Quotes by English Authors - Page 43

Why should their liberty than ours be more?
William Shakespeare
A maidenhead, the virgin's troubleIs well-compare-d to a bubbleon a navigable riverSoon 'tis touched t'is gone forever
John Clare
Proper deformity shows not in the fiendSo horrid as in woman.
William Shakespeare
Were kisses all the joys in bed,/One woman would another wed.
William Shakespeare
Go and catch a falling star,Get with child a mandrake root,Tell me where all past years are,Or who cleft the devil's foot,Teach me to hear mermaids singing,Or to keep off envy's stinging,And findWhat windServes to advance an honest mind.If thou be'st born to strange sights,Things invisible to see,Ride ten thousand days and nights,Till age snow white hairs on thee,Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me,All strange wonders that befell thee,And swear,No whereLives a woman true and fair.
John Donne
DON PEDROCome, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick.BEATRICEIndeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile; and I gave him use for it, a double heart for his single one: marry, once before he won it of me with false dice, therefore your grace may well say I have lost it.DON PEDROYou have put him down, lady, you have put him down.BEATRICESo I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove the mother of fools.
William Shakespeare
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.
William Shakespeare
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.
William Shakespeare
But for I am a woman should I therefore live that I should not tell you the goodness of God?
Julian of Norwich
If I be waspish, best beware my sting.
William Shakespeare
There is no deception on the part of the woman, where a man bewilders himself: if he deludes his own wits, I can certainly acquit the women. Whatever man allows his mind to dwell upon the imprint his imagination has foolishly taken of women, is fanning the flames within himself -- and, since the woman knows nothing about it, she is not to blame. For if a man incites himself to drown, and will not restrain himself, it is not the water's fault.
John Gower
I know I have but the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too.
Elizabeth I
Dispute not with her: she is lunatic.
William Shakespeare
It is even so in a commonwealth and in the councils of princes; if ill opinions cannot be quite rooted out, and you cannot cure some received vice according to your wishes, you must not, therefore, abandon the commonwealth, for the same reasons as you should not forsake the ship in a storm because you cannot command the winds. You are not obliged to assault people with discourses that are out of their road, when you see that their received notions must prevent your making an impression upon them: you ought rather to cast about and to manage things with all the dexterity in your power, so that, if you are not able to make them go well, they may be as little ill as possible; for, except all men were good, everything cannot be right, and that is a blessing that I do not at present hope to see.
Thomas More
And as a man, who is attached to a prostitute, is unfitted to choose or judge of a wife, so any prepossession in favour of a rotten constitution of government will disable us from discerning a good one.
Thomas Paine
But there is another and greater distinction for which no truly natural or religious reason can be assigned, and that is the distinction of men into kings and subjects. Male and female are the distinctions of nature, good and band, the distinctions of heaven; but how a race of men came into the world so exalted above the rest, and distinguished like some new species, is worth inquiring into, and whether they are the means of happiness or of misery to mankind.
Thomas Paine
In the early ages of the world, according to the scripture chronology, there were no kings; the consequence of which was there were no wars; it is the pride of kings which throws mankind into confusion.
Thomas Paine
Could the straggling thoughts of individuals be collected, they would frequently form materials for wise and able men to improve into useful matter.
Thomas Paine
There's meaning in thy snores.
William Shakespeare
- Where is Polonius?- In heaven; send hither to see: if your messenger find him not there, seek him i' the other place yourself.
William Shakespeare
Lussurioso: "Welcome, be not far off, we must be better acquainted. Push, be bold with us, thy hand!"Vindice: "With all my heart, i'faith. How dost, sweet musk-cat? When shall we lie together?"Lussurioso: (aside) "Wondrous knave!Gather him into boldness? 'Sfoot, the slave'sAlready as familiar as an ague,And shakes me at his pleasure! -- Friend, I canForget myself in private, but elsewhere,I pray do you remember be."Vindice: "Oh, very well, sir.I conster myself saucy."Lussurioso: "What hast been? What profession?"Vindice: "A bone-setter."Lussurioso: "A bone-setter!"Vindice: "A bawd, my lord, one that sets bones together."Lussurioso: (aside) "Notable bluntness!
Thomas Middleton
Pete couldn't believe how sanctimonious somebody could be just because they'd once had a soldering iron stuck up their arse.
Alexei Sayle
Don Pedro - (...)'In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke.'Benedick - The savage bull may, but if ever the sensible Benedick bear it, pluck off the bull's horns and set them in my forehead, and let me be vildly painted; and in such great letters as they writes, 'Here is good horse for hire', let them signify under my sign, 'Here you may see Benedick the married man.
William Shakespeare
Swans sing before they die— 't were no bad thing Should certain persons die before they sing.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
More of your conversation would infect my brain.
William Shakespeare
Freedom had been hunted round the globe; reason was considered as rebellion; and the slavery of fear had made men afraid to think. But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing.
Thomas Paine
A forced kindness deserves no thanks
Thomas Fuller
What are the present governments of Europe, but a scene of iniquity and oppression? What is that of England? Do not its own inhabitants say, It is a market where every man has his price, and where corruption is common traffic, at the expense of a deluded people? No wonder, then, that the French Revolution is traduced.
Thomas Paine
O hell! to choose love by another's eye.
William Shakespeare
[F]rom my years of understanding ... I happily chose this kind of life in which I yet live [i.e., unmarried], which I assure you for my own part hath hitherto best contented myself and I trust hath been most acceptable to God. From the which if either ambition of high estate offered to me in marriage by the pleasure and appointment of my prince ... or if the eschewing of the danger of my enemies or the avoiding of the peril of death ... could have drawn or dissuaded me from this kind of life, I had not now remained in this estate wherein you see me. But so constant have I always continued in this determination ... yet is it most true that at this day I stand free from any other meaning that either I have had in times past or have at this present.
Elizabeth I
Thought is free.
William Shakespeare
[I]n the end this shall be for me sufficient, that a marble stone shall declare that a Queen, having reigned such a time, lived and died a virgin.
Elizabeth I
For so I created them free and free they must remain.
John Milton
What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated.
Thomas Paine
If I follow the inclination of my nature, it is this: beggar-woman and single, far rather than queen and married.
Elizabeth I
Thou canst not touch the freedom of my mind.
John Milton
Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.
John Milton
Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it.
Thomas Paine
Hence, viper thoughts, that coil around my mind, Reality's dark dream! I turn from you, and listen to the wind.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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 to expound this dream. Methought I was--there is no man can tell what. Methought I was,--and methought I had,--but man is but a patched fool, ifthe will offer to say what methought I had. The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was. I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream: it shall be called Bottom's Dream, because it hath no bottom...
William Shakespeare
The world is ruled by such dreams, dreams of impassioned hearts, and improvisations of warm lips, not by cold words linked in chains of iron sequence, --- not by logic. The heart with its passions, not the understanding with its reasoning, sways, in the long run, the actions of mankind.
William Kirby
For some must watch, while some must sleep So runs the world away
William Shakespeare
...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.
William Shakespeare
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.
William Shakespeare
If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended,That you have but slumbered hereWhile these visions did appear.And this weak and idle theme,No more yielding but a dream,Gentles, do not reprehend:If you pardon, we will mend:And, as I am an honest Puck,If we have unearned luckNow to 'scape the serpent's tongue,We will make amends ere long;Else the Puck a liar call;So, good night unto you all.Give me your hands, if we be friends,And Robin shall restore amends.
William Shakespeare
We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.
William Shakespeare
There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
William Shakespeare
And because the condition of man . . . is a condition of war of every one against every one, in which case every one is governed by his own reason, and there is nothing he can make use of that may not be a help unto him in preserving his life against his enemies; it followeth that in such a condition every man has a right to every thing, even to one another's body. And therefore, as long as this natural right of every man to every thing endureth, there can be no security to any man, how strong or wise soever he be, of living out the time which nature ordinarily alloweth men to live. And consequently it is a precept, or general rule of reason: that every man ought to endeavour peace, as far as he has hope of obtaining it; and when he cannot obtain it, that he may seek and use all helps and advantages of war. The first branch of which rule containeth the first and fundamental law of nature, which is: to seek peace and follow it. The second, the sum of the right of nature, which is: by all means we can to defend ourselves.
Thomas Hobbes
Such subtle covenants shall be made, Till peace itself is war in masquerade.
John Dryden
The most part of all princes have more delight in warlike manners and feats of chivalry than in the good feats of peace.
Thomas More
Let me have war, say I: it exceeds peace as far as day does night; it's spritely, waking, audible, and full of vent. Peace is a very apoplexy, lethargy; mulled, deaf, sleepy, insensible; a getter of more bastard children than war's a destroyer of men.
William Shakespeare
Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues.
Thomas Hobbes
That there are men in all countries who get their living by war, and by keeping up the quarrels of nations, is as shocking as it is true; but when those who are concerned in the government of a country, make it their study to sow discord and cultivate predjudices between nations, it becomes the more unpardonable.
Thomas Paine
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, disguise fair nature with hard-favor'd rage.
William Shakespeare
That there are men in all countries who get their living by war, and by keeping up the quarrels of Nations is as shocking as it is true...
Thomas Paine
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?
William Shakespeare
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 manAs modest stillness and humility:But when the blast of war blows in our ears,Then imitate the action of the tiger.
William Shakespeare
Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war!
William Shakespeare
The only really interesting thing iswhat happens between two people in a room.
Francis Bacon
I am not poor, I am not rich; nihil est, nihil deest, I have little, I want nothing: all my treasure is in Minerva’s tower...I live still a collegiate student...and lead a monastic life, ipse mihi theatrum [sufficient entertainment to myself], sequestered from those tumults and troubles of the world...aulae vanitatem, fori ambitionem, ridere mecum soleo [I laugh to myself at the vanities of the court, the intrigues of public life], I laugh at all.
Robert Burton