William Shakespeare Quotes

» He was my friend, faithful and just to me: But Brutus says he was ambitious; And Brutus is an honourable man . �He hath brought many captives home to Rome, Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill: Did this in Caesar seem ambitious? 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.

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

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

» But then I sigh, and with a piece of scripture,Tell them that God bids us do good for evil.And thus I clothe my naked villainyWith odd old ends stolen forth of holy writ,And seem I a saint, when most I play the Devil.

» The fashion wears out more apparel than the man.

» Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world Like a Colossus, and we petty menWalk under his huge legs and peep aboutTo find ourselves dishonourable 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.

» In my stars I am above thee; but be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.

» ...the honour of a maid is her name; andno legacy is so rich as honesty.

» 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.

» If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended,That you have but slumber'd hereWhile these visions did appear...

» Angels and ministers of grace defend us.Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damned,Bring with thee airs from heaven, or blasts from hell,Be thy intents wicked, or charitable,Thou com'st in such a questionable shape,That I will speak to thee.

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

» O, thou hast damnable iteration, and art, indeed, able to corrupt a saint. Thou hast done much harm upon me, Hal; God forgive thee for it! Before I knew thee, Hal, I knew nothing; and now am I, if a man should speak truly, little better than one of the wicked. I must give over this life, and I will give it over; by the Lord, an I do not, I am a villain: I'll be damn'd for never a king's son in Christendom.

» Age cannot wither her, nor custom staleHer infinite variety: other women cloyThe appetites they feed, but she makes hungryWhere most she satisfies.

» 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...

» If music be the food of love, play on; Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die.

» There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

» 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 ownself be true,And it must follow, as the night the day,Thou canst not then be false to any man.

» To die, to sleep --To sleep, perchance to dream, ay there's the rub,For in that sleep of death what dreams may comeWhen we have shuffled off this mortal coil,Must give us pause; there's the respectThat makes calamity of so long life.

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

» Good-morrow to thee; welcome: Thou look'st like him that knows a warlike charge: To business that we love we rise betime, And go to't with delight.

» 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 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.

» And thus I clothe my naked villainyWith 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.

» Be great in act, as you have been in thought.

» Blow, blow, thou winter windThou art not so unkind,

As man's ingratitude.

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

» Cowards die many times before their deaths,The valiant never taste of death but once.

» Cry Havoc! And let slip the dogs of war!

» For they are yet ear-kissing arguments.

» Free from gross passion or of mirth or angerconstant 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.

» Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice; take each man's censure but reserve thy judgement.

» 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!

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

» He who has injured thee was either stronger or weaker than thee. If weaker, spare him; if stronger, spare thyself.

» His life was gentle; and the elementsSo 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.

» I am not bound to please thee with my answers.

» 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'.

» I dote on his very absence.

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

» I hate ingratitude more in a manthan lying, vainness, babbling, drunkenness,or any taint of vice whose strong corruptioninhabits our frail blood.

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

» I pray thee cease thy counsel,Which falls into mine ears as profitlessas water in a sieve.

» 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.

» I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.

» I wish you well and so I take my leave,I Pray you know me when we meet again.

» Ill deeds are doubled with an evil word.

» In a false quarrel there is no true valour.

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

» In time we hate that which we often fear.

» 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.

» Love all, trust a few. Do wrong to none.

» Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind.

» Mine honour is my life; both grow in one; take honour from me and my life is done.

» Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy.

» Our bodies are our gardens to which our wills are gardeners.

» Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie.

» Pity is the virture of the law, and none but tyrants use it cruelly.

» Praising what is lost makes the remembrance dear.

» 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.

» So may he rest, his faults lie gently on him!

» Strong reasons make strong actions.

» Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind.

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

» The peace of heaven is theirs that lift their swords, in such a just an charitable war.

» The sands are number'd that make up my life.

» The soul of this man is in his clothes.

» The trust I have is in mine innocence,and therefore am I bold and resolute.

» Their understandingBegins to swell and the approaching tideWill shortly fill the reasonable shoresThat now lie foul and muddy.

» Thou art all the comfort,The Gods will diet me with.

» Thou shalt be both the plaintiff and the judge of thine own cause.

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

» Thy words, I grant are bigger, for I wear not, my dagger in my mouth.

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

» We are advertis'd by our loving friends.

» We do not keep the outward form of order, where there is deep disorder in the mind.

» 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.

» When we are born, we cry, that we are comeTo this great stage of fools.

» While thou livest keep a good tongue in thy head.

» You cram these words into mine ears against the stomach of my sense.

» Your face is a book, where men may read strange matters.

» For aught that I could ever read,Could ever hear by tale or history,The course of true love never did run smooth.

» Lord, what fools these mortals be!

» No legacy is so rich as honesty.

» Praising what is lost Makes the remembrance dear.

» My salad days,When I was green in judgment.

» Age cannot wither her, nor custom staleHer infinite variety.

» Small to greater matters must give way.

» Since Cleopatra died, I have liv'd in such dishonour that the gods Detest my baseness.

» I have Immortal longings in me.

» 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.

» 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...

» The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.

» The game is up.

» I have not slept one wink.

» 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.

» Frailty, thy name is woman!

» He was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again.

» 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.

» 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.

» 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.

» Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

» Every man has business and desire, Such as it is.

» Leave her to heaven And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge, To prick and sting her.

» Brevity is the soul of wit.

» The devil hath power To assume a pleasing shape.

» The play's the thingWherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.

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

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

» 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.

» I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God has given you one face, and you make yourselves another.

» O, woe is me,To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!

» 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 heartache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to,--'t is 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, The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, The insolence of office and the spurns That patient merit of the 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 pith and moment With this regard their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action.

» 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.

» The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

» My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

» 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 engineerHoist with his own petard...

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

» So full of artless jealousy is guilt,It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.

» 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.

» A hit, a very palpable hit.

» Now cracks a noble heart. Good night sweet prince:And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!

» The rest is silence.

» Beware the ides of March.

» 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.

» 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.

» Cry Havoc, and let slip the dogs of war.

» Et tu, Brute!

» 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.

» 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.

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

» He hath eaten me out of house and home.

» Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

» 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.

» The gaudy, blabbing, and remorseful day Is crept into the bosom of the sea.

» 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.

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

» This England never did, nor never shall, Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror.

» Although the last, not least.

» Nothing will come of nothing.

» How sharper than a serpent's tooth it isTo have a thankless child!

» Oh, that way madness lies; let me shun that.

» The worst is notSo long as we can say, This is the worst.

» Pray you now, forget and forgive.

» The gods are just, and of our pleasant vicesMake instruments to plague us.

» 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.

» Now is the winter of our discontent Made glorious summer by this sun of York, And all the clouds that loured upon our house In the deep bosom of the ocean buried. Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths, Our bruised arms hung up for monuments, Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings, Our dreadful marches to delightful measures. 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; 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.

» 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.

» He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument.

» They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps.

» A jest's prosperity lies in the ear Of him that hears it, never in the tongue Of him that makes it.

» 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.

» Yet do I fear thy nature; It is too full o' the milk of human kindness.

» 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?

» The attempt and not the deed Confounds us.

» 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.

» Out, damned spot! out, I say!

» 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 taleTold by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

» Lay on, Macduff, And damn'd be him that first cries, Hold, enough!

» Our doubts are traitors, And make us lose the good we oft might win By fearing to attempt.

» Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.

» The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept.

» The hand that hath made you fair hath made you good.

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

» Truth is truth To the end of reckoning.

» What's mine is yours, and what is yours is mine.

» He wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat.

» 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 thank God I am as honest as any man living that is an old man and no honester than I.

» What a deformed thief this fashion is.

» I will wear my heart upon my sleeveFor daws to peck at.

» I am not merry; but I do beguileThe 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 mockThe 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.

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

» Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow, That I shall say good night till it be morrow.

» 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.

» What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet.

» A plague o' both your houses!

» Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast.

» When he is best, he is a little worse than a man; and when he is worst, he is little better than a beast.

» My meaning in saying he is a good man, is to have you understand me that he is sufficient.

» The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.

» It is a wise father that knows his own child.

» 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. 'T is 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. Therefore, Jew, 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.

» I will make a Star-chamber matter of it.

» 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.

» Thou art the Mars of malcontents.

» Here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the king's English.

» We burn daylight.

» This is the short and the long of it.

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

» We have some salt of our youth in us.

» I cannot tell what the dickens his name is.

» Your hearts are mighty, your skins are whole.

» 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.

» I would fain die a dry death.

» Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground.

» Come unto these yellow sands, And then take hands: Courtsied when you have, and kiss'd The wild waves whist.

» Fill all thy bones with aches.

» 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 will be correspondent to command, And do my spiriting gently.

» I, thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated To closeness and the bettering of my mind.

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

» 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 elseIn the dark backward and abysm of time?

» A very ancient and fish-like smell.

» Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.

» He that dies pays all debts.

» 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.

» Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits.

» I have no other but a woman's reason: I think him so, because I think him so.

» 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.

» Come not within the measure of my wrath.

» How use doth breed a habit in a man!

» What's gone and what's past help Should be past grief.

» Every man has his fault, and honesty is his.

» We have seen better days.

» Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge.

» The end crowns all, And that old common arbitrator, Time, Will one day end it.

» 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 1 That breathes upon a bank of violets, Stealing and giving odour!

» If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction.

» Costly thy habit [dress] as thy purse can buy; But not expressed in fancy - rich, not gaudy. For the apparel oft proclaims the man.

» Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.

» Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend; And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry [economy].

» 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.

» 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.

» Go to your bosom; Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know.

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

» 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...now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide, hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit to its full height!

» Do not, for one repulse, forego the purpose that you resolved to effect.

» 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.

» Be not afraid of greatness: some men are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them.

» Cursed be he that moves my bones.

» Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.

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

» O that a man might know the end of this day's business ere it come!

» Cowards die many times before their deaths: The valiant never taste of death but once.

» O, it is excellent to have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant.

» Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments: love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds.

» Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing.

» 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, And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste.

» Exit, pursued by a bear.

» My tongue will tell the anger of mine heart, Or else my heart, concealing it, will break.

» But love is blind and lovers cannot seeThe pretty follies that themselves commit;For if they could, Cupid himself would blush To see me thus transformed to a boy.

» Things won are done; joy's soul lies in the doing.