William Shakespeare

“Ay, to the proof, as mountains are for winds, that shakes not, though they blow perpetually.”

“Art thou not sorry for these heinous deeds?AARON. Ay, that I had not done a thousand more.Even now I curse the day- and yet, I think,Few come within the compass of my curse-Wherein I did not some notorious ill;As kill a man, or else devise his death;Ravish a maid, or plot the way to do it;Accuse some innocent, and forswear myself;Set deadly enmity between two friends;Make poor men's cattle break their necks;Set fire on barns and hay-stacks in the night,And bid the owners quench them with their tears.Oft have I digg'd up dead men from their graves,And set them upright at their dear friends' doorEven when their sorrows almost was forgot,And on their skins, as on the bark of trees,Have with my knife carved in Roman letters'Let not your sorrow die, though I am dead.'Tut, I have done a thousand dreadful thingsAs willingly as one would kill a fly;And nothing grieves me heartily indeedBut that I cannot do ten thousand more.”

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

“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.”

“All love's pleasure shall not match its woe.”

“Be great in act, as you have been in thought.”

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

“In springtime, the only pretty ring timeBirds sing, hey dingA-ding, a-dingSweet lovers love the spring—”

“Let him smell his way to Dover!”

“Come, gentle night; come, loving, black-browed night;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 fineThat all the world will be in love with night...”

“That time of year thou mayst in me beholdWhen yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hangUpon 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 dayAs 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.In me thou see'st the glowing of such fireThat on the ashes of his youth doth lie,As the death-bed whereon it must expireConsumed with that which it was nourish'd by.This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,To love that well which thou must leave ere long.”

“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?”

“Nothing will come of nothing: speak again.”

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

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

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

“Listen to many, speak to a few.”

“Let not light see my black and deep desires. They eye wink at the hand, yet let that be which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.”

“Out, you tallow-face! You baggage!”

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

“Hide not thy poison with such sugar'd words”

“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)”

“Why dost thou use me thus? I know thee not.Kent: Fellow, I know thee.Oswald: What dost thou know me for?Kent: A knave, a rascal, an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy; worsted-stocking knave; a lily-livered, action-taking whoreson, glass-gazing, superserviceable, finical rogue; one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a bawd, in way of good service, and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pander, and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch; one whom I will beat into clamorous whining, if thou denyest the least syllable of thy addition.”

“I defy you, stars.”

“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.”

“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 greetMy poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown.A thousand thousand sighs to save, lay me O whereSad true lover never find my grave, to weep there!”

“I will speak daggers to her, but use none.”

“O, that this too too solid flesh would meltThaw and resolve itself into a dew!Or that the Everlasting had not fix'dHis canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,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 naturePossess it merely. That it should come to this!But two months dead: nay, not so much, not two:So excellent a king; that was, to this,Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my motherThat he might not beteem the winds of heavenVisit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!Must I remember? why, she would hang on him,As if increase of appetite had grownBy what it fed on: and yet, within a month--Let me not think on't--Frailty, thy name is woman!--A little month, or ere those shoes were oldWith which she follow'd my poor father's body,Like Niobe, all tears:--why she, even she--O, God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,Would have mourn'd longer--married with my uncle,My father's brother, but no more like my fatherThan I to Hercules: within a month:Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tearsHad left the flushing in her galled eyes,She married. O, most wicked speed, to postWith such dexterity to incestuous sheets!It is not nor it cannot come to good:But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue.”

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

“For doting, not for loving, pupil mine.”

“Love sought is good, but giv'n unsought is better.”

“Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tearsHad left the flushing of her gallèd eyes,She married. O, most wicked speed, to postWith such dexterity to incestuous sheets!”

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

“Let still woman takeAn 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.”

“If you can look into the seeds of time And say which grain will grow and which will not, Speak, then, to me, who neither beg nor fear Your favors nor your hate.”

“Let us to it pellmell. If not to Heaven, then hand in hand to Hell.”

“WESTMORELAND. O that we now had here But one ten thousand of those men in England That do no work to-day! KING. What's he that wishes so? My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin; If we are mark'd to die, we are enow To do our country loss; and if to live, The fewer men, the greater share of honour. God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more. By Jove, I am not covetous for gold, Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost; It yearns me not if men my garments wear; Such outward things dwell not in my desires. But if it be a sin to covet honour, I am the most offending soul alive. No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England. God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour As one man more methinks would share from me For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more! Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host, That 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. This day is call'd the feast of Crispian. He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd, And rouse him at the name of Crispian. He that shall live this day, and see old age, Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours, And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.' Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars, And say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.' Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot, But he'll remember, with advantages, What feats he did that day. Then shall our names, Familiar in his mouth as household words- Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter, Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester- Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red. This story shall the good man teach his son; 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; 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.”

“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.”

“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. ”

“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." Which dreams, indeed, are ambition; for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.”

“When to the sessions of sweet silent thoughtI summon up remembrance of things past,I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought...”

“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: Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines, And too often is his gold complexion dimm'd: And every fair from fair sometimes declines, By chance or natures changing course untrimm'd; By thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou growest: So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this and this gives life to thee.”

“It puzzles the will. ”

“Sofremos demasiado pelo pouco que nos falta e alegramo-nos pouco pelo muito que temos...”

“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 girlsAre level now with men; the odds is gone,And there is nothing left remarkableBeneath the visiting moon.”

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

“Discretion is the better part of valor.”

“How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a weary world.”

“Existe uma previdência especial até na queda de um pássaro.Se é agora, não vai ser depois; se não for depois, será agora; se nao for agora,será qualquer hora. Estar preparado é tudo.”

“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.”