William Shakespeare Quotes - Page 16

What infinite heart's-easeMust 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 idle ceremony?What kind of god art thou, that suffer'st moreOf mortal griefs than do thy worshippers?What are thy rents? what are thy comings in?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?Wherein thou art less happy being fear'dThan they in fearing.What drink'st thou oft, instead of homage sweet,But poison'd flattery? O, be sick, great greatness,And bid thy ceremony give thee cure!Think'st thou the fiery fever will go outWith titles blown from adulation?Will it give place to flexure and low bending?Canst thou, when thou command'st the beggar's knee,Command the health of it? No, thou proud dream,That play'st so subtly with a king's repose;I am a king that find thee, and I know'Tis not the balm, the sceptre and the ball,The sword, the mace, the crown imperial,The intertissued robe of gold and pearl,The farced title running 'fore the king,The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pompThat beats upon the high shore of this world,No, not all these, thrice-gorgeous ceremony,Not all these, laid in bed majestical,Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave,Who with a body fill'd and vacant mindGets him to rest, cramm'd with distressful bread;Never sees horrid night, the child of hell,But, like a lackey, from the rise to setSweats in the eye of Phoebus and all nightSleeps in Elysium; next day after dawn,Doth rise and help Hyperion to his horse,And follows so the ever-running year,With profitable labour, to his grave:And, but for ceremony, such a wretch,Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep,Had the fore-hand and vantage of a king.The slave, a member of the country's peace,Enjoys it; but in gross brain little wotsWhat watch the king keeps to maintain the peace,Whose hours the peasant best advantages.
William Shakespeare
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 nameRobs me of that which not enriches him, And makes me poor indeed.
William Shakespeare
Have not we affections and desires for sport, and frailty, as men have?
William Shakespeare
O God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the marketplace.
William Shakespeare
Silence is the herald of joy
William Shakespeare
BOYETA mark! O, mark but that mark! A mark, says my lady!Let the mark have a prick in't, to mete at, if it may be.MARIAWide o' the bow hand! i' faith, your hand is out.COSTARDIndeed, a' must shoot nearer, or he'll ne'er hit the clout.BOYETAn if my hand be out, then belike your hand is in.COSTARDThen will she get the upshoot by cleaving the pin.MARIACome, come, you talk greasily; your lips grow foul.COSTARDShe's too hard for you at pricks, sir: challenge her to bowl.BOYETI fear too much rubbing. Good night, my good owl.Exeunt BOYET and MARIA
William Shakespeare
He eats nothing but doves, love, and that breeds hot blood, and hot blood beget hot thoughts, and hot thoughts beget hot deeds, and hot deeds is love.
William Shakespeare
Well, in that hit you miss. She'll not be hitWith 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 poorThat, when she dies, with dies her store.Act 1,Scene 1, lines 180-197
William Shakespeare
My brain I'll prove the female to my soul; my soul the father: and these two beget a generation of still-breeding thoughts, and these same thoughts people this little world.
William Shakespeare
This is the very ecstasy of love,Whose violent property fordoes itselfAnd leads the will to desperate undertakingsAs oft as any passion under heavenThat does afflict our natures.
William Shakespeare
He which hath no stomach to this fight, let him depart, his passport shall be made and crowns for convoy put into his purse. We would not die in that man's company that fears his fellowship, to die with us.
William Shakespeare
Macbeth:If we should fail?Lady Macbeth:We fail?But screw your courage to the sticking place,And we'll not fail.
William Shakespeare
The abuse of greatness is when it disjoins remorse from power.
William Shakespeare
O brave new world,That has such people in ’t!-Miranda
William Shakespeare
As I am an honest man, I thought you had received some bodily wound. There is more sense in that than in reputation. Reputation is an idle and most false imposition, oft got without merit and lost without deserving.
William Shakespeare
The pow'r I have on you is to spare you / The malice towards you, to forgive you. Posthumus
William Shakespeare
It is excellent / To have a giant's strenght / But it is tyrannous / To use it like a giant(Isabella)
William Shakespeare
For to be wise and love exceeds man's might.
William Shakespeare
No more light answers. Let our officersHave note what we purpose. I shall breakThe cause of our expedience to the QueenAnd get her leave to part. For not aloneThe death of Fulvia, with more urgent touches,Do strongly speak to us, but the letters tooOf many our contriving friends in RomePetition us at home. Sextus PompeiusHath given the dare to Caesar and commandsThe empire of the sea. Our slippery people,Whose love is never linked to the deserverTill his deserts are past, begin to throwPompey the Great and all his dignitiesUpon his son, who - high in name and power,Higher than both in blood and life - stands upFor the main soldier; whose quality, going on,The sides o' th' world may danger. Much is breedingWhich, like the courser's hair, hath yet but lifeAnd not a serpent's poison.
William Shakespeare
In Antiochus and his daughter you have heard of monstrous lust the due and just reward; In Pericles, his queen, and daughter, seen, Although assailed with fortune fierce and keen, Virtue preserved from fell destruction's blast, Led on by heaven, and crowned with joy at last.
William Shakespeare
They do not love, that do not show their love.
William Shakespeare
Thou, my slave,As thou report'st thyself, was then her servant,And for thou wast a spirit too delicateTo act her earthy and abhorred commands,Refusing her grand hests, she did confine thee,By help of her more potent ministersAnd in her most unmitigable rage,Into a cloven pine, within which riftImprisoned thou didst painfully remainA dozen years; within which space she diedAnd left thee there, where thou didst vent thy groansAs fast as mill wheels strike.
William Shakespeare
Lovers and madmen have such seething brainsSuch shaping fantasies, that apprehendMore than cool reason ever comprehends.
William Shakespeare
Where shall we three meet again in thunder, lightning, or in rain? When the hurlyburly 's done, when the battle 's lost and won
William Shakespeare
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 demonstrateThe native act and figure of my heartIn compliment extern, ’tis not long afterBut I will wear my heart upon my sleeveFor daws to peck at. I am not what I am
William Shakespeare
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.
William Shakespeare
ROMEOThere is thy gold, worse poison to men's souls,Doing more murders in this loathsome world,Than these poor compounds that thou mayst not sell.I sell thee poison; thou hast sold me none.Farewell: buy food, and get thyself in flesh.Come, cordial and not poison, go with meTo Juliet's grave; for there must I use thee.
William Shakespeare
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; The motions of his spirit are dull as night and his affections dark as Erebus: Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music.
William Shakespeare
Tax not so bad a voice to slander music any more than once.
William Shakespeare
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. Mark the music.
William Shakespeare
Lorenzo: In such a night stood Dido with a willow in her hand upon the wild sea-banks, and waft her love to come again to Carthage Jessica: In such a night Medea gathered the enchanted herbs that did renew old Aeson. Lorenzo: In such a night did Jessica steal from the wealthy Jew, and with an unthrift love did run from Venice, as far as Belmont. Jessica: In such a night did young Lorenzo swear he lov'd her well, stealing her soul with many vows of faith, and ne'er a true one. Lorenzo: In such a night did pretty Jessica (like a little shrow) slander her love, and he forgave it her. Jessica: I would out-night you, did nobody come; but hark, I hear the footing of a man.
William Shakespeare
Such a mad marriage never was before.
William Shakespeare
I'll follow this good man, and go with you;And, having sworn truth, ever will be true.
William Shakespeare
Now go with me and with this holy manInto the chantry by: there, before him,And underneath that consecrated roof,Plight me the full assurance of your faith.
William Shakespeare
I will deny thee nothing: Whereon, I do beseech thee, grant me this, To leave me but a little to myself.
William Shakespeare
A young man married is a man that's marred.
William Shakespeare
I'll have no husband, if you be not he.
William Shakespeare
And too soon Marred are those so early Made.
William Shakespeare
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.
William Shakespeare
Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,Thy head, thy sovereign, one that cares for thee,And for thy maintenance; commits his bodyTo painful labor, both by sea and land;To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,Whilst thou li’st warm at home, secure and safe;And craves no other tribute at thy handsBut love, fair looks, and true obedience-Too little payment for so great a debt.Such duty as the subject owes the prince,Even such a woman oweth to her husband;And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour,And no obedient to his honest will,What is she but a foul contending rebel,And graceless traitor to her loving lord?I asham’d that women are so simple‘To offer war where they should kneel for peace,Or seek for rule, supremacy, and sway,When they are bound to serve, love, and obey.Why are our bodies soft, and weak, and smooth,Unapt to toil and trouble in the world,But that our soft conditions, and our hearts,Should well agree with our external parts?
William Shakespeare
When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.
William Shakespeare
MARCUS ANDRONICUS: Now is a time to storm; why art thou still?TITUS ANDRONICUS: Ha, ha, ha!MARCUS ANDRONICUS: Why dost thou laugh? it fits not with this hour.TITUS ANDRONICUS: Why, I have not another tear to shed:
William Shakespeare
If there were a sympathy in choice,War, death, or sickness, did lay siege to it,Making it momentary as a sound,Swift as a shadow, short as any dream,Brief as the lightning in the collied nightThat, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,And ere a man hath power to say 'Behold!'The jaws of darkness do devour it up;So quick bright things come to confusion.
William Shakespeare
One fire burns out another's burning,One pain is lessen'd by another's anguish.
William Shakespeare
A peace is of the nature of a conquest; for then both parties nobly are subdued, and neither party loser.
William Shakespeare
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.
William Shakespeare
Grant them removed, and grant that this your noiseHath chid down all the majesty of England;Imagine that you see the wretched strangers,Their babies at their backs and their poor luggage,Plodding to the ports and coasts for transportation,And that you sit as kings in your desires,Authority quite silent by your brawl,And you in ruff of your opinions clothed;What had you got? I'll tell you: you had taughtHow insolence and strong hand should prevail,How order should be quelled; and by this patternNot one of you should live an aged man,For other ruffians, as their fancies wrought,With self same hand, self reasons, and self right,Would shark on you, and men like ravenous fishesWould feed on one another....Say now the kingShould so much come too short of your great trespassAs but to banish you, whither would you go?What country, by the nature of your error,Should give your harbour? go you to France or Flanders,To any German province, to Spain or Portugal, Nay, any where that not adheres to England,Why, you must needs be strangers: would you be pleasedTo find a nation of such barbarous temper,That, breaking out in hideous violence,Would not afford you an abode on earth,Whet their detested knives against your throats,Spurn you like dogs, and like as if that GodOwed not nor made you, nor that the claimantsWere not all appropriate to your comforts,But chartered unto them, what would you thinkTo be thus used? this is the strangers case;And this your mountainish inhumanity.
William Shakespeare
Their manners are more gentle, kind, than of our generation you shall find.
William Shakespeare
We all are men, in our own natures frail, and capable of our flesh; few are angels.
William Shakespeare
All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players.
William Shakespeare
Sound drums and trumpets! Farewell sour annoy! For here, I hope, begins our lasting joy.
William Shakespeare
Sound drums and trumpets! Farewell sour annoy! For here, I hope, begins our lasting joy.
William Shakespeare
I can't talk, or I will throw up!
William Shakespeare
My liege, and madam, to expostulateWhat majesty should be, what duty is, Why day is day, night night, and time is time,Were nothing but to waste night, day and time.Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,I will be brief.
William Shakespeare
So. Lie there, my art.
William Shakespeare
Not marble nor the gilded monumentsOf princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme,But you shall shine more bright in these contentsThan unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish time.When wasteful war shall statues overturnAnd broils roots out the work of masonry,Nor mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall burnThe living record of your memory.'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmityShall you pace forth; your praise shall still find roomEven in the eyes of all posterityThat wear this world out to the ending doom.So, till judgement that yourself arise,You in this, and dwell in lovers eyes.
William Shakespeare
This look of thine will hurl my soul from heaven.
William Shakespeare
DESDEMONACome, how wouldst thou praise me? IAGO I am about it; but indeed my invention Comes from my pate as birdlime does from frieze; It plucks out brains and all: but my Muse labours, And thus she is deliver'd. If she be fair and wise, fairness and wit, The one's for use, the other useth it. DESDEMONA Well praised! How if she be black and witty? IAGO If she be black, and thereto have a wit, She'll find a white that shall her blackness fit. DESDEMONA Worse and worse. EMILIA How if fair and foolish? IAGO She never yet was foolish that was fair; For even her folly help'd her to an heir. DESDEMONA These are old fond paradoxes to make fools laugh i' the alehouse. What miserable praise hast thou for her that's foul and foolish? IAGO There's none so foul and foolish thereunto, But does foul pranks which fair and wise ones do.
William Shakespeare
A right fair mark, fair coz, is soonest hit.
William Shakespeare
What you doStill betters what is done. When you speak, sweet.I'ld have you do it ever: when you sing,I'ld have you buy and sell so, so give alms,Pray so; and, for the ordering your affairs,To sing them too: when you do dance, I wish youA wave o' the sea, that you might ever doNothing but that; move still, still so,And own no other function: each your doing,So singular in each particular,Crowns what you are doing in the present deed,That all your acts are queens.
William Shakespeare