair from truth, when time is old and hath forgot itself, when waterdrops have worn the stones of Troy, and blind oblivion swallowed cities up, and mighty states characterless are grated to dusty nothing, yet let memory, from false to false, among false maids in love, upbraid my falsehood! 

Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied, And vice sometime by action dignified. 

True, I talk of dreams, Which are the children of an idle brain, Begot of nothing but vain fantasy, Which is as thin of substance as the air, And more inconstant than the wind, who woos Even now the frozen bosom of the north, And, being anger’d, puffs away from thence, Turning his side to the dew-dropping south. 

For ’tis the sport to have the engineer Hoist with his own petar; and’t shall go hard But I will delve one yard below their mines And blow them at the moon. 

If you would persuade, you must appeal to interest rather than intellect. We are advertis’d by our loving friends. 

I’ll look to like; if looking, liking move. 

To be merry best becomes you; for, out of question, you were born in a merry hour. 

Be merry; you have cause, so have we all, of joy; for our escape is much beyond our loss . . . . then wisely weigh our sorrow with our comfort. 

From camp to camp, through the foul womb of night, The hum of either army stilly sounds, That the fixed sentinels almost receive The secret whispers of each other’s watch. Fire answers fire, and through their play flames Each battle sees the other’s umbered face. Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs Piercing the night’s dull ear; and from the tents The armorers accomplishing the knights, With busy hammers closing rivets up, Give dreadful note of preparation. 

The hideous god of war. 

The bay-trees in our country are all withered, And meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven. The pale-faced moon looks bloody on the earth, And lean-looked prophets whisper fearful change. Rich men look sad, and ruffians dance and leap; The one in fear to lose what they enjoy, The other to enjoy by rage and war. These signs forerun the death or fall of kings. 

O momentary grace of mortal men, Which we more hunt for than the grace of God! 

Virtue is beauty, but the beauteous evil. Are empty trunks o’erflourished by the devil. 

Look on beauty, And you shall see ’tis purchased by the weight, Which therein works a miracle in nature, Making them lightest that wear most of it. 

Wisdom cries out in the streets, and no man regards it. 

Where I could not be honest, I never yet was valiant. 

I can give the loser leave to chide. 

A great cause of the night is lack of the sun. 

Life’s uncertain voyage. 

Speak on, but be not over-tedious. 

Love all. Trust a few. Do wrong to none. This above all: to thine own self be true. No legacy is so rich as honesty. Brevity is the soul of wit 

It is the cowish terror of his spirit that dares not undertake; he’ll not feel wrongs which tie him to an answer. 

A man should be what he seems. 

To have seen much and to have nothing is to have rich eyes and poor hands. 

Let not the world see fear and sad distrust govern the motion of a kingly eye. 

Yea from the table of my memory I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records. 

If an army marches on its stomach a Church advances on its knees. 

When faced with a sea of troubles, take action, and in so doing end it. 

For in my youth I never did apply Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood. 

Examine well your blood. 

The heavens forbid But that our loves and comforts should increase Even as our days do grow! 

Ten masts make not the altitude Which thou hast perpendicularly fell. Thy life’s a miracle. 

Remember thee! Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat In this distracted globe. 

I see a man’s life is a tedious one. 

The happiest youth, viewing his progress through, What perils past, what crosses to ensue, Would shut the book, and sit him down and die. 

Even through the hollow eyes of death I spy life peering. 

You take my house when you do take the prop That doth sustain my house; you take my life When you do take the means whereby I live. 

My father compounded with my mother under the Dragon’s tail, and my nativity was under Ursa Major, so that it follows, I am roughand lecherous. Tut, I should have been that I am, had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing. 

I swear again, I would not be a queen For all the world. 

I’ll read enough When I do see the very book indeed Where all my sins are writ, and that’s myself. 

Grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle; I am no traitor’s uncle, and that word “grace” In an ungracious mouth is but profane. 

Will Fortune never come with both hands full, But write her fair words still in foulest terms? 

Give me to drink mandragora. 

You are not wood, you are not stones, but men; And being men, hearing the will of Caesar, It will inflame you, it will make you mad. 

Say, what abridgement have you for this evening? What masque, what music? How shall we beguile The lazy time if not with some delight? 

Come now, what masques, what dances shall we have To wear away this long age of three hours Between our after-supper and bedtime? 

I have trod a measure, I have flattered a lady, I have been politic with my friend, smooth with mine enemy. 

How strange or odd some’er I bear myself, As I perchance hereafter shall think meet To put an antic disposition on. 

My wits begin to turn. 

Watch tonight, pray tomorrow. Gallants, lads, boys, hearts of gold, all the titles of good fellowship come to you! 

Good God, the souls of all my tribe defend From jealousy! 

I will through and through Cleanse the foul body of th’ infected world, If they will patiently receive my medicine. 

One sin, I know, another doth provoke. Murder’s as near to lust as flame to smoke. 

Good fortune then! To make me blest or cursed’st among men. 

So may I, blind fortune leading me, Miss that which one unworthier may attain, And die with grieving. 

Ships are but boards, sailors but men; there be land-rats and water-rats, water-thieves and land-thieves, I mean pirates, and thenthere is the peril of waters, winds, and rocks. 

Value dwells not in particular will; It holds his estimate and dignity As well wherein ’tis precious of itself As in the prizer. 

The tongues of mocking wenches are as keen As is the razor’s edge invisible. 

I have nothing Of woman in me; now from head to foot I am marble-constant. 

Nay, we must think men are not gods, Nor of them look for such observancy As fits the bridal. 

Tis not a year or two shows us a man: They are all but stomachs, and we all but food; They eat us hungerly, and when they are full They belch us. 

Women’s weapons, water-drops. 

Haply a woman’s voice may do some good When articles too nicely urged be stood on. 

I had as lief have been myself alone. 

I myself am best When least in company. 

Bear with my weakness. My old brain is troubled. Be not disturbed with my infirmity. 

No villainous bounty yet hath passed my heart; Unwisely, not ignobly, have I given. 

Cold indeed, and labor lost: Then farewell heat, and welcome frost! 

Let us, like merchants, show our foulest wares, And think perchance they’ll sell; if not, The lustre of the better yet to show Shall show the better. 

The seasons change their manners, as the year Had found some months asleep and leapt them over. 

This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings, . . . This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land. 

To England will I steal, and there I’ll steal. 

That island of England breeds very valiant creatures; their mastiffs are of unmatchable courage. 

A turn or two I’ll walk To still my beating mind. 

O, I do not like that paying back, ’tis a double labor. 

I cannot draw a cart, nor eat dried oats; If it be man’s work, I’ll do’t. 

I am indeed, sir, a surgeon to old shoes; when they are in great danger I recover them. 

Woe to that land that’s governed by a child. 

The commonwealth of Athens is become a forest of beasts. 

Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit; All with me’s meet that I can fashion fit. 

Tis much when sceptres are in children’s hands, But more when envy breeds unkind division: There comes the ruin, there begins confusion. 

I begin to find an idle and fond bondage in the oppression of aged tyranny, who sways, not as it hath power, but as it is suffered. 

I would with such perfection govern, sir, T’excel the golden age. 

There is a law in each well-ordered nation To curb those raging appetites that are Most disobedient and refractory. 

For conspiracy, I know not how it tastes, though it be dished For me to try how. 

I do the wrong, and first begin to brawl. The secret mischiefs that I set abroach I lay unto the grievous charge of others. 

I am disgraced, impeached, and baffled here, Pierced to the soul with slander’s venomed spear. 

I heard a bustling rumor like a fray, And the wind blows it from the Capitol. 

I have been long a sleeper; but I trust My absence doth neglect no great design Which by my presence might have been concluded. 

My endeavors Have ever come too short of my desires. Yet filed with my abilities. 

A good sherris-sack hath a twofold operation in it. It ascends me into the brain,… makes it apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble, fiery, and delectable shapes. 

The blood weeps from my heart when I do shape, In forms imaginary, th’ unguided days And rotten times that you shall look upon When I am sleeping with my ancestors. 

I have heard it said There is an art which in their piedness shares With great creating nature. 

A very little little let us do And all is done. 

What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven? 

But we have reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings, our unbitted lusts; whereof I take this that you call love to bea sect or scion…. It is merely a lust of the blood and a permission of the will. 

They told me I was everything. ‘Tis a lie, I am not ague-proof. 

Is man no more than this? Consider him well. Thou ow’st the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume. Here’s three on’s are sophisticated. Thou art the thing itself; unaccommodated man is no more than such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art. 

I have of late-but wherefore I know not-lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercise. 

I will despair, and be at enmity With cozening hope. 

Every offense is not a hate at first. 

Hate pollutes the mind. 

Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises. 

Every inordinate cup is unbless’d, and the ingredient is a devil. 

This is no time to lend money, especially upon bare friendship without security. 

If I had my mouth, I would bite; if I had my liberty, I would do my liking. In the meantime, let me be that I am, and seek not toalter me. 

I hope to see London once ere I die. 

Now no way can I stray; Save back to England, all the world’s my way. 

Crowns in my purse I have, and goods at home, And so am come abroad to see the world. 

There’s not a shirt and a half in all my company, and the half shirt is two napkins tacked together and thrown over the shoulders like a herald’s coat without sleeves. 

My friends were poor, but honest, so’s my love. 

Ne’er ask me what raiment I’ll wear, for I have no more doublets than backs, no more stockings than legs, nor no more shoes than feet-nay, sometime more feet than shoes, or such shoes as my toes look through the overleather. 

Honor’s thought Reigns solely in the breast of every man. 

By being seldom seen, I could not stir But like a comet I was wondered at. 

The fewer men, the greater share of honor. 

I would not lose so great an honor As one man more methinks would share with me For the best hope I have. 

I am sure, Though you can guess what temperance should be, You know not what it is. 

Most subject is the fattest soil to weeds. 

The poor world is almost six thousand years old, and in all this time there was not any man died in his own person, videlicet, in a love-cause. 

Hung be the heavens with black! Yield, day, to night! 

Were it my cue to fight, I should have known it Without a prompter. 

I cannot be a man with wishing, therefore I will die a woman with grieving. 

Lord, I could not endure a husband with a beard on his face! I had rather lie in the woolen. 

O, the difference of man and man! To thee a woman’s services are due. 

So doth the greater glory dim the less: A substitute shines brightly as a king Until a king be by. 

My business was great, and in such a case as mine a man may strain courtesy. 

Those that do teach young babes Do it with gentle means and easy tasks. 

What thing, in honor, had my father lost, That need to be revived and breathed in me? 

Barnes are blessings. 

We see which way the stream of time doth run. 

What, keep a week away? Seven days and nights, Eightscore-eight hours, and lovers’ absent hours More tedious than the dial eightscore times! O weary reckoning! 

Do not speak like a death’s-head, do not bid me remember mine end. 

Death, as the Psalmist saith, is certain to all, all shall die. 

Jesu, Jesu, the mad days that I have spent! And to see how many of my old acquaintance are dead! 

Time is a very bankrupt and owes more than he’s worth to season. Nay, he’s a thief too: have you not heard men say, That Time comes stealing on by night and day? 

Retire me to my Milan, where Every third thought shall be my grave. 

Shorten my days thou canst with sullen sorrow, And pluck nights from me, but not lend a morrow; Thou canst help time to furrow me with age, But stop no wrinkle in his pilgrimage. 

No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change. 

What e’er you are That in this desert inaccessible, Under the shade of melancholy boughs, Lose and neglect the creeping hours of time. 

I am now of all humors that have showed themselves humors since the old days of goodman Adam to the pupil age of this present twelve o’clock at midnight. 

Time travels in divers paces with divers persons. 

I that please some, try all, both joy and terror Of good and bad, that makes and unfolds error. 

What else may hap, to time I will commit. 

A thousand moral paintings I can show That shall demonstrate these quick blows of Fortune’s More pregnantly than words. 

I do not set my life at a pin’s fee, And for my soul, what can it do to that, Being a thing immortal as itself? 

Doubting things go ill often hurts more Than to be sure they do; for certainties Either are past remedies, or, timely knowing, The remedy then born. 

A college of wit-crackers cannot flout me out of my humor. Dost thou think I care for a satire or an epigram? 

How every fool can play upon the word! 

The time of universal peace is near. Prove this a prosp’rous day, the three-nooked world Shall bear the olive freely. 

Alack, the night comes on, and the bleak winds Do sorely ruffle; for many miles about There’s scarce a bush. 

Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine, Whose weakness, married to thy stronger state, Makes me with thy strength to communicate. 

Thus did I keep my person fresh and new, My presence, like a robe pontifical, Ne’er seen but wondered at, and so my state, Seldom but sumptuous, showed like a feast. 

You are made Rather to wonder at the things you hear Than to work any. 

Be collected. No more amazement. Tell your piteous heart There’s no harm done. 

And thou, all-shaking thunder, Strike flat the thick rotundity o’ the world! Crack nature’s moulds, all germens spill at once That makes ingrateful man! 

Since I do purpose to marry, I will think nothing to any purpose that the world can say against it; and therefore never floutat me for what I have said against it; for man is a giddy thing, and this is my conclusion. 

Where the greater malady is fixed, The lesser is scarce felt. 

O, I have suffered With those that I saw suffer! 

When heaven doth weep, doth not the earth o’erflow? If the winds rage, doth not the sea wax mad, Threatening the welkin with his big-swollen face? 

Adieu, adieu, adieu! remember me. 

What wouldst thou do, old man? Think’st thou that duty shall have dread to speak When power to flattery bows? 

Mine eyes are full of tears, my heart of grief. 

O madam, my old heart is cracked, it’s cracked! 

Poor Desdemona! I am glad thy father’s dead. Thy match was mortal to him, and pure grief Shore his old thread in twain. 

There is a river in Macedon, and there is moreover a river in Monmouth. It is called Wye at Monmouth, but it is out of my prains what is the name of the other river; but ’tis all one, ’tis alike as my fingers is to my fingers, and there is salmons in both. 

What can be avoided Whose end is purposed by the mighty gods? 

Who can control his fate? 

O that a lady, of one man refused, Should of another therefore be abused! 

I am too old to fawn upon a nurse, Too far in years to be a pupil now. 

Our very eyes Are sometimes, like our judgments, blind. 

Love does not see with the eyes, but with the soul. 

For a noble heart, the most precious gift becomes poor, when the giver stops loving. 

How poor are they that have have not patients. 

A true repentance shuns the evil itself, more than the external suffering or the shame. 

I am asham’d that women are so simple To offer war where they should kneel for peace. 

Give it an understanding, but no tongue. 

Let us our lives, our souls, Our debts, our careful wives, Our children, and our sins, lay on the King! 

Flesh and blood, You, brother mine, that entertain’d ambition, Expell’d remorse and nature, who, with Sebastian- Whose inward pinches therefore are most strong- Would here have kill’d your king, I do forgive thee, Unnatural though thou art. 

There’s such divinity doth hedge a king. That treason doth but peep to what it would. 

Besides, our nearness to the King in love Is near the hate of those love not the King. 

If you be King, why should not I succeed? 

An earnest conjuration from the King, As England was his faithful tributary, As love between them like the palm might flourish, As peace should still her wheaten garland wear And stand a comma ‘tween their amities, And many such-like as’s of great charge, That, on the view and knowing of these contents, Without debatement further, more or less, He should the bearers put to sudden death, Not shriving time allow’d. 

This sleep is sound indeed; this is a sleep That from this golden rigol hath divorc’d So many English kings. 

Strong reasons make strong actions let us go If you say ay, the king will not say no. 

Titus Andronicus, my lord the Emperor Sends thee this word, that, if thou love thy sons, Let Marcus, Lucius, or thyself, old Titus, Or any one of you, chop off your hand And send it to the King: he for the same Will send thee hither both thy sons alive, And that shall be the ransom for their fault. 

This royal throne of kings, this scepter’d isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-Paradise. 

O King, believe not this hard-hearted man! 

What’s more to do, Which would be planted newly with the time, As calling home our exiled friends abroad That fled the snares of watchful tyranny, Producing forth the cruel ministers Of this dead butcher and his fiend-like queen, Who, as ’tis thought, by self and violent hands Took off her life; this, and what needful else That calls upon us, by the grace of Grace We will perform in measure, time, and place. 

He that plays the king shall be welcome- his Majesty shall have tribute of me; the adventurous knight shall use his foil and target; the lover shall not sigh gratis; the humorous man shall end his part in peace; the clown shall make those laugh whose lungs are tickle o’ th’ sere; and the lady shall say her mind freely, or the blank verse shall halt fort. 

A man may see how this world goes with no eyes. Look with thine ears: see how yond justice rails upon yon simple thief. Hark, in thine ear: change places; and, handy-dandy, which is the justice, which is the thief? 

Thyself shall see the act; For, as thou urgest justice, be assured Thou shalt have justice, more than thou desir’st. 

Take but degree away, untune that string, and hark, what discord follows! 

I thank God I am not a woman, to be touched in so many giddy offences as He hath generally taxed their whole their whole sex withal. 

Love, whose month is ever May, Spied a blossom passing fair, Playing in the wanton air: Through the velvet leaves the wind, All unseen can passage find; That the lover, sick to death, Wish’d himself the heaven’s breath. 

To persist in doing wrong extenuates not the wrong, but makes it much more heavy. 

Sweet recreation barred, what doth ensue but moody and dull melancholy, kinsman to grim and comfortless despair. 

Experience teacheth that resolution is a sole help in need. 

All pity choked with custom of fell deeds. 

The undeserver may sleep when the man of action is called on. 

Were it good To set the exact wealth of all our states All at one cast? to set so rich a main On the nice hazard of one doubtful hour? It were not good. 

That England, that was wont to conquer others, Hath made a shameful conquest of itself. 

It is certain that either wise bearing or ignorant carriage is caught as men take diseases, one of another. 

They say, the tongues of dying men Enforce attention, like deep harmony; Where words are scarce, they’re seldom spent in vain; For they breathe truth, that breathe their words in pain. 

Faint heart never won fair maid. 

Though justice be thy plea consider this, that in the course of justice none of us should see salvation. 

The past is prologue. 

A pal is one that is aware you while you are, understands where you have already been, accepts whatever you are becoming, and continue to, carefully means that you can develop. 

Gentle and low, an excellent thing in woman. 

Let us kill all lawyers 

We are such stuff that dreams are made of. 

Such thanks as fits a king’s remembrance. 

Give me a bowl of wine, In this I bury all unkindness. 

O hell! to choose love with another’s eye. 

Free from gross passion or of mirth or anger 

Lend less than you owe. 

Beauty within itself should not be wasted. 

Temptation: the fiend at my elbow. 

Knit your hearts with an unslipping knot. 

If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me. 

Honour travels in a strait so narrow Where one but goes abreast. 

In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt But, being seasoned with a gracious voice, Obscures the show of evil. 

Profit is a blessing, if it’s not stolen. 

Why, who cries out on pride that can therein tax any private party? Doth it not flow as hugely as the sea till the weary very means do ebb? 

What can be happier than for a man, conscious of virtuous acts, and content with liberty, to despise all human affairs? 

If the masses can love without knowing why, they also hate without much foundation. 

So curses all Eve’s daughters of what complexion soever. 

Ay; beauty’s princely majesty is such, Confounds the tongue and makes the senses rough. 

He that is truly dedicated to war hath no self-love 

Preferred three hours quicker over one moment late. 

Love is blind, it stops lovers seeing the silly things they do. 

She is a woman, therefore to be won. 

For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground, and tell sad stories of the death of kings… All murdered; for within the hollow crown that rounds the mortal temples of a king, keeps Death his court… and with a little pin bores through his castle wall, and farewell king! 

I was a coward on instinct. 

Perseverance, my dear Lord. Keeps honour bright. 

Bell, book and candle shall not drive me back When gold and silver becks me to come on. 

Conscience is but a word that cowards use, Devis’d at first to keep the strong in awe. 

I would I could not think it: that thought is bounty’s foe; Being free itself, it thinks all others so. 

Though authority be a stubborn bear, yet he is oft led by the nose with gold. 

Much is the force of heaven-bred poesy. 

Narcissus so himself himself forsook, And died to kiss his shadow in the brook. 

He that is thy friend indeed, he will help you in your need. 

Every great drama has its foreshadow. 

Nothing is so common as the wish to be remarkable.(attributed to) 

This England never did, nor never shall, Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror, But when it first did help to wound itself. Now these her princes are come home again, Come the three corners of the world in arms, And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue, If England to itself do rest but true. 

In the modesty of fearful duty, I read as much as from the rattling tongue of saucy and audacious eloquence. 

I am in blood Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more,Returning were as tedious as go oer. 

That, if then I had waked after a long sleep, will make me sleep again; and then, in dreaming, the clouds me thought would open and show riches ready to drop upon me; that, when I waked I cried to dream again. 

Oh, what a bitter thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes. 

Bow, stubborn knees! 

To climb steep hills requires slow pace at first. 

My fairy lord, this must be done with haste, For night’s swift dragons cut the clouds full fast, And yonder shines Aurora’s harbinger; At whose approach ghosts, wand’ring here and there, Troop home to churchyards; damned spirit all, That in crossways and floods have burial, Already to their wormy beds are gone. 

This fellow pecks up wit, as pigeons pease, And utters it again when God doth please. 

The gates of monarchs Are arched so high that giants may jet through And keep their impious turbans on without Good morrow to the sun. 

See you now – Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth, And thus do we of wisdom and of reach, With windlasses and with assays of bias, By indirections find directions out. 

Have I not hideous death within my view, Retaining but a quantity of life, Which bleeds away, even as a form of wax Resolveth from his figure ‘gainst the fire? 

A withered hermit, five-score winters worn, Might shake off fifty, looking in her eye: Beauty doth varnish age as if new-born, And gives the crutch the cradle’s infancy. O, ’tis the sun that maketh all things shine! 

I have a good eye, uncle; I can see a church by daylight. 

I am an humble suitor to your virtues; For pity is the virtue of the law, And none but tyrants use it cruelly. 

O, I were damn’d beneath all depth in hell But that I did proceed upon just grounds To this extremity. 

Every man can master a grief but he that has it. 

Some devils ask but the parings of one’s nail, A rush, a hair, a drop of blood, a pin, A nut, a cherry stone; But she, more covetous, would have a chain. Master, be wise; and if you give it her, The devil will shake her chain and fright us with it. 

Nothing can we call our own but death, and that small model of the barren earth which serves as paste and cover to our bones. 

All, with one consent, praise newborn gauds, though they are made and moulded of things past. 

Run, run, Orlando, carve on every tree The fair, the chaste, and unexpressive she. 

Falstaff sweats to death, and lards the lean earth as he walks along. 

Behold, my lords. Although the print be little, the whole matter And copy of the father – eye, nose, lip, The trick of’s frown, his forehead, nay, the valley, The pretty dimples of his chin and cheek, his smiles, The very mould and frame of hand, nail, finger. 

Beware of entrance to a quarrel; but, being in, bear it, that the opposer may beware of thee. 

And then I stole all courtesy from heaven, And dressed myself in such humility That I did pluck allegiance from men’s hearts, Loud shouts and salutations from their mouths Even in the presence of the crowned king. 

Who worse than a physician Would this report become? But I consider By med’cine life may be prolonged, yet death Will seize the doctor too. How ended she? 

Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in Venice: but his reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff; you seek all day ere you find them; and when you have them, they are not worth the search. 

Now begin; For look where Beatrice, like a lapwing runs Close by the ground, to hear our conference. 

It so falls out That what we have we prize not to the worth Whiles we enjoy it; but being lacked and lost, Why, then we rack the value. 

It must be so, for miracles are ceased And therefore we must needs admit the means How things are perfected. 

That, like an eagle in a dovecote, I Fluttered your Volscians in Corioles. 

Awake remembrance of these valiant dead, And with your puissant arm renew their feats. You are their heir; you sit upon their throne; The blood and courage that renowned them Runs in your veins; and my thrice-puissant liege Is in the very May-morn of his youth, Ripe for exploits and mighty enterprises. 

I am one… whom the foul blows… Have so incensed, that I am reckless what I do to spite the world. And I another, So weary with disaster, tugg’d with fortune, That I would set my life on any chance To mend it, or be rid of it. 

Angelo, There is a kind of character in thy life, That to th’ observer doth thy history Fully unfold. 

Lords, knights and gentlemen, what I should say My tears gainsay; for every word I speak, Ye see I drink the water of my eye. 

Though justice be thy plea, consider this, that in the course of justice none of us should see salvation. We do pray for mercy; and that same prayer doth teach us all to render the deeds of mercy. 

And his chin new reaped, Showed like a stubble land at harvest home. 

Yet these fixed evils sit so fit in him That they take place when virtue’s steely bones Looks bleak i’ th’ cold wind; withal, full oft we see Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly. 

I told you, sir, they were redhot with drinking; So full of valor that they smote the air For breathing in their faces, beat the ground, For kissing of their feet; yet always bending Towards their project. 

Still as the peaceful walks of ancient night; silent as are the lamps that burn on tombs. 

But her’s, which through the crystal tears gave light, Shone like the moon in water seen by night. 

Never give her o’er; For scorn at first makes after-love the more. If she do frown, ’tis not in hate of you, But rather to beget more love in you; If she do chide, ’tis not to have you gone, For why, the fools are mad if left alone. 

O train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note, To drown me in thy sister’s flood of tears! 

The little dogs and all, Tray, Blanch, and Sweetheart – see, they bark at me. 

He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one; Exceeding wise, fair-spoken, and persuading; Lofty and sour to them that lov’d him not; But to those men that sought him sweet as summer. 

If yon bethink yourself of any crime Unreconcil’d as yet to heaven and grace, Solicit for it straight. 

Tis pity bounty had not eyes behind, That man might ne’er be wretched for his mind. 

Proud prelate, in thy face I see thy fury. If I longer stay, We shall begin our ancient bickerings. 

Methought I heard a voice cry ‘Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep’- the innocent sleep, Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care, The death of each day’s life, sore labor’s bath, Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course, Chief nourisher in life’s feast. 

An old man, broken with the storms of state, Is come to lay his weary bones among ye; Give him a little earth for charity! 

He is no man on whom perfections wait, That, knowing sin within, will touch the gate. 

Tis the sport to have the engineer Hoist with his own petar. 

Madam, an hour before the worshipped sun Peered forth the golden window of the East, A troubled mind drave me to walk abroad; Where, underneath the grove of sycamore That westward rooteth from this city side, So early walking did I see your son. 

War ‘twixt you twain would be as if the world should cleave, and that slain men should solder up the rift. 

Rashly, And praised be rashness for it – let us know, Our indiscretion sometime serves us well When our deep plots do pall, and that should learn us There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough 

Lowliness is young ambition’s ladder, Whereto the climber-upward turns his face; And when he once obtains the upmost round, He then unto the ladder turns his back, Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees By which he did ascend. 

I prithee take the cork out of thy mouth, that I may drink thy tidings. 

Let me not burst in ignorance, but tell Why thy canonized bones, hearsed in death, Have burst their cerements, why the sepulchre Wherein we saw thee quietly interred Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws To cast thee up again. 

Slander’d to death by villains, That dare as well answer a man indeed As I dare take a serpent by the tongue: Boys, apes, braggarts, Jacks, milksops! 

We cannot weigh our brother with ourself: Great men may jest with saints: ’tis wit in them, But in the less foul profanation. 

Be large in mirth; anon we’ll drink a measure The table round. 

Thou slave, thou wretch, thou coward! Thou little valiant, great in villainy! Thou ever strong upon the stronger side! Thou Fortune’s champion, that dost never fight But where her humorous ladyship is by To teach thee safety. 

The pleasantest angling is to see the fish cut with her golden oars the silver stream, and greedily devour the treacherous bait. 

There is no creature loves me; And if I die, no soul will pity me. 

Princes have but their titles for their glories, An outward honor for an inward toil; And, for unfelt imaginations, They often feel a world of restless cares. 

There’s some ill planet reigns. I must be patient till the heavens look With an aspect more favorable. 

The moon, the governess of floods, pale in her anger, washes all the air that rheumatic diseases do abound; and, through this distemperature, we see the seasons alter. 

Whether I live or die, be you the sons Of worthy Frenchmen. Let Higher Italy (Those bated that inherit but the fall Of the last monarchy) see that you come Not to woo honor, but to wed it, when The bravest questant shrinks: find what you seek, That fame may cry you loud. I say, farewell. 

Well, thus we play the fools with the time, and the spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us. 

Wouldst thou have that Which thou esteem’st the ornament of life, And live a coward in thine own esteem, Letting ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would,’ Like the poor cat i’ th’ adage? 

We should profane the service of the dead To sing a requiem and such rest to her As to peace-parted souls. 

Just, just! and the men do sympathize with the mastiffs in robustious and rough coming on, leaving their wits with their wives; and then give them great meals of beef and iron and steel, they will eat like wolves and fight like devils. 

Tis a vile thing to die, my gracious lord, When men are unprepared and look not for it. 

He that of greatest works is finisher Oft does them by the weakest minister. So holy writ in babes hath judgment shown When judges have been babes; great floods have flown From simple sources, and great seas have dried When miracles have by the greatest been denied. 

Yet will she blush, here be it said, To bear her secrets so bewrayed. 

In those holy fields, Over whose acres walk’d those blessed feet Which, fourteen hundred years ago, were nail’d For our advantage on the bitter cross. 

Cupid is a knavish lad Thus to make poor females mad. 

I am known to be a humorous patrician, and one that loves a cup of hot wine with not a drop of allaying Tiber in’t; said to be something imperfect in favoring the first complaint; hasty and tinder-like upon too trivial motion; one that converses more with the buttock of the night than with the forehead of the morning. 

Let but the commons hear this testament, Which (pardon me) I do not mean to read, And they would go and kiss dead Caesar’s wounds And dip their napkins in his sacred blood; Yea, beg a hair of him for memory, And dying, mention it within their wills, Bequeathing it as a rich legacy Upon their issue. 

How slow This old moon wanes! she lingers my desires, Like to a stepdame, or a dowager, Long withering out a young man’s revenue. 

Round-hoofed, short-jointed, fetlocks shag and long, Broad breast, full eye, small head, and nostril wide, High crest, short ears, straight legs and passing strong, Thin mane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender hide: Look what a horse should have he did not lack, Save a proud rider on so proud a back. 

The crickets sing, and man’s over-labored sense repairs itself by rest. 

And all the gods go with you! I upon your sword Sit laurel victory; and smooth success Be strew’d before your feet. 

As in a theatre the eyes of men, After a well-graced actor leaves the stage, Are idly bent on him that enters next, Thinking his prattle to be tedious, Even so, or with much more contempt, men’s eyes Did scowl on gentle Richard. 

Women are not In their best fortunes strong, but want will perjure the ne’er-touched vestal. 

I’ll make death love me; for I will contend Even with his pestilent scythe. 

So quick bright things come to confusion. 

Hast any philosophy in thee shepherd? . . . . He that wants money, means and content, is without three good friends; that the property of rain is to wet and fire to burn; that good pasture makes fat sheep, and a great cause of the night is lack of the sun; that he that hath learned no wit by nature nor art may complain of good breeding or comes of a very dull kindred. 

Hast any philosophy in thee shepherd? . . . . He that wants money, means and content, is without three good friends; that the property of rain is to wet and fire to burn; that good pasture makes fat sheep, and a great cause of the night is lack of the sun; that he that hath learned no wit by nature nor art may complain of good breeding or comes of a very dull kindred. 

Thus may poor fools Belive false teachers. 

Oh what fools we mortals are. 

Taste your legs, sire: put them into motion. 

O England! Model to thy inward greatness, like little body with a might heart. 

Words spoken can not be recalled so think twice before you speak. 

It’s easy for someone to joke about scars if they’ve never been cut. 

Sleep knits up the raveled sleeve of care. 

They may seize On the white wonder of dear Juliet’s hand And steal immortal blessing from her lips, Who, even in pure and vestal modesty, Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin. 

Love runs away from those chasing her, and those who run away, she throws herself on his neck. 

No stony bulwark can resist the love, and love dares what anyone can love. 

Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them Printing their proud hoofs i’ the receiving earth. 

Crabbed age and youth cannot live together: Youth is full of pleasure, age is full of care 

Ill deeds are doubled with an evil word. 

Mine honour is my life; both grow in one; take honour from me and my life is done. 

This England never did, nor never shall, Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror. 

This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise, This fortress built by Nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war, This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall Or as a moat defensive to a house, Against the envy of less happier lands,- This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England. 

But miserable most, to love unloved? This you should pity rather than despise. 

Sweet are the uses of adversity, Which like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head; And this our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything. 

While you live tell truth and shame the devil. 

Though fortunes malice overthrow my state, my mind exceeds the compass of her wheel. 

The sense of death is most in apprehension; and the poor beetle, that we tread upon, in corporal sufferance feels a pang as great as when a giant dies. 

She cannot love, nor take no shape nor project or affection, she is so self-endeared. 

If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark. 

Have you not heard it said full oft, a woman’s nay doth stand for naught. 

This is the excellent foppery of the world, that when we are sick in fortune (often the surfeits of our own behaviour) we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and stars: as if we were villains on necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treacherous by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on. An admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition on the charge of a star! 

Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus. Our bodies are our gardens to which our wills are gardeners. 

Beauty itself doth of itself persuade The eyes of men without orator. 

Time’s glory is to command contending kings, To unmask falsehood, and bring truth to light. 

On a day – alack the day! – Love, whose month is ever May, Spied a blossom passing fair Playing in the wanton air 

I gyve unto my wief my second best bed with the furniture 

Good frend for Jesus sake forbeare To digg the dust encloased heare Blese be the man that spares these stones And curst be he that moves my bones 

A wretched soul, bruised with adversity, We bid be quiet when we hear it cry; But were we burdened with like weight of pain, As much or more we should ourselves complain. 

Action is eloquence. 

And thus I clothe my naked villainy With old odd ends, stol’n forth of holy writ; And seem a saint, when most I play the devil. 

Assume a virtue, if you have it not. 

Free from gross passion or of mirth or anger constant in spirit, not swerving with the blood, garnish’d and deck’d in modest compliment, not working with the eye without the ear, and but in purged judgement trusting neither? Such and so finely bolted didst thou seem. 

Glory is like a circle in the water, Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself, Till by broad spreading it disperses to naught. 

God bless thee; and put meekness in thy mind, love, charity, obedience, and true duty! 

His life was gentle; and the elements So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up, And say to all the world, THIS WAS A MAN! 

How poor are they who have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees. 

How use doth breed a habit in a man! This shadowy desert, unfrequented woods, I better brook than flourishing peopled towns. 

I am not bound to please thee with my answers. 

I hate ingratitude more in a man than lying, vainness, babbling, drunkenness, or any taint of vice whose strong corruption inhabits our frail blood. 

I pray thee cease thy counsel, Which falls into mine ears as profitless as water in a sieve. 

I wish you well and so I take my leave, I Pray you know me when we meet again. 

In a false quarrel there is no true valour. 

In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man As modest stillness and humility; But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger: Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood. 

It is not enough to help the feeble up, but to support him after. 

Lady you bereft me of all words, Only my blood speaks to you in my veins, And there is such confusion in my powers. 

Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, So do our minutes hasten to their end; Each changing place with that which goes before, In sequent toil all forwards do contend. 

My words fly up, my thoughts remain below. Words without thoughts never to heaven go. 

Our bodies are our gardens to which our wills are gardeners. 

Pity is the virtue of the law, and none but tyrants use it cruelly. 

Praising what is lost makes the remembrance dear. 

Suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special observance, that you o’erstep not the modesty of nature. 

Sweet are the uses of adversity, which, like a toad, though ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in its head. 

The sands are number’d that make up my life. 

The soul of this man is in his clothes. 

Their understanding Begins to swell and the approaching tide Will shortly fill the reasonable shores That now lie foul and muddy. 

Thou art all the comfort, The Gods will diet me with. 

Though I am not naturally honest, I am so sometimes by chance. 

When griping grief the heart doth wound, and doleful dumps the mind oppresses, then music, with her silver sound, with speedy help doth lend redress. 

For aught that I could ever read, Could ever hear by tale or history, The course of true love never did run smooth. 

My salad days, When I was green in judgment. 

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale Her infinite variety. 

Since Cleopatra died, I have liv’d in such dishonour that the gods Detest my baseness. 

Hereafter, in a better world than this, I shall desire more love and knowledge of you. 

The little foolery that wise men have makes a great show. 

I met a fool i’ the forest, A motley fool. 

True is it that we have seen better days. 

No, ’tis slander, Whose edge is sharper than the sword, whose tongue Outvenoms all the worms of Nile, whose breath Rides on the posting winds, and doth belie All corners of the world. 

A little more than kin, and less than kind. 

Beware Of entrance to a quarrel; but being in, Bear’t that the opposed may beware of thee. Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice; Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment. Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, But not express’d in fancy; rich, not gaudy; For the apparel oft proclaims the man. 

But to my mind, though I am native here And to the manner born, it is a custom More honoured in the breach than the observance. 

Leave her to heaven And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge, To prick and sting her. 

The play’s the thing Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king. 

Though this be madness, yet there is method in it. 

What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! 

Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery, go. 

O, woe is me, To have seen what I have seen, see what I see! 

Hamlet: Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in shape of a camel? Polonius: By the mass, and ’tis like a camel, indeed. Hamlet: Methinks it is like a weasel. Polonius: It is backed like a weasel. Hamlet: Or like a whale? Polonius: Very like a whale. 

O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven; It hath the primal eldest curse upon ‘t, A brother’s murder. 

For ’tis the sport to have the engineer Hoist with his own petard… 

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now; your gambols, your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? Quite chap-fallen? Now get you to my lady’s chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come. 

Now cracks a noble heart. Good night sweet prince: And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest! 

The rest is silence. 

But, for my own part, it was Greek to me. 

Let me have men about me that are fat, Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o’ nights: Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look; He thinks too much: such men are dangerous. 

Cry Havoc, and let slip the dogs of war. 

How many ages hence Shall this our lofty scene be acted over In states unborn and accents yet unknown! 

For Brutus is an honourable man; So are they all, all honourable men. 

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones. 

If all the year were playing holidays, To sport would be as tedious as to work. 

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our English dead! In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man As modest stillness and humility; But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger: Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood. 

There is occasions and causes why and wherefore in all things. 

And many strokes, though with a little axe, Hew down and fell the hardest-timbered oak. 

T is better to be lowly born, And range with humble livers in content, Than to be perked up in a glistering grief, And wear a golden sorrow. 

Nothing will come of nothing. 

The worst is not So long as we can say, This is the worst. 

The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices Make instruments to plague us. 

An honest tale speeds best, being plainly told. 

True hope is swift, and flies with swallow’s wings; Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings. 

A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse! 

A man in all the world’s new fashion planted, That hath a mint of phrases in his brain. 

And oftentimes, to win us to our harm, The instruments of darkness tell us truths, Win us with honest trifles, to betray’s In deepest consequence. 

Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible To feeling as to sight? or art thou but A dagger of the mind, a false creation, Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain? 

By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes. Open, locks, Whoever knocks! 

Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble. 

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day To the last syllable of recorded time, And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. 

Lay on, Macduff, And damn’d be him that first cries, Hold, enough! 

They say, best men are moulded out of faults, And, for the most, become much more the better For being a little bad. 

What’s mine is yours, and what is yours is mine. 

Friendship is constant in all other things Save in the office and affairs of love: Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues; Let every eye negotiate for itself And trust no agent. 

Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were but little happy, if I could say how much. 

I will wear my heart upon my sleeve For daws to peck at. 

I am not merry; but I do beguile The thing I am, by seeming otherwise. 

Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul, But I do love thee! and when I love thee not, Chaos is come again. 

Good name in man and woman, dear my lord, Is the immediate jewel of their souls: Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis something, nothing; ‘Twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands; But he that filches from me my good name Robs me of that which not enriches him And makes me poor indeed. 

He that is robb’d, not wanting what is stolen, Let him not know ‘t, and he’s not robb’d at all. 

O, beware, my lord, of jealousy! It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock The meat it feeds on. 

O, now, for ever Farewell the tranquil mind! farewell content! Farewell the plumed troop and the big wars That make ambition virtue! O, farewell! Farewell the neighing steed and the shrill trump, The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife, The royal banner, and all quality, Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war! And, O you mortal engines, whose rude throats The immortal Jove’s dread clamours counterfeit, Farewell! Othello’s occupation’s gone! 

Speak to me as to thy thinkings, As thou dost ruminate, and give thy worst of thoughts The worst of words. 

I understand a fury in your words, But not the words. 

Tis neither here nor there. 

O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo? 

This bud of love, by summer’s ripening breath, May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet. 

A plague o’ both your houses! 

We burn daylight. 

Why, then the world’s mine oyster, Which I with sword will open. 

This is the third time; I hope good luck lies in odd numbers…. There is divinity in odd numbers, either in nativity, chance, or death. 

No profit grows where is no pleasure ta’en; In brief, sir, study what you most affect. 

Come unto these yellow sands, And then take hands: Courtsied when you have, and kiss’d The wild waves whist. 

From the still-vexed Bermoothes. 

Full fathom five thy father lies; Of his bones are coral made; Those are pearls that were his eyes: Nothing of him that doth fade But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange. 

I, thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated To closeness and the bettering of my mind. 

Like one Who having into truth, by telling of it, Made such a sinner of his memory, To credit his own lie. 

My library Was dukedom large enough. 

The fringed curtains of thine eye advance. 

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. 

What seest thou else In the dark backward and abysm of time? 

A kind Of excellent dumb discourse. 

Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits, and Are melted into air, into thin air: And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on; and our little life Is rounded with a sleep. 

Merrily, merrily shall I live now, Under the blossom that hangs on the bough. 

Where the bee sucks, there suck I; In a cowslip’s bell I lie. 

O, how this spring of love resembleth The uncertain glory of an April day! 

O jest unseen, inscrutable, invisible, As a nose on a man’s face, or a weathercock on a steeple. 

That man that hath a tongue, I say, is no man, If with his tongue he cannot win a woman. 

What’s gone and what’s past help Should be past grief. 

The end crowns all, And that old common arbitrator, Time, Will one day end it. 

Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend; And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry [economy]. 

The better part of valor is discretion, in the which better part I have saved my life. 

Have more than thou showest; Speak less than thou knowest. 

Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently. For in the very torrent, tempest, and as I may say, whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. 

Love lacked a dwelling, and made him her place; And when in his fair parts she did abide, She was lodged and newly deified. 

Vows were ever brokers to defiling. 

O, then, what graces in my love do dwell, that he hath turn’d a heaven unto hell! 

The moon, like to a silver bow, new-bent in heaven. 

Things base and vile, holding no quantity, love can transpose to form and dignity. 

All fancy-sick she is and pale of cheer, with sighs of love, that costs the fresh blood dear. 

Sleep, that sometimes shuts up sorrow’s eye, steal me awhile from mine own company. 

But wonder on, till truth makes all things plain. 

In the night, imagining some fear, how easy is a bush suppos’d a bear! 

Be check’d for silence, but never tax’d for speech. 

The hind that would be mated by the lion must die for love. 

What power is it which mounts my love so high, that makes me see, and cannot feed mine eye? 

Let me not live, after my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff of younger spirits. 

There is no fettering of authority. 

Oft expectations fails, and most oft there Where most it promises; and oft it hits Where hope is coldest, and despair most fits. 

I have wedded her, not bedded her; and sworn to make the ‘not’ eternal. 

When valour preys on reason, it eats the sword it fights with. 

There’s beggary in the love that can be reckon’d. 

My salad days, when I was green in judgement, cold in blood. 

By this marriage, all little jealousies, which now seem great, and all great fears, which now import their dangers would then be nothing. 

Be it art or hap, he hath spoken true. 

Though it be honest, it is never good to bring bad news: give to a gracious message an host of tongues; but let ill tidings tell themselves when they be felt. 

The ostentation of our love, which, left unshown, is often left unloved. 

There is left us ourselves to end ourselves. 

Is it sin to rush into the secret house of death, ere death dare come to us? 

Wishers were ever fools. 

O sovereign mistress of true melancholy. 

Those that she makes fair she scarce makes honest; and those that she makes honest she makes very ill-favouredly. 

Thou art not for the fashion of these times, where none will sweat but for promotion. 

Under the greenwood tree who loves to lie with me… Here shall he see no enemy but winter and rough weather. 

And so from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe, and then, from hour to hour,we rot and rot; and thereby hangs a tale. 

My age is as a lusty winter, frosty, but kindly. 

I thank God I am not a woman, to be touched in so many giddy offences as He hath generally taxed their whole sex withal. 

In the spring time, the only pretty ring time, when birds do sing… sweet lovers love the spring. 

Though thou speak’st truth, methink thou speak’st not well. 

If they love they know not why, they hate upon no better ground, they hate upon no better a ground. 

Ingratitude is monstrous, and for the multitude to be ingrateful, were to make a monster of the multitude. 

The beast with many heads butts me away. 

The moon of Rome, chaste as the icicle that’s curded by the frost from purest snow. 

O sleep, thou ape of death, lie dull upon her and be her sense but as a monument, thus in a chapel lying. 

Golden lads and girls all must, as chimney-sweepers come to dust. 

Love’s reason’s without reason. 

He that sleeps feels not the tooth-ache. 

The moist star, upon whose influence Neptune’s empire stands. 

O, that this too too solid flesh would melt, Thaw and resolve itself into a dew! Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter! O God! God! How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable Seem to me all the uses of this world! 

Best safety lies in fear. 

But to my mind, though I am native here and to the manner born, it is a custom more honour’d in breach than the observance. 

What may this mean, that thou, dead corse, again, in complete steel revisit’st thus the glimpses of the moon? 

An old man is twice a child. 

Doubt that the stars are fire; Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love. 

I hold ambition of so light a quality that is is but a shadow’s shadow. 

Conscience does make cowards of us all, and thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought. 

Madness in great ones must not unwatch’d go. 

Purpose is but the slave to memory, of violent birth, but poor validity. 

The glass of fashion and the mould of form 

The undiscover’d country from whose bourn no traveller returns, puzzles the will, and makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of? 

Give me that man that is not passion’s slave, and I will wear him in my hearts core. 

This world is not for aye, nor ’tis not strange That even our loves should with our fortunes change. For ’tis a question left us yet to prove, Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love. 

Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear; where little fear grows great, great love grows there. 

Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper sprinkle cool patience. 

A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm. 

He’s loved of the distracted multitude, who like not in their judgement, but their eyes. 

A thought which, quarter’d, hath but one part wisdom and ever three parts coward. 

Sure, he that made us with such large discourse, looking before and after, gave us not that capability and god-like reason to fust in us unus’d. 

What is a man, if his chief good and market of his time be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more. 

Love is begun by time; and that I see in passages of proof, time qualifies the spark and fire of it. There lives within the very flame of love a kind of wick or snuff that will abate it. 

How absolute the knave is! we must speak by the card, or equivocation will undo us. 

Let Hercules himself do what he may, the cat will mew, and dog will have his day. 

He will give the devil his due. 

The fortune of us that are the moon’s men doth ebb and flow like the sea, being governed, as the sea is, by the moon. 

I do not speak to thee in drink but in tears, not in pleasure but in passion, not in words only, but in woes also. 

The better part of valour is discretion. 

But thought’s the slave of life, and life time’s fool. 

O sleep, O gentle sleep, nature’s soft nurse, how have I frighted thee, that thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down, and steep my senses in forgetfulness. 

Thy wish was father… to that thought. 

The old folk, time’s doting chronicles. 

Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin as self-neglecting. 

As many arrows, loosed several ways, come to one mark… so may a thousand actions, once afoot, end in one purpose. 

If wishes would prevail with me, my purpose should not fail with me. 

Men of few words are the best men. 

Do not cast away an honest man for a villain’s accusation. 

Virtue is choked with foul ambition. 

Tis beauty that doth oft make women proud; but, God He knows, thy share thereof is small. 

Though I want a kingdom, yet in marriage I may not prove inferior to yourself. 

Trust not him that has once broken faith. 

Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind; the thief doth fear each bush an officer. 

I know myself know; and I feel within me a peace above all earthly dignities, a still and quiet conscience. 

O that a man might know the end of this day’s business ere it come! 

His life was gentle, and the elements so mix’d in him that Nature might stand up and say to all the world ‘This was a man! 

Men at some time are the masters of their fates: The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings. 

The common herd. 

So every bondman in his own hand bears the power to cancel his captivity. 

I have a man’s mind, but a woman’s might. 

Lowliness is young ambition’s ladder, Whereto the climber-upward turns his face; But when he once attains the upmost round, He then unto the ladder turns his back, Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees By which he did ascend 

I am constant as the northern star, of whose true fix’d and resting quality there is no fellow in the firmament. 

When love begins to sicken and decay, it useth an enforced ceremony. 

He is the half part of a blessed man, Left to be finished by such as she; And she a fair divided excellence, Whose fulness of perfection lies in him. 

To gild refined gold, to paint the lily… is wasteful and ridiculous excess 

How far your eyes may pierce, i cannot tell; striving to better, oft we mar what’s well. 

Fortune, that arrant whore, ne’er turns the key to the poor. 

We are not ourselves when nature, being oppress’d, commands the mind to suffer with the body. 

I am a man more sinn’d against than sinning. 

Were such things here as we do speak about? Or have we eaten on the insane root that takes the reason prisoner? 

Distribution should undo excess, and each man have enough. 

Matter and impertinency mix’d! Reason in madness! 

By heaven, I do love: and it hath taught me to rhyme, and to be mekancholy. 

[Marriage is] a world-without-end bargain. 

Where nothing wants that want itself doth seek. 

Your face, my thane, is as a book where men May read strange matters… 

But ’tis strange and oftentimes, to win us to our harm, the instruments of darkness tell us truths, win us with honest trifles, to betray’s in deepest consequence. 

But screw your courage to the sticking-place, and we’ll not fail. 

I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself, and falls on the other. 

If it were done, when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly. 

Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible to feelings as to sight? 

Methought I heard a voice cry, Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep!- the innocent sleep. 

Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care, the death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath, balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course, chief nourisher in life’s feast. 

Shake off this downy sleep, death’s counterfeit, and look on death itself. 

The expedition of my violent love outrun the pauser, reason. 

There’s daggers in men’s smiles. 

[Drink] provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance. 

Tis much he dares; and, to that dauntless temper of his mind, he hath a wisdom that doth guide his valour to act in safety. 

His flight was madness: when our actions do not, our fears do make us traitors. 

There’s no bottom, none, in my voluptuousness: Your wives, your daughters, your matrons and your maids, could not fill up the cistern of my lust. 

A great perturbation in nature, to receive at once the benefit of sleep and do the effects of watching! 

Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow… And with some sweet oblivious antidote Cleanse the stuff’d bosom of that perilous stuff Which weighs upon the heart? 

Blow, wind! Come, wrack! At least we’ll die with harness on our back. 

O, it is excellent to have a giant’s strength; but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant. 

Mercy is not itself, that oft looks so 

We must not make a scarecrow of the law, setting it up to fear the birds of prey, and let it keep one shape, till custom make it their perch and not their terror. 

Condemn the fault, and not the actor of it? 

No ceremony that to great ones ‘longs, not the king’s crown, nor the deputed sword, the marshal’s truncheon, nor the judge’s robe, become them with one half so good a grace as mercy does. 

The miserable have no other medicine, but only hope. 

There is a devilish mercy in the judge, if you’ll implore it, that will free your life, but fetter you till death. 

Thou hast nor youth nor age, but, as it were, an after-dinner’s sleep, dreaming on both. 

Though music oft hath such a charm to make bad good, and good provoke to harm. 

Her madness hath the oddest frame of sense, such a dependency of thing on thing, as e’er I heard in madness. 

Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more, Men were decievers ever,- One foot in the sea and one on shore, To one thing constant never. 

Fetter strong madness in a silken thread. 

You shall more command with years than with your weapons. 

O God, that man should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains! 

Oh, I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial. 

O curse of marriage, that we can call these delicate creatures ours, and not their appetites. 

Poor and content is rich, and rich enough; but riches fineless is as poor as winter to him that ever that ever fears he shall be poor. 

Weighest thy words before thou givest them breath. 

Had it pleas’d heaven to try me with affliction… I should have found in some place of my soul a drop of patience. 

It is the very error of the moon: She comes more nearer earth than she was wont, and makes men mad. 

Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice: Then must you speak of one that loved not wisely but too well. 

The purest treasure mortal times afford is spotless reputation; that away, men are but gilded loam or painted clay. 

They breathe truth that breathe their words in pain. 

To fear the foe, since fear oppresseth strength, gives in your weakness strength unto your foe. 

Gardener, for telling me these news of woe, pray God the plants thou graft’st may never grow. 

Talkers are no good doers; be assur’d we come to use our hands and not our tongues. 

Now is the winter of our discontent Made glorious summer by this son of York, And all the clouds that loured upon our house In the deep bosom of the ocean buried. 

The sweetest honey Is loathsome in his own deliciousness And in the taste confounds the appetite. 

O, she is rich in beauty, only poor that, when she dies, with beauty dies her store. 

Show me a mistress that is passing fair, what doth her beauty serve but as a note where I may read who pass’d that passing fair? 

Women being the weaker vessels, are ever thrust to the walls. 

Is love a tender thing? It is too rough, too rude, too boist’rous, and it pricks like a thorn. 

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun! Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, Who is already sick and pale with grief, That thou her maid are far more fair than she. 

My bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love love as deep; the more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite. 

Swear not by the moon, th’ inconstant moon, that monthly changes in her circled orb, lest that thy love prove likewise variable. 

Care keeps his watch in every old man’s eye, And where care lodges, sleep will never lie; But where unbruised youth with unstuff’d brain Doth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth reign. 

I would forget it fain; But, O, it presses to my memory, like damned guilty deeds to a sinners mind. 

If love be blind, it best agrees with night. 

Was ever book containing such vile matter so fairly bound? O, that deceit should dwell in such a gorgeous palace! 

When he shall die, take him and cut him out in little stars, and he will make the face of heaven so fine, that all the world will be in love with night, and pay no worship to the garish sun. 

Art thou a man? thy form cries out thou art: Thy tears are womanish; thy wild acts denote The unreasonable fury of a beast: Unseemly woman in a seeming man! Or ill-beseeming beast in seeming both! 

How much more doth beauty beauteous seem by that sweet ornament which truth doth give! 

Sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds; Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds. 

And ruin’d love when it is built anew, Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater. 

I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright, Who art as black as hell, as dark as night. 

My reason, the physician to my love, angry that his prescriptions are not kept, hath left me. 

Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments: love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds. 

Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments: love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove : O, no! it is an ever fixed mark. 

Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle’s compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. 

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips’ red… I love to hear her speak, yet well I know That music hath a far more pleasing sound. 

When wasteful war shall statues overturn, And broils root out the work of masonry, Nor Mars his sword nor wars quick fire shall burn The living record of your memory. 

Winter, which, being full of care, makes summer’s welcome thrice more wish’d, more rare. 

Ruin has taught me to ruminate, That Time will come and take my love away. This thought is as a death, which cannot choose But weep to have that which it fears to lose. 

That time of year thou may’st in me behold, When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,- Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. 

This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong, to love that well which thou must leave ere long. 

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date. 

When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes… Haply I think on thee, and then my state, Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate; For thy sweet love remember’d such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings. 

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many things I sought, And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste. 

My tongue will tell the anger of mine heart, Or else my heart, concealing it, will break. 

A woman mov’d is like a fountain troubled, muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty. 

How comes it, that thou art then estranged from thyself? 

I will fasten on this sleeve of thine: thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine. 

Against my soul’s pure truth why labour you to make it wander in an unknown field? 

Belike you thought our love would last too long, if it were chain’d together. 

His reasons are as two grains of wheat his in two bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day ere you find them, and when you have them, they are not worth the search. 

I do know of these that… only are reputed wise for saying nothing. 

My ventures are not in one bottom trusted, nor to one place. 

They are as sick that surfeit with too much, as they starve with nothing. 

But love is blind and lovers cannot see The pretty follies that themselves commit; For if they could, Cupid himself would blush To see me thus transformed to a boy. 

Truth will come to light… at the length, the truth will out. 

The ancient saying is no heresy, hanging and wiving goes by destiny. 

The fool multitude, that choose by show, not learning more than the fond eye doth teach. 

Young in limbs, in judgement old. 

Look on beauty, and you shall see ’tis purchased by the weight. 

Ornament is but the guiled shore to a most dangerous sea. 

I do oppose my patience to his fury, and am arm’d to suffer with a quietness of spirit, the very tyranny and rage of his. 

The quality of mercy is not strain’d, it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. It is twice blest: It blesseth him that gives and him that takes. 

How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world. 

Their savage eyes turn’d to a modest gaze By the sweet power of music: therefore the poet Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones and floods; Since nought so stockish, hard and full of rage, But music for the time doth change his nature. The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils. 

Ask me no reason why I love you; for though Love use Reason for his physician, he admits him not for his counsellor. 

Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good; A shining gloss that vadeth suddenly; A flower that dies when first it ‘gins to bud; A brittle glass that’s broken presently: A doubtful good, a gloss, a glass, a flower, Lost, vaded, broken, dead within the hour. 

How hard it is for women to keep counsel! 

If that the world and love were young, And truth in every shepherd’s tongue, These pretty pleasures might me move To live with thee and be thy love. 

Love’s best habit is a soothing tongue. 

To be slow in words is a woman’s only virtue. 

Against love’s fire fear’s frost hath dissolution. 

It easeth some, though none it ever cured, to think their dolour others have endured. 

Love thrives not in the heart that shadows dreadeth. 

Though men can cover crimes with bold stern looks, poor women’s faces are their own faults’ books. 

Thoughts are but dreams till their effects be tried. 

Time’s glory is to calm contending kings, To unmask falsehood and bring truth to light, To stamp the seal of time in aged things, To wake the morn of sentinel the night, To wrong the wronger till he render right, To ruinate proud buildings with thy hour And smear with dust their glittering golden towers. 

Do as adversaries do in law, strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends. 

To know the cause why music was ordain’d! Was it not to refresh the mind of a man after his studies or his usual pain? 

Our purses shall be proud, our garments poor; for ’tis the mind that makes the body rich 

Call home thy ancient thoughts from banishment. 

Frame your mind to mirth and merriment, which bars a thousand harms and lengthens life. 

Where the bee sucks, there suck I: In a cowslip’s bell I lie; There I couch when owls do cry. On the bat’s back I do fly After summer merrily. Merrily, merrily shall I live now Under the blossom that hangs on the bough. 

Even as one heat another heat expels, or as one nail by strength drives out another, so the remembrance of my former love is by a newer object quite forgotten. 

Now my love is thaw’d; which, like a waxen image ‘gainst a fire, bears no impression of the thing it was. 

The chameleon Love can feed on the air. 

A merry heart goes all the day, your sad tires in a mile-a. 

The moon’s an arrant theif, and her pale fire she snatches from the sun. 

My heart suspects more than mine eye can see. 

Sorrow concealed, like an oven stopp’d, doth burn the heart to cinders where it is. 

If there were reason for these miseries, then into limits could I bind my woes. 

He takes false shadows for true substances. 

The common curse of mankind,-folly and ignorance. 

A woman impudent and mannish grown is not more loathed than an effeminate man in time of action. 

Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back Wherein he puts alms for oblivion, A great-sized monster of ingratitudes: Those scraps are good deeds past, which are devour’d As fast as they are made, forgot as soon as done. 

Time is like a fashionable host That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand, And with his arm outstretch’d, as he would fly, Grasps in the comer. 

But the strong base and building of my love is as the very centre of the earth, drawing all things to it. 

My love admits no qualifying dross. 

I can sing, and speak to him in many sorts of music. 

Present mirth hath present laughter; what’s to come is still unsure. 

Alas, their love may be call’d appetite. No motion of the liver, but the palate. 

How ever do we praise ourselves, our fancies are more giddy and uniform, more longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn, than women’s are. 

Foolery… does walk about the orb like the sun; it shines everywhere. 

Why, this is very midsummer madness. 

Bid Suspicion double-lock the door. 

Love surfeits not, Lust like a glutton dies; Love is all truth, Lust full of forged lies. 

Nature does require Her time of preservation, which perforce I her frail son amongst my brethren mortal Must give my attendance to. 

Things sweet the taste prove in digestion sour. 

Farewell! God knows when we shall meet again. I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins, that almost freezes up the heat of life. 

All days are nights to see till I see thee, And nights bright days when dreams do show thee to me. 

How like a winter hath my absence been From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year! What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen! What old December’s bareness everywhere! 

April hath put a spirit of youth in everything. 

O Lord that lends me life, Lend me a heart replete with thankfulness. 

O God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains! that we should, with joy, pleasance, revel, and applause, transform ourselves into beasts! 

Our Jovial star reigned at his birth, and in Our temple was he married. 

Oft expectation fails, and most oft there Where most it promises. 

An honour! were not I thine only nurse, I would say thou hadst suck’d wisdom from thy teat 

Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief. 

For there was never yet philosopher That could endure the toothache patiently. 

The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve; lovers to bed; ’tis almost fairy time. 

Hand in hand, with fairy grace, Will we sing, and bless this place. 

Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety. 

O! for a horse with wings! 

As hungry as the Sea, And can digest as much… 

Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak whispers the o’er-fraught heart and bids it break. 

My crown is in my heart, not in my head, Nor decked with diamonds and Indian stones, Nor to be seen; my crown is called contentment; A crown it is, that seldom kings enjoy. 

The jury, passing on the prisoner’s life, May in the sworn twelve have a thief or two Guiltier than him they try. 

Thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges. 

The day shall not be up so soon as I, To try the fair adventure of tomorrow. 

The innocent sleep, Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care… 

Give me my Romeo; and, when I shall die, Take him and cut him out in little stars, And he will make the face of heaven so fine That all the world will be in love with night And pay no worship to the garish sun. 

He plough’d her, and she cropp’d. 

Oft expectation fails, and most oft where most it promises; and oft it hits where hope is coldest; and despair most sits. 

Patch grief with proverbs; make misfortune drunk… 

I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw. 

O, she will sing the savageness out of a bear! 

Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course, Chief nourisher in life’s feast. 

O sleep, O gentle sleep, Nature’s soft nurse, how have I frighted thee, That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down And steep my sense in forgetfulness? 

Care I for the limb, the thews, the stature, bulk, and big assemblance of a man! Give me the spirit. 

Well-apparell’d April on the heel Of limping winter treads… 

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day 

…So we grew together Like to a double cherry, seeming parted, But yet an union in partition, Two lovely berries moulded on one stem… 

We came into the world like brother and brother; And now let’s go hand in hand, not one before another. 

You take my life when you do take the means whereby I live. 

Now is the winter of our discontent Made glorious summer by this sun of York. 

This weak piping time of peace. 

Talk’st thou to me of ifs! Thou art a traitor: Off with his head! 

O tiger’s heart wrapp’d in a woman’s hide! 

Kiss me, Kate, we will be married o’ Sunday. 

How long a time lies in one little word! Four lagging winters and four wanton springs End in a word: such is the breath of kings. 

There is no virtue like necessity. 

As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last, Writ in remembrance more than things long past. 

This royal throne of kings, this scept’red isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise, This fortress built by Nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war. 

Not all the water in the rough rude sea Can wash the balm off from an anointed king. 

Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs, Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth. Let’s choose executors and talk of wills. 

For God’s sake let us sit upon the ground And tell sad stories of the death of kings. 

Within the hollow crown That rounds the mortal temples of a king, Keeps death his court; and there the antick sits, Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp. 

How sour sweet music is When time is broke and no proportion kept! So is it in the music of men’s lives. 

When daisies pied and violets blue And lady-smocks all silver-white And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue Do paint the meadows with delight, The cuckoo then on every tree Mocks married men; for thus sings he: ‘Cuckoo! 

When icicles hang by the wall And Dick the shepherd blows his nail And Tom bears logs into the hall And milk comes frozen home in pail, When blood is nipped and ways be foul, Then nightly sings the staring owl: ‘Tu-whit, Tu-whoo!’ A merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. 

A pair of star-cross’d lovers. 

O then I see Queen Mab hath been with you. She is the fairies’ midwife, and she comes In shape no bigger than an agate stone. 

You and I are past our dancing days. 

It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night As a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear- Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear. 

My only love sprung from my only hate. Too early seen unknown, and known too late. 

He jests at scars that never felt a wound. But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east and Juliet is the sun! 

O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name. Or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love And I’ll no longer be a Capulet. 

Do not swear at all. Or if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self, Which is the god of my idolatry. 

It is too rash, too unadvis’d, too sudden. 

O for a falconer’s voice To lure this tassel-gentle back again. 

I am the very pink of courtesy. 

No, ’tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door, but ’tis enough, ’twill serve. 

O, I am fortune’s fool. 

Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds, Toward Phoebus’ lodging. 

Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops. 

Thank me no thankings nor proud me no prouds. 

Tempt not a desperate man. 

How oft when men are at the point of death Have they been merry! 

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is wing’d Cupid painted blind. 

Over hill, over dale, Thorough bush, thorough briar, Over park, over pale, Thorough flood, thorough fire. 

Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania. 

The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven; And as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name. 

The best in this kind are but shadows. 

Let me tell the world. 

We have heard the chimes at midnight. 

Bell, book, and candle shall not drive me back. 

To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, To throw a perfume on the violet, To smooth the ice, or add another hue Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish, Is wasteful and ridiculous excess. 

I will buy with you, sell with you, talk with you, walk with you, and so following: but I will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray with you. What news on the Rialto? 

(For suff ‘rance is the badge of all our tribe) You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog, And spet upon my Jewish gaberdine. 

My daughter! O my ducats! O my daughter! 

Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is?- if you prick us do we not bleed? if you tickle us do we not laugh? if you poison us do we not die? and if you wrong us shall we not revenge? 

I never knew so young a body with so old a head. 

Wrest once the law to your authority,- To do a great right, do a little wrong. 

A Daniel come to judgment: yea a Daniel! 

O how full of briers is this working-day world! 

Under the greenwood tree, Who loves to lie with me, And turn his merry note Unto the sweet bird’s throat, Come hither, come hither, come hither. Here shall he see No enemy, But winter and rough weather. 

At first the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms. Then, the whining school-boy with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school. 

Then, a soldier, Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honour, sudden, and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon’s mouth. 

Second childishness and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. 

Thank heaven, fasting, for a good man’s love. 

Men have died from time to time and worms have eaten them, but not for love. 

A poor virgin sir, an ill-favored thing sir, but mine own. 

Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world Like a colossus, and we petty men Walk under his huge legs and peep about To find ourselves dishonorable graves. Men at some time are masters of their fates. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars But in ourselves, that we are underlings. 

As he was valiant, I honor him: but as he was ambitious, I slew him. 

Who is here so base, that would be a bondman? If any, speak, for him have I offended…. I pause for a reply. 

But I am constant as the northern star, Of whose true-fixed and resting quality There is no fellow in the firmament. 

The choice and master spirits of this age. 

O pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth, That I am meek and gentle with these butchers. Thou art the ruins of the noblest man That ever lived in the tide of times. 

Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war. And grievously hath Caesar answered it. 

For Brutus is an honorable man; So are they all, all honorable men. 

He was my friend, faithful and just to me. 

When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept: Ambition should be made of sterner stuff. 

You all did see, that on the Lupercal I thrice presented him a kingly crown, Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition? 

O judgement, thou art fled to brutish beasts And men have lost their reason. 

But yesterday the word of Caesar might Have stood against the world. Now lies he there, And none so poor to do him reverence. 

This was the most unkindest cut of all: For when the noble Caesar saw him stab, Ingratitude, more strong than traitor’s arms, Quite vanquished him: then burst his mighty heart; And in his mantle muffling up his face, Even at the base of Pompey’s statue, Which all the while ran blood, great Caesar fell. 

O what a fall was there, my countrymen! Then I, and you, and all of us fell down, Whilst bloody treason flourished over us. 

But, as you know me all, a plain blunt man. 

For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth, Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech To stir men’s blood. I only speak right on. 

I tell you that which you yourselves do know, Show you sweet Caesar’s wounds, poor poor dumb mouths, And bid them speak for me. But were I Brutus, And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony Would ruffle up your spirits and put a tongue In every wound of Caesar that should move The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny. 

Here was a Caesar! when comes such another? 

Now let it work. Mischief, thou art afoot: Take thou what course thou wilt. 

O Julius Caesar, thou art mighty yet. Thy spirit walks abroad and turns our swords In our own proper entrails. 

This was the noblest Roman of them all: All the conspirators save only he Did that they did in envy of great Caesar. He only, in a general honest thought And common good to all, made one of them. 

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our English dead. In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man As modest stillness and humility; But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger: Stiffen the sinews, conjure up the blood, Disguise fair nature with hard-favored rage. Then lend the eye a terrible aspect. 

I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, Straining upon the start. The game’s afoot. Follow your spirit, and upon this charge Cry ‘God for Harry! England and St. George! 

And what have kings that privates have not too, Save ceremony, save general ceremony? 

This day is called the feast of Crispian. He that outlives this day and comes safe home Will stand a-tiptoe when this day is named And rouse him at the name of Crispian. 

Our names, Familiar in his mouth as household words. 

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. For he today that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile, This day shall gentle his condition. And gentlemen in England now abed Shall think themselves accursed they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day. 

Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more, Men were deceivers ever. 

Not a mouse stirring. 

In the most high and palmy state of Rome, A little ere the mightiest Julius fell, The graves stood tenantless and the sheeted dead Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets. 

And then it started like a guilty thing Upon a fearful summons. 

It faded on the crowing of the cock. Some say that ever ‘gainst that season comes Wherein our Savior’s birth is celebrated, This bird of dawning singeth all night long; And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad. 

But look, the morn in russet mantle clad Walks o’er the dew of yon high eastward hill. 

Not so, my lord, I am too much in the sun. 

O that this too too sullied flesh would melt, Thaw and resolve itself into a dew, Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter. 

So excellent a king, that was to this Hyperion to a satyr, so loving to my mother That he might not beteem the winds of heaven Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth, Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him As if increase of appetite had grown By what it fed on. 

A little month, or ere those shoes were old With which she follow’d my poor father’s body, Like Niobe, all tears-why, she- O God, a beast that wants discourse of reason Would have mourn’d longer. 

It is not, nor it cannot come to good. But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue. 

Thrift, thrift, Horatio. The funeral bak’d meats Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables. 

Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads, And recks not his own rede. 

Ay, springes to catch woodcocks. 

But to my mind, though I am native here And to the manner born, it is a custom More honor’d in the breach than the observance. 

Angels and ministers of grace defend us! 

I could a tale unfold whose lightest word Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood, Make thy two eyes like stars start from their spheres, Thy knotted and combined locks to part, And each particular hair to stand an end Like quills upon the fretful porpentine. 

Murder most foul, as in the best it is. 

O my prophetic soul! My uncle! 

My tables. Meet it is I set it down That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain. 

To put an antic disposition on. 

Rest, rest, perturbed spirit. 

O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space-were it not that I have bad dreams. 

This goodly frame the earth seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appeareth nothing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. 

What piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god: the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals-and yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me-nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so. 

The play, I remember, pleased not the million, ’twas caviare to the general. 

Use every man after his desert, and who shall scape whipping? 

O what a rogue and peasant slave am I! 

What’s Hecuba to him, or he to her, That he should weep for her? 

To be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles And by opposing end them. 

No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to: ’tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep; To sleep, perchance to dream-ay, there’s the rub: For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause-there’s the respect That makes calamity of so long life. 

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, Th’oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely, The pangs of dispriz’d love, the law’s delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of th’unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? 

Who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscover’d country, from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will, And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of? 

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprises of great pitch and moment With this regard their currents turn awry And lose the name of action. 

Nymph, in thy orisons Be all my sins remember’d. 

I have heard of your paintings well enough. God hath given you one face and you make yourselves another. 

O, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown! The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s, eye, tongue, sword. 

The glass of fashion and the mould of form, Th’observ’d of all observers, quite, quite down! 

Now see that noble and most sovereign reason Like sweet bells jangled out of tune and harsh. 

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue. 

I would have such a fellow whipped for o’erdoing Termagant. It out-Herods Herod. 

Let the galled jade wince, our withers are unwrung. 

Why, let the strucken deer go weep, The hart ungalled play; For some must watch while some must sleep, Thus runs the world away. 

You would pluck out the heart of my mystery. 

They fool me to the top of my bent. 

Now might I do it pat, now a is a-praying. And now I’ll do’t. And so a goes to heaven; And so am I reveng’d. 

How now? A rat! Dead for a ducat, dead. 

A king of shreds and patches. 

How all occasions do inform against me, And spur my dull revenge. 

Come, my coach. Good night, ladies, good night. Sweet ladies, good night, good night. 

There’s such divinity doth hedge a king That treason can but peep to what it would. 

There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance- pray you, love, remember. And there is pansies, that’s for thoughts. 

You must wear your rue with a difference. There’s a daisy. I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died. 

Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath bore me on his back a thousand times, and now-how abhorred in my imagination it is. My gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now, your gambols, your songs, your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now to mock your own grinning? Quite chop-fallen? Now get you to my lady’s chamber and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favor she must come. Make her laugh at that. 

Imperious Caesar, dead and turn’d to clay, Might stop a hole to keep the wind away. 

A minist’ring angel shall my sister be When thou liest howling. 

Sweets to the sweet. Farewell. 

Not a whit. We defy augury. There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all. 

I am more an antique Roman than a Dane. 

If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart, Absent thee from felicity awhile, And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain To tell my story. 

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. 

If music be the food of love, play on, Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die. That strain again, it had a dying fall: O, it came o’er my ear like the sweet sound That breathes upon a bank of violets, Stealing and giving odor. 

What is love? ‘Tis not hereafter, Present mirth hath present laughter: What’s to come is still unsure. In delay there lies no plenty, Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty: Youth’s a stuff will not endure. 

Dost thou think because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale? 

Let still the woman take An elder than herself; so wears she to him, So sways she level in her husband’s heart. 

Come away, come away death, And in sad cypress let me be laid. 

But be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ’em. 

When that I was and a little tiny boy, With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, A foolish thing was but a toy, For the rain it raineth every day. 

Take but degree away, untune that string, And hark what discord follows. 

To be wise and love Exceeds man’s might. 

My friends were poor, but honest. 

Man, proud man, Dress’d in a little brief authority, Most ignorant of what he’s most assur’d- His glassy essence-like an angry ape Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven As makes the angels weep. 

Thou hast nor youth, nor age, But as it were an after-dinner’s sleep Dreaming on both; for all thy blessed youth Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms Of palsied eld: and when thou art old and rich, Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty To make thy riches pleasant. 

If I must die, I will encounter darkness as a bride And hug it in mine arms. 

Ay, but to die, and go we know not where; To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot. 

But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve For daws to peck at. 

Even now, now, very now, an old black ram Is tupping your white ewe! 

Your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs. 

I will a round unvarnished tale deliver. 

And of the cannibals that each other eat, The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads Do grow beneath their shoulders. 

She loved me for the dangers I had passed And I loved her that she did pity them. 

I do perceive here a divided duty. 

To suckle fools, and chronicle small beer. 

If I do prove her haggard, Though that her jesses were my dear heart-strings, I’d whistle her off and let her down the wind To prey at fortune. 

I had rather be a toad And live upon the vapor of a dungeon Than keep a corner in the thing I love For others’ uses. 

Farewell the tranquil mind, farewell content! Farewell the plumed troops and the big wars That makes ambition virtue! 

This denoted a foregone conclusion. 

But yet the pity of it, Iago-O, Iago, the pity of it, Iago! 

The poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore tree, Sing all a green willow: Her hand on her bosom, her head on her knee, Sing willow, willow, willow. 

Put out the light, and then put out the light! 

Here is my journey’s end, here is my butt And very sea-mark of my utmost sail. 

I have done the state some service, and they know’t: No more of that. I pray you, in your letters, When you shall these unlucky deeds relate, Speak of me as I am. Nothing extenuate, Nor set down aught in malice. Then must you speak Of one that loved not wisely, but too well; Of one not easily jealous, but, being wrought, Perplexed in the extreme; of one whose hand, Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away Richer than all his tribe. 

[Lear:] So young and so untender? [Cordelia:] So young, my lord, and true. 

I want that glib and oily art To speak and purpose not. 

Why bastard? Wherefore base? When my dimensions are as well compact, My mind as generous and my shape as true As honest madam’s issue? 

Now gods, stand up for bastards! 

This is the excellent foppery of the world, that when we are sick in fortune, often the surfeits of our own behavior, we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars, as if we were villains on necessity, fools by heavenly compulsion, knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence. 

O sir, you are old: Nature in you stands on the very verge Of her confine. 

O, reason not the need! Our basest beggars Are in the poorest things superfluous; Allow not nature more than nature needs, Man’s life is cheap as beast’s. 

Blow winds and crack your cheeks! Rage, blow! You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout Till you have drenched our steeples, drowned the cocks! You sulphurous and thought-executing fires, Vaunt-couriers of oak-cleaving thunderbolts, Singe my white head! 

I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness. 

I am a man More sinned against than sinning. 

Take physic, pomp, Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel. 

Thou art the thing itself. Unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art. 

The green mantle of the standing pool. 

The prince of darkness is a gentleman. 

Childe Rowland to the dark tower came, His word was still ‘Fie, foh, and fum, I smell the blood of a British man. 

Out, vile jelly, Where is they luster now? 

Die-die for adultery? No! The wren goes to’t and the small gilded fly Does lecher in my sight. 

Get thee glass eyes, And like a scurvy politician seem To see the things thou dost not. 

Mine enemy’s dog Though he had bit me should have stood that night Against my fire. 

Thou art a soul in bliss, but I am bound Upon a wheel of fire. 

I am a very foolish, fond old man, Fourscore and upward, not an hour more or less; And to deal plainly, I fear I am not in my perfect mind. 

Men must endure Their going hence even as their coming hither. Ripeness is all. 

Come, let’s away to prison; We two alone will sing like birds i’the cage. When thou dost ask me blessing I’ll kneel down And ask of thee forgiveness. 

Howl, howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stones! Had I your tongues and eyes, I’d use them so That heaven’s vault should crack: she’s gone for ever. 

Her voice was ever soft, Gentle and low, an excellent thing in woman. 

And my poor fool is hanged. No, no, no life! Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life And thou no breath at all? O thou’lt come no more Never, never, never, never, never. 

Vex not his ghost; O, let him pass. He hates him That would upon the rack of this tough world Stretch him out longer. 

The weight of this sad time we must obey, Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say. The oldest hath borne most; we that are young Shall never see so much, nor live so long. 

When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightning, or in rain? 

Fair is foul, and foul is fair: Hover through the fog and filthy air. 

A sailor’s wife had chestnuts in her lap, And mounch’d, and mounch’d, and mounch’d: ‘Give me,’ quoth I:- ‘Aroynt thee, witch!’ the rump-fed ronyon cries. 

Sleep neither night nor day Hang upon his penthouse lid; He shall live a man forbid. Weary sev’n-nights nine times nine, Shall he dwindle, peak, and pine: Though his bark cannot be lost, Yet it shall be tempest-tost. 

The Weird Sisters, hand in hand, Posters of the sea and land, Thus do go about, about. 

Two truths are told, As happy prologues to the swelling act Of the imperial theme. 

Come what come may, Time and the hour runs through the roughest day. 

Nothing in his life Became him like the leaving it. 

Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be What thou art promis’d.-Yet do I fear thy nature: It is too full o’th’ milk of human kindness, To catch the nearest way. 

The raven himself is hoarse, That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan Under my battlements. 

Unsex me here, And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full Of direst cruelty! 

Come to my woman’s breasts, And take my milk for gall, you murth’ring ministers. 

Look like th’innocent flower, But be the serpent under’t. 

This guest of summer, The temple-haunting martlet. 

If it were done, when ’tis done, then ’twere well It were done quickly: if th’assassination Could trammel up the consequence, and catch With his surcease success; that but this blow Might be the be-all and the end-all-here, But here, upon this bank and shoal of time, We’d jump the life to come. 

This even-handed Justice Commends th’ingredience of our poison’d chalice To our own lips. 

Besides, this Duncan Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been So clear in his great office, that his virtues Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongu’d, against The deep damnation of his taking-off. 

He hath honor’d me of late; and I have bought Golden opinions from all sorts of people. 

Letting ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would,’ Like the poor cat i’th’adage? 

I dare do all that may become a man; Who dares do more, is none. 

I have given suck, and know How tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me: I would, while it was smiling in my face, Have pluck’d my nipple from his boneless gums, And dash’d the brains out, had I so sworn As you have done to this. 

The bell invites me. Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell That summons thee to Heaven, or to Hell. 

It was the owl that shriek’d, the fatal bellman, Which gives the stern’st good-night. 

Had he not resembled My father as he slept, I had done’t. 

Methought, I heard a voice cry, ‘Sleep no more! Macbeth does murther Sleep,’-the innocent Sleep; Sleep, that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care. 

Glamis hath murther’d Sleep, and therefore Cawdor Shall sleep no more, Macbeth shall sleep no more! 

Infirm of purpose! Give me the daggers. The sleeping, and the dead, Are but as pictures; ’tis the eye of childhood That fears a painted devil. 

Drink, Sir, is a great provoker…. Lechery, Sir, it provokes, and unprovokes: it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance. 

The labor we delight in physics pain. 

Had I but died an hour before this chance, I had liv’d a blessed time; for, from this instant, There’s nothing serious in mortality; All is but toys: renown, and grace, is dead; The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees Is left this vault to brag of. 

A falcon, towering in her pride of place, Was by a mousing owl hawk’d at, and kill’d. 

I must become a borrower of the night, For a dark hour, or twain. 

Duncan is in his grave; After life’s fitful fever he sleeps well; Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison, Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing Can touch him further! 

Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful Day, And, with thy bloody and invisible hand, Cancel, and tear to pieces, that great bond Which keeps me pale! 

Now spurs the lated traveller apace, To gain the timely inn. 

But now, I am cabin’d, cribb’d, confin’d, bound in To saucy doubts and fears. 

Thou canst not say, I did it: never shake Thy gory locks at me. 

Stand not upon the order of your going. 

Eye of newt, and toe of frog, Wool of bat, and tongue of dog. 

How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags! 

Be bloody, bold, and resolute: laugh to scorn The power of man, for none of woman born Shall harm Macbeth. 

But yet I’ll make assurance double sure, And take a bond of Fate. 

Macbeth shall never vanquish’d be, until Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill Shall come against him. 

He has no children.-All my pretty ones? Did you say all?-O Hell-kite!-All? What, all my pretty chickens, and their dam, At one fell swoop? 

Out, damned spot! out, I say! And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! 

Macduff was from his mother’s womb Untimely ripp’d. 

The Thane of Fife had a wife: where is she now? 

All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. 

The devil damn thee black, thou cream-fac’d loon! Where gott’st thou that goose look? 

I have liv’d long enough: my way of life Is fall’n into the sere, the yellow leaf. 

Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas’d. 

I have supp’d full with horrors. 

Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch Of the ranged empire fall! 

The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne, Burned on the water. 

For her own person, It beggared all description. 

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale Her infinite variety. Other women cloy The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry Where most she satisfies. 

To the only begetter of these ensuing sonnets Mr. W. H. 

From fairest creatures we desire increase, That thereby beauty’s rose might never die. 

When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf heav’n with my bootless cries. 

Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope, With what I most enjoy contented least. 

For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings. 

Full many a glorious morning have I seen. 

Not marble, nor the gilded monuments Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme. 

That time of year thou mayst in me behold, When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang. 

In sleep a king, but waking no such matter. 

They that have power to hurt, and will do none, That do not do the thing they most do show, Who, moving others, are themselves as stone, Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow; They rightly do inherit heaven’s graces, And husband nature’s riches from expense. 

When in the chronicle of wasted time I see descriptions of the fairest wights. 

Alas, ’tis true, I have gone here and there, And made myself a motley to the view. 

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error, and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved. 

Th’expense of spirit in a waste of shame Is lust in action. 

How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world That has such people in’t. 

When daffodils begin to peer, With heigh! the doxy over the dale, Why then comes in the sweet o’the year. 

Jog on, jog on, the foot-path way, And merrily hent the stile-a: A merry heart goes all the day, Your sad tires in a mile-a. 

Orpheus, with his lute, made trees And the mountain tops that freeze Bow themselves, when he did sing. 

Item, I give unto my wife my second best bed with the furniture. 

Good friend, for Jesu’s sake forbear To dig the dust enclosed here. Blest be the man that spares these stones, And curst be he that moves my bones. 

O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings. 

I durst not laugh, for fear of opening my lips and receiving the bad air. 

Tis but a base, ignoble mind That mounts no higher than a bird can soar. 

Tis not enough to help the feeble up, But to support him after. 

Let me have men about me that are fat, Sleekheaded men, and such as sleep-a-nights. /Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look. He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous. 

Man, proud man, Drest in a little brief authority, Most ignorant of what he’s most assured. 

Though those that are betrayed Do feel the treason sharply, yet the traitor Stands in worse case of woe. 

Yield not thy neck To fortune’s yoke, but let thy dauntless mind Still ride in triumph over all mischance. 

Society is no comfort To one not sociable. 

Your If is the only peacemaker. Much virtue in If. 

My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, And every tongue brings in a several tale, And every tale condemns me for a villain. 

heaven, were man But constant, he were perfect! 

This swift business I must uneasy make, lest too light winning Make the prize light. 

Between the acting of a dreadful thing And the first motion, all the interim is Like a phantasma or a hideous dream. The genius and the mortal instruments Are then in council, and the state of man, Like to a little kingdom, suffers then The nature of an insurrection. 

Trust not your daughter’s minds By what you see them act. 

The sense of death is most in apprehension, And the poor beetle that we tread upon, In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great As when a giant dies. 

The tongues of dying men Enforce attention like deep harmony. 

Words pay no debts, give her deeds; but she’ll bereave you o’ th’ deeds too if she call your activity in question. 

Define, define, well-educated infant. 

There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, Roughhew them how we will. 

Civil dissension is a viperous worm That gnaws the bowels of the commonwealth. 

I hold it cowardice /To rest mistrustful where a noble heart Hath pawned an open hand in sign of love. 

O father Abram, what these Christians are, Whose own hard dealing teaches them suspect The thoughts of others! 

I am Sir Oracle, And when I ope my lips, let no dog bark! 

I talk of dreams; Which are the children of an idle brain, Begot of nothing but vain fantasy. 

There is some soul of goodness in things evil, Would men observingly distil it out. 

Oft expectation fails and most oft there Where most it promises, and oft it hits Where hope is coldest and despair most fits. 

In the world I fill up a place, which may be better supplied when I have made it empty. 

New customs, Though they be never so ridiculous (Nay, let ’em be unmanly), yet are followed. 

What fates impose, that men must needs abide; It boots not to resist both wind and tide. 

Always the dulness of the fool is the whetstone of the wits. 

You pay a great deal too dear for what’s given freely. 

Glory is like a circle in the water, Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself Till by broad spreading it disperse to naught. 

The apprehension of the good Gives but the greater feeling to the worse. 

If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottages princes’palaces. 

Evermore thanks, the exchequer of the poor. 

Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow. 

Tis ever common That men are merriest when they are from home. 

Unbidden guests Are often welcomest when they are gone. 

Nature her custom holds, Let shame say what it will. 

To show an unfelt sorrow is an office Which the false man does easy. 

Such tricks hath strong imagination, That, if it would but apprehend some joy, It comprehends some bringer of that joy; Or in the night, imagining some fear, How easy is a bush supposed a bear! 

Happy are they that hear their detractions and can put them to mending. 

Blow, blow, thou winter wind, Thou are not so unkind As man’s ingratitude. 

O, what men dare do! what men may do! what men daily do, not knowing what they do! 

Rightly to be great Is not to stir without great argument, But greatly to find quarrel in a straw When honour’s at the stake. 

am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? 

He who the sword of heaven will bear Should be as holy as severe. 

There is no sure foundation set on blood, No certain life achieved by others’ death. 

Learning is but an adjunct to ourself, And where we are our learning likewise is. 

We cannot all be masters, nor all masters Cannot be truly followed. 

Liberty plucks justice by the nose; The baby beats the nurse, and quite athwart Goes all decorum. 

The time of life is short! To spend that shortness basely were too long. 

The weariest and most loathed worldly life That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment Can lay on nature is a paradise To what we fear of death. 

Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice. 

He that is robbed, not wanting what is stol’n, Let him not know’t, and he’s not robbed at all. 

If thou rememb’rest not the slightest folly That ever love did make thee run into, Thou hast not loved. 

There’s beggary in the love that can be reckoned. 

When love begins to sicken and decay It useth an enforced ceremony. There are no tricks in plain and simple faith. 

They say all lovers swear more performance than they are able and yet reserve an ability that they never perform, vowing more than the perfection of ten and discharging less than the tenth part of one. 

What is wedlock forced but a hell, An age of discord and continual strife? Whereas the contrary bringeth bliss And is a pattern of celestial peace. 

Tis but an hour ago since it was nine, And after one hour more twill be eleven; And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe, And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot; And thereby hangs a tale. 

By medicine life may be prolonged, yet death Will seize the doctor too. 

The quality of mercy is not strained; It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed – It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes. 

Let none presume To wear an undeserved dignity. O that estates, degrees, and offices Were not derived corruptly, and that clear honour Were purchased by the merit of the wearer! 

Our virtues Lie in th’ interpretation of the time. 

The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; The motions of his spirit are dull as night, And his affections dark as Erebus. Let no such man be trusted. 

Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. 

What [Time] hath scanted men in hair, he hath given them in wit. 

When the age is in, the wit is out. 

Give me that man That is not passion’s slave, and I will wear him In my heart’s core. 

What to ourselves in passion we propose, The passion ending, doth the purpose lose. 

An habitation giddy and unsure Hath he that buildeth on the vulgar heart. 

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

Past, and to come, seems best; things present, worst. 

He that is proud eats up himself. Pride is his own glass, his own trumpet, his own chronicle; and whatever praises itself but in the deed, devours the deed in the praise. 

Prosperity’s the very bond of love, Whose fresh complexion and whose heart together Affliction alters. 

Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, Raze out the written troubles of the brain, And with some sweet oblivious antidote Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff Which weighs upon the heart? 

That in the captain’s but a choleric word Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy. 

Let us not burden our remembrance with A heaviness that’s gone. 

Diseases desperate grown By desperate appliances are relieved, Or not at all. 

A little fire is quickly trodden out, Which, being suffered, rivers cannot quench. 

Rumor is a pipe Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures. 

Rumour doth double, like the voice and echo, The numbers of the feared. 

For greatest scandal waits on greatest state. 

Refrain to-night, And that shall lend a kind of easiness To the next abstinence; the next more easy; For use almost can change the stamp of nature. 

Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin As selfneglecting. 

The silence often of pure innocence Persuades when speaking fails. 

Slander lives upon succession, For ever housed where it gets possession. 

Weariness Can snore upon the flint when resty sloth Finds the down pillow hard. 

Tis a happy thing To be the father unto many sons. 

Every one can master a grief but he that has it. 

Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speak Whispers the o’erfraught heart and bids it break. 

Gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite The man that mocks at it and sets it light. 

I will instruct my sorrows to be proud; For grief is proud, and makes his owner stoop. 

Sorrow breaks seasons and reposing hours, Makes the night morning and the noontide night. 

Why, courage then! What cannot be avoided Twere childish weakness to lament or fear. 

One fire burns out another’s burning; One pain is lessened by another’s anguish. 

It is great To do that thing that ends all other deeds, Which shackles accidents and bolts up change. 

How many things by season seasoned are To their right praise and true perfection! 

When I was at home, I was in a better place; but travellers must be content. 

Truth is truth To th’end of reck’ning. 

It is not vain-glory for a man and his glass to confer in his own chamber. 

The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices Make instruments to scourge us. 

Through tattered clothes small vices do appear; Robes and furred gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold, And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks; Arm it in rags, a pygmy’s straw does pierce it. 

Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied, And vice sometime s by action dignified. 

O, what a world of vile ill-favoured faults Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year! 

Let there be no more weddings. Get thee to a nunnery. 

How much better is it to weep at joy than to joy at weeping! 

Our wills and fates do so contrary run That our devices still are overthrown; Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own. 

To be wise and love Exceeds man’s might: that dwells with gods above. 

A woman moved is like a fountain troubled, Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty. 

Women are as roses, whose fair flower, Being once displayed, doth fall that very hour. 

All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players. They have their exists and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts. 

How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds Make deeds ill done! 

Crabbed age and youth cannot live together: Youth is full of pleasance, age is full of care. 

Yet mark’d I where the bolt of Cupid fell: It fell upon a little western flower, Before milk-white, now purple with love’s wound, And maidens call it love-in-idleness. 

Here’s flowers for you; Hot lavender, mints, savoury, marjoram; The marigold, that goes to bed wi’ the sun And with him rises weeping: these are flowers Of middle summer, and I think they are given To men of middle age. 

Lawn as white as driven snow; Cyprus black as e’er was crow; Gloves as sweet as damask roses. 

What, no more ceremony? See, my women! Against the blown rose may they stop their nose That kneel’d unto the buds. 

I have seen roses damask’d, red and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks… 

Yet nor the lays of birds nor the sweet smell Of different flowers in odour and in hue Could make me any summer’s story tell, Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew; Nor did I wonder at the lily’s white, Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose; They were but sweet, but figures of delight, Drawn after you, you pattern of all those. 

The lily I condemned for thy hand, And buds of marjoram had stol’n thy hair: The roses fearfully on thorns did stand, One blushing shame, another white despair; A third, nor red nor white, had stol’n of both And to his robbery had annex’d thy breath; But, for his theft, in pride of all his growth A vengeful canker eat him up to death. More flowers I noted, yet I none could see But sweet or colour it had stol’n from thee. 

His steeds to water at those springs On chaliced flowers that lies; And winking Mary-buds begin To ope their golden eyes: With every thing that pretty is, My lady sweet, arise. 

The tempter or the tempted, who sins most? Ha! Not she: nor doth she tempt: but it is I That, lying by the violet in the sun, Do as the carrion does, not as the flower, Corrupt with virtuous season. 

There is a willow grows aslant a brook, That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream; There with fantastic garlands did she come Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples That liberal shepherds give a grosser name, But our cold maids do dead men’s fingers call them: There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke; When down her weedy trophies and herself Fell in the weeping brook. 

Lay her i’ the earth: And from her fair and unpolluted flesh May violets spring! I tell thee, churlish priest, A ministering angel shall my sister be, When thou liest howling. HAMLET. What, the fair Ophelia! QUEEN GERTRUDE. Sweets to the sweet: farewell! 

‘Tis dangerous to take a cold, to sleep, to drink; but I tell you, my lord fool, out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety. 

He was met even now As mad as the vex’d sea; singing aloud; Crown’d with rank fumiter and furrow-weeds, With bur-docks, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo-flowers, Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow In our sustaining corn. 

Corruption wins not more than honesty. Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace, To silence envious tongues. 

Be not afraid of greatness: some men are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them. 

Everyone ought to bear patiently the results of his own conduct. 

Faith, there hath been many great men that have flattered the people, who ne’er loved them; and there be many that they have loved, they know not wherefore; so that, if they love they know not why, they hate upon no better a ground. 

I bear a charmed life; which must not yield To one of woman born. 

If music be the food of love, play on; Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die. That strain again! it had a dying fall: O, it came o’er my ear like the sweet sound That breathes upon a bank of violets, Stealing and giving odour! 

It will have blood, they say: blood will have blood. Stones have been known to move and trees to speak; Augures and understood relations have By maggot-pies and choughs and rooks brought forth The secret’st man of blood. What is the night? 

Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale, vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man. 

Love all, trust a few, Do wrong to none. Be able for thine enemy Rather in power than use, and keep thy friend Under thy own life’s key. Be checked for silence, But never taxed for speech. 

Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs. Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers eyes. Being vexed, a sea nourished with lovers tears. What is it else? A madness most discreet, a choking gall and a preserving sweet. 

Love is not love, which alters when it alteration finds. 

Mend your speech a little, lest you may mar your fortunes. 

Modest doubt is called The beacon of the wise, the tent that searches To th’ bottom of the worst. 

Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend, And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man. 

Parting is such sweet sorrow. 

They say miracles are past; and we have our philosophical persons, to make modern and familiar, things supernatural and causeless. 

Tis best to weigh the enemy more mighty than he seems. 

Tis better to bear the ills we have than fly to others that we know not of. 

Tis not enough to help the feeble up, but to support them after. 

Tis one thing to be tempted, another thing to fall. 

To be, or not to be: that is the question. 

Virtue itself ‘scapes not calumnious strokes. 

What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god: the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals! -and yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delighteth not me… 

What’s done cannot be undone. 

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose By any other word would smell as sweet. 

Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art, As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel; For well thou know’st to my dear doting heart Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel. 

The instruments of darkness tell us truths… 

Thine eyes I love, and they as pitying me, Knowing thy heart torment me with disdain, Have put on black, and loving mourners be, Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain. 

O call not me to justify the wrong, That thy unkindness lays upon my heart, Wound me not with thine eye but with thy tongue, Use power with power, and slay me not by art,… 

Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan For that deep wound it gives my friend and me; Is’t not enough to torture me alone, But slave to slavery my sweet’st friend must be? … 

So now I have confessed that he is thine, And I my self am mortgaged to thy will, My self I’ll forfeit, so that other mine, Thou wilt restore to be my comfort still. 

Then hate me when thou wilt, if ever, now, … 

Tired with all these for restful death I cry, As to behold desert a beggar born, And needy nothing trimmed in jollity, And purest faith unhappily forsworn, … 

If there be devils, would I were a devil, To live and burn in everlasting fire, So I might have your company in hell, But to torment you with my bitter tongue! 

Beshrew the heart that makes my heart to groan. 

Be wise as thou art cruel, do not press My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain: Lest sorrow lend me words and words express, The manner of my pity-wanting pain… 

She speaks poniards, and every word stabs: if her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her; she would infect to the north star. I would not marry her, though she were endowed with all that Adam bad left him before he transgressed. 

‘Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed, When not to be, receives reproach of being, And the just pleasure lost, which is so deemed, Not by our feeling, but by others’ seeing. 

Be advised; Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot That it do singe yourself: we may outrun, By violent swiftness, that which we run at, And lose by over-running. Know you not, The fire that mounts the liquor til run o’er, In seeming to augment it wastes it? 

O no, thy love though much, is not so great, It is my love that keeps mine eye awake, Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat, To play the watchman ever for thy sake. For thee watch I, whilst thou dost wake elsewhere, From me far off, with others all too near. 

That you were once unkind befriends me now, And for that sorrow, which I then did feel, Needs must I under my transgression bow, Unless my nerves were brass or hammered steel… 

What I have done is yours; what I have to do is yours; being part in all I have, devoted yours. 

Being your slave what should I do but tend, Upon the hours, and times of your desire? I have no precious time at all to spend; Nor services to do till you require. 

That god forbid, that made me first your slave, I should in thought control your times of pleasure, Or at your hand th’ account of hours to crave, Being your vassal bound to stay your leisure. 

But what’s so blessed-fair that fears no blot? Thou mayst be false, and yet I know it not. 

So quick bright things come to confusion. 

This music crept by me upon the waters, Allaying both their fury and my passion With its sweet air: thence I have follow”d it. 

I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thy eyes-and moreover, I will go with thee to thy uncle”s. 

All of Creation’s a farce. Man was born as a joke. In his head his reason is buffeted Like wind-blown smoke. Life is a game. Everyone ridicules everyone else. But he who has the last laugh Laughs longest. 

Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in shape of a camel? Polonius: By the mass, and “tis like a camel, indeed. Hamlet: Methinks it is like a weasel. Polonius: It is backed like a weasel. Hamlet: Or like a whale? Polonius: Very like a whale. 

Ideas are the very coinage of your brain. 

Out of my lean and low ability I’ll lend you something. 

One would think his mother’s milk were scarce out of him. 

If this were play’d upon a stage now, I would condemn it as an improbable fiction. 

In Nature’s infinite book of secrecy A little I can read. 

A morsel for a monarch. 

A rarer spirit never Did steer humanity; but you, gods, will give us Some faults to make us men. 

Celerity is never more admir’d Than by the negligent. 

The bright day is done, And we are for the dark. 

Doth not the appetite alter? A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. 

Manhood is melted into courtesies, valour into compliment, and men are only turned into tongue, and trim ones, too. 

He hath a heart as sound as a bell, and his tongue the clapper; for what his heart thinks his tongue speaks. 

Done to death by slanderous tongues Was the Hero that here lies. 

He wants nothing of a god but eternity and a heaven to throne in. 

Rubbing the poor itch of your opinion, Make yourself scabs. 

I’ll never Be such a gosling to obey instinct, but stand As if a man were author of himself And knew no other kin. 

Like a dull actor now I have forgot my part and I am out, Even to a full disgrace. 

The mutable, rank-scented many. 

Bid them wash their faces, And keep their teeth clean. 

I thank you for your voices, thank you! Your most sweet voices! Now you have left your voices, I have no further with you. 

Thou hast a grim appearance, and thy face Bears a command in’t; though thy tackle’s torn, Thou show’st a noble vessel. What’s thy name? 

Thou hast done a deed whereat valour will weep. 

O, this life Is nobler than attending for a check, Richer than doing nothing for a bribe, Prouder than rustling in unpaid-for silk. 

He that sleeps feels no the toothache. 

Fear no more the heat o the sun, nor the furious winter’s rages. Thou thy worldly task hast done, home art gone and taken thy wages. 

There be many Caesars Ere such another Julius. Britain is A world by itself, and we will nothing pay For wearing our own noses. 

The best in this kind are but shadows, and the worst are no worse, if imagination amend them. 

It shall be called Bottom’s Dream, because it hath no bottom. 

Over hill, over dale, Thorough bush, thorough brier, Over park, over pale, Thorough flood, thorough fire. 

Jack shall have Jill; Nought shall go ill; The man shall have his mare again, And all shall be well. 

I must go seek some dew-drops here, And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear. 

I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream past the wit of man to say what dream it was. Man is but an ass if he go about t’expound this dream. 

Whereat, with blade, with bloody blameful blade, He bravely broached his boiling bloody breast. 

Give you a reason on compulsion! If reasons were as plentiful as blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon compulsion, I. 

For mine own part, I could be well content To entertain the lag-end of my life With quiet hours. 

Tis my vocation, Hal; ’tis no sin for a man to labour in his vocation. 

He was but as the cuckoo is in June, Heard but not regarded. 

I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men. I do here walk before thee like a sow that hath overwhelm’d all her litter but one. 

I am as poor as Job, my lord, but not so patient. 

I may justly say with the hook-nosed fellow of Rome, ‘I came, saw and overcame’. 

He was indeed the glass Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves. 

I speak of peace, while covert enmity Under the smile of safety wounds the world. 

But now behold, In the quick forge and working-house of thought. 

I dare not fight; but I will wink and hold out mine iron. 

For so work the honey-bees, Creatures that by a rule in nature teach The act of order to a peopled kingdom. 

Every subject’s duty is the king’s: but every subject’s soul is his own. 

I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, Straining upon the start. The game’s afoot: Follow your spirit; and, upon this charge Cry ‘God for Harry! England and Saint George! 

Advantage is a better soldier than rashness. 

Hung be the heavens with black, yield day to night! 

I owe him little duty and less love. 

She’s beautiful and therefore to be wooed; She is a woman, therefore to be won. 

He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one; Exceeding wise, fair-spoken and persuading: Lofty and sour to them that loved him not; But to those men that sought him sweet as summer. 

He was a man Of an unbounded stomach. 

I have touched the highest point of all my greatness, and from that full meridian of my glory I haste now to my setting. 

I swear ’tis better to be lowly born, And range with humble livers in content, Than to be perked up in a glistering grief, And wear a golden sorrow. 

Some come to take their ease And sleep an act or two. 

To be, or not to be – that is the question; Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them? To die, to sleep… 

By indirections find directions out. 

Give every man your ear, but few thy voice. Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment. 

Unthread the bold eye of rebellion, And welcome home again discarded faith. 

That smooth-fac’d gentleman, tickling Commodity, Commodity, the bias of the world. 

For new-made honour doth forget men’s names. 

He reads much; He is a great observer, and he looks Quite through the deeds of men. 

O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts, And men have lost their reason. 

A friend should bear his friend’s infirmities, But Brutus makes mine greater than they are. 

That lowliness is young ambition’s ladder, Whereto the climber-upward turns his face; But when he once attains the upmost round, He then unto the ladder turns his back, Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees By which he did ascend. 

But when I tell him he hates flatterers, He says he does, being then most flattered. 

Study is like the heaven’s glorious sun, That will not be deep-searched with saucy looks; Small have continuous plodders ever won, Save base authority from others’ books. 

It adds a precious seeing to the eye; A lover’s eyes will gaze an eagle blind; A lover’s ear will hear the lowest sound. 

Devise, wit; write, pen; for I am for whole volumes in folio. 

Remuneration! O! that’s the Latin word for three farthings. 

He hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in a book; he hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink; his intellect is not replenished. 

Warble, child; make passionate my sense of hearing. 

These earthly godfathers of Heaven’s lights, That give a name to every fixed star, Have no more profit of their shining nights Than those that walk and wot not what they are. 

Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise, Three-piled hyperboles, spruce affectation, Figures pedantical. 

From women’s eyes this doctrine I derive: They sparkle still the right Promethean fire; They are the books, the arts, the academes, That show, contain, and nourish all the world. 

Give me an ounce of civet, good apothecary, to sweeten my imagination. 

The art of our necessities is strange, That can make vile things precious. 

A man may see how this world goes with no eyes. Look with thine ears: see how yond justice rails upon yond simple thief. Hark, in thine ear: change places; and, handy-dandy, which is the justice, which is the thief? 

The whining schoolboy, with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school. 

I shall ne’er be ware of mine own wit till I break my shins against it. 

O wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful! and yet again wonderful, and after that, out of all whooping! 

The first, ‘the retort courteous’; the second, ‘the quip modest’; the third, ‘the reply churlish’; the fourth, ‘the reproof valiant’; the fifth, ‘the countercheck quarrelsome’; the sixth, ‘the lie with circumstance’; the seventh, ‘the lie direct’. 

Ay, now am I in Arden; the more fool I: when I was at home, I was in a better place: but travellers must be content. 

I earn that I eat, get that I wear, owe no man hate, envy no man’s happiness, glad of other men’s good, content with my harm. 

I ‘gin to grow aweary of the sun, And wish the estate o’ the world were now undone. 

Can such things be And overcome us like a summer’s cloud, Without our special wonder? 

A deed without a name. 

Haste still pays haste, and leisure answers leisure; Like doth quit like, and Measure still for Measure. 

The miserable hath no other medicine But only hope. 

A man whose blood Is very snow-broth; one who never feels The wanton stings and motions of the sense. 

I hold you as a thing enskyed and sainted. 

Tis the soldier’s life to have their balmy slumbers waked with strife. 

Be sure of it; give me the ocular proof. 

By heaven, he echoes me, As if there were some monster in his thought Too hideous to be shown. 

This is the night That either makes me or fordoes me quite. 

To mourn a mischief that is past and gone, Is the next way to draw new mischief on. 

Love goes toward love, as schoolboys from their books; But love from love, toward school with heavy looks. 

Thy head is as full of quarrels as an egg is full of meat. 

I count myself in nothing else so happy As in a soul remembering my good friends. 

I am sworn brother, sweet, To grim Necessity, and he and I Will keep a league till death. 

I have been studying how I may compare The prison where I live unto the world. 

As in a theatre, the eyes of men, After a well-graced actor leaves the stage, Are idly bent on him that enters next, Thinking his prattle to be tedious. 

A jewel in a ten-times-barred-up chest Is a bold spirit in a loyal breast. Mine honour is my life; both grow in one; Take honour from me, and my life is done. 

God pardon all oaths that are broke to me! God keep all vows unbroke are made to thee! 

Woe to the land that’s govern’d by a child! 

Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings; Our dreadful marches to delightful measures. 

Since every Jack became a gentleman There’s many a gentle person made a Jack. 

I have not that alacrity of spirit, Nor cheer of mind, that I was wont to have. 

And thus I clothe my naked villany With odd old ends stol’n forth of holy writ, And seem a saint when most I play the devil. 

I do not know that Englishman alive With whom my soul is any jot at odds More than the infant that is born tonight: I thank my God for my humility. 

Fie, fie! unknit that threatening unkind brow, And dart not scornful glances from those eyes, To wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor. 

This is the way to kill a wife with kindness. 

And as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds, So honour peereth in the meanest habit. 

Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter, In sleep a king, but, waking, no such matter. 

And simple truth miscalled simplicity, And captive good attending captain ill. 

Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed, When not to be receives reproach of being. 

The summer’s flower is to the summer sweet, Though to itself it only live and die. 

Time’s thievish progress to eternity. 

But since he died, and poets better prove, Theirs for their style I’ll read, his for his love. 

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin, That all with one consent praise newborn gawds 

My mind is troubled, like a fountain stirred; And I myself see not the bottom of it. 

The baby figure of the giant mass Of things to come at large. 

Thus to persist In doing wrong extenuates not wrong, But makes it much more heavy. 

I am giddy, expectation whirls me round. The imaginary relish is so sweet That it enchants my sense. 

That she belov’d knows nought that knows not this: Men prize the thing ungain’d more than it is. 

Perseverance, dear my lord, Keeps honour bright: to have done, is to hang Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail In monumental mockery. 

Knowing I loved my books, he furnished me, From mine own library with volumes that I prize above my dukedom. 

How camest thou in this pickle? 

When they will not give a doit to relieve a lame beggar, they will lay out ten to see a dead Indian. 

Flout ’em, and scout ’em; and scout ’em, and flout ’em; Thought is free. 

They’ll take suggestion as a cat laps milk. 

You fools of fortune, trencher-friends, time’s flies. 

A thousand moral paintings I can show That shall demonstrate these quick blows of Fortune’s More pregnantly than words. 

Our poesy is as a gum, which oozes From whence ’tis nourished. 

You undergo too strict a paradox, Striving to make an ugly deed look fair: Your words have took such pains as if they labour’d To bring manslaughter into form and set quarrelling. 

For bounty, that makes gods, does still mar men. My dearest lord, bless’d, to be most accursed, Rich, only to be wretched, thy great fortunes Are made thy chief afflictions. 

Here are a few of the unpleasant’st words That ever blotted paper! 

A goodly apple rotten at the heart. O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath! 

For, as thou urgest justice, be assured Thou shalt have justice, more than thou desir’st. 

The villany you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction. 

I would there were no age between sixteen and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest; for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting. 

For the life to come, I sleep out the thought of it. 

A snapper-up of unconsidered trifles. 

I am a feather for each wind that blows. 

When daffodils begin to peer, With heigh! the doxy, over the dale, Why, then comes in the sweet o’ the year; For the red blood reigns in the winter’s pale. 

I had rather than forty shillings I had my Book of Songs and Sonnets here. 

Faith, thou hast some crotchets in thy head. 

I have a kind of alacrity in sinking. 

Love like a shadow flies when substance love pursues; Pursuing that that flies, and flying what pursues. 

Except I be by Silvia in the night, There is no music in the nightingale; Unless I look on Silvia in the day, There is no day for me to look upon. 

Then to Silvia let us sing That Silvia is excelling. She excels each mortal thing Upon the dull earth dwelling. 

She hath more hair than wit, and more faults than hairs, and more wealth than faults. 

Write till your ink be dry, and with your tears Moist it again, and frame some feeling line That may discover such integrity. 

I’ll be as patient as a gentle stream And make a pastime of each weary step, Till the last step have brought me to my love; And there I’ll rest, as after much turmoil A blessed soul doth in Elysium. 

The best wishes that can be forged in your thoughts be servants to you! 

Tell him that his sword can never win The honour that he loses… 

Those girls of Italy, take heed of them. They say our French lack language to deny If they demand. 

We make trifles of terrors, ensconcing ourselves into seeming knowledge, when we should submit ourselves to an unknown fear. 

It were all one That I should love a bright particular star And think to wed it, he is so above me. 

I am not worthy of the wealth I owe, Nor dare I say ’tis mine, and yet it is; But, like a timorous thief, most fain would steal What law does vouch mine own. 

I cannot, nor I will not, hold me still; My tongue, though not my heart, shall have his will. 

Against my soul’s pure truth why labour you To make it wander in an unknown field? Are you a god? would you create me new? 

Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine, Whose weakness, married to thy stronger state, Makes me with thy strength to communicate. 

This world to me is like a lasting storm, Whirring me from my friends. 

Kings are earth’s gods; in vice their law’s their will. 

A man whom both the waters and the wind, In that vast tennis-court, have made the ball For them to play upon. 

Thou hast most traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm in erecting a grammar school. 

What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted! Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just, And he but naked, though locked up in steel, Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted. 

Could I come near your beauty with my nails I’d set my ten commandments in your face. 

Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade To shepherds looking on their silly sheep, Than doth a rich embroidered canopy To kings that fear their subjects’ treachery? 

O God! methinks it were a happy life, To be no better than a homely swain; To sit upon a hill, as I do now, To carve out dials, quaintly, point by point, Thereby to see the minutes how they run, How many make the hour full complete… 

Stay we no longer, dreaming of renown, But sound the trumpets, and about our task. 

And now what rests but that we spend the time With stately triumphs, mirthful comic shows, Such as befits the pleasure of the court? Sound drums and trumpets! farewell sour annoy! For here, I hope, begins our lasting joy. 

Come, and take choice of all my library, And so beguile thy sorrow. 

If I do dream, would all my wealth would wake me! If I do wake, some planet strike me down, That I may slumber in eternal sleep! 

The eagle suffers little birds to sing, And is not careful what they mean thereby. 

And now this pale swan in her watery nest Begins the sad dirge of her certain ending. 

And so to publish Tarquin’s foul offence: Which being done with speedy diligence, The Romans plausibly did give consent To Tarquin’s everlasting banishment. 

Nature that made thee, with herself at strife, Saith that the world hath ending with thy life. 

Once more the engine of her thoughts began… 

Fair flowers that are not gather’d in their prime Rot and consume themselves in little time. 

But when her lips were ready for his pay, He winks, and turns his lips another way. 

To the orbed earth; sometimes they do extend Their view right on; anon their gazes lend To every place at once, and, nowhere fix’d, The mind and sight distractedly commix’d. 

Of folded schedules had she many a one, Which she perused, sigh’d, tore, and gave the flood; Crack’d many a ring of posied gold and bone Bidding them find their sepulchres in mud. 

From off a hill whose concave womb reworded A plaintful story from a sistering vale, My spirits to attend this double voice accorded, And down I laid to list the sad-tuned tale. 

For when we rage, advice is often seen By blunting us to make our wits more keen. 

Nor gives it satisfaction to our blood, That we must curb it upon others’ proof; To be forbod the sweets that seem so good, For fear of harms that preach in our behoof. 

In such business Action is eloquence, and the eyes of th” ignorant More learned than the ears. 

From this day to the ending of the world, But we in it shall be remembered- We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother; be he ne”er so vile, This day shall gentle his condition; And gentlemen in England now-a-bed Shall think themselves accurs”d they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day. 

On the bat’s back I do fly After summer merrily. 

Good name in man and woman, dear my lord, Is the immediate jewel of their souls: Who steals my purse steals trash; “tis something, nothing; “twas mine, “tis his, and has been slave to thousands; But he that filches from me my good name Robs me of that which not enriches him, And makes me poor indeed. 

Out of her favour, where I am in love. 

Love that we cannot have is the one that lasts the longest,hurts the deepest,but feels the strongest 

When I got enough confidence, the stage was gone. When I was sure of losing, I won. When I needed people the most, they left me. When I learnt to dry my tears, I found a shoulder to cry on. And when I mastered the art of hating, somebody started loving me. 

When you do dance, I wish you a wave o’ the sea, that you might ever do nothing but that. 

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose. An evil soul producing holy witness Is like a villain with a smiling cheek, A goodly apple rotten at the heart. O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath! 

A violet in the youth of primy nature, Forward, not permanent-sweet, not lasting; The perfume and suppliance of a minute; No more. 

Of all knowledge the wise and good seek most to know themselves. 

Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all. 

Methinks sometimes I have no more wit than a Christian. 

Thy head is as full of quarrels as an egg is full of meat, and yet thy head hath been beaten as addle as an egg for quarrelling. 

Now see that noble and most sovereign reason, Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh. 

Hope is a lover’s staff; walk hence with that And manage it against despairing thoughts. 

Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none. 

To do a great right do a little wrong. 

Give thy thoughts no tongue. 

There is no darkness but ignorance. 

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind. 

The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool. 

Fearless minds climb soonest into crowns.