William Shakespeare

“And his unkindness may defeat my life, But never taint my love.”

“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 counterfeitIs 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 blessèd shape we know.In all external grace you have some part,But you like none, none you, for constant heart.”

“I am one, sir, that comes to tell you your daughterand the Moor are now making the beast with two backs.”

“To be a well-favoured man is the gift of fortune; but to write and read comes by nature.”

“Well, lords, we have not got that which we have:'Tis not enough our foes are this time fled,Being opposites of such repairing nature.York:I know our safety is to follow them;For, as I hear, the king is fled to London,To call a present court of parliament.Let us pursue him ere the writs go forth.What says Lord Warwick? shall we after them?Warwick:After them! nay, before them, if we can.Now, by my faith, lords, 'twas a glorious day:Saint Alban's battle won by famous YorkShall be eternized in all age to come.Sound drums and trumpets, and to London all:And more such days as these to us befall!”

“The Friends Thou HastAnd Their Adoption TriedGrapple Them To Thy SoulWith Hooks Of Steel”

“The merciless Macdonald(Worthy to be a rebel, — for, to that,The multiplying villainies of natureDo swarm upon him) from the Western IslesOf kerns and gallowglasses is supplied;And Fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling,Showed like a rebel's whore: but all's too weak:For brave Macbeth (well he deserves that name)Disdaining Fortune, with his brandish'd steel,Which smoked with bloody execution,Like valour's minion,Carv'd out his passage.”

“Things growing to themselves are growth's abuse:Seeds spring from seeds and beauty breedeth beauty;”

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

“O no! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken;It is the star to every wandering bark,Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.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.”

“From forth the fatal loins of these two foes A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life,Whose misadventured piteous overthrows Doth with their death bury their parents’ strife. . . . O, I am fortune’s fool! . . . Then I defy you, stars.”

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

“Then must you speakOf 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 awayRicher than all his tribe; of one whose subdued eyes,Albeit unused to the melting mood,Drop tears as fast as the Arabian treesTheir medicinable gum. Set you down this,And say besides that in Aleppo once,Where a malignant and a turbaned TurkBeat a Venetian and traduced the state,I took by th' throat the circumcised dogAnd smote him thus.”

“Why, why is this?Think'st thou I'ld make a lie of jealousy,To follow still the changes of the moonWith fresh suspicions? No; to be once in doubtIs once to be resolved: exchange me for a goat,When I shall turn the business of my soulTo such exsufflicate and blown surmises,Matching thy inference. 'Tis not to make me jealousTo say my wife is fair, feeds well, loves company,Is free of speech, sings, plays and dances well;Where virtue is, these are more virtuous:Nor from mine own weak merits will I drawThe smallest fear or doubt of her revolt;For she had eyes, and chose me. No, Iago;I'll see before I doubt; when I doubt, prove;And on the proof, there is no more but this,--Away at once with love or jealousy!”

“Things won are done, joy's soul lies in the doing.”

“Mother, you have my father much offended.”

“Oh why rebuke you him that loves you so? / Lay breath so bitter on your bitter foe.”

“This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.”

“My father's brother, but no more like my fatherThan I to Hercules.”

“Fondling,' she saith, 'since I have hemm'd thee here Within the circuit of this ivory pale, I'll be a park, and thou shalt be my deer; Feed where thou wilt, on mountain or in dale: Graze on my lips, and if those hills be dry, Stray lower, where the pleasant fountains lie.”

“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.”

“Aye me sad hours seem long”

“My lord, will you be true?Who, I? Alas, it is my vice, my fault:Whiles others fish with craft for great opinion,I with great truth catch mere simplicity;Whilst some with cunning gild their copper crowns,With truth and plainness I do wear mine bare.Fear not my truth: the moral of my witIs "plain and true"; there's all the reach of it.”

“I know you all, and will awhile upholdThe unyoked humour of your idleness.Yet herein will I imitate the sun,Who doth permit the base contagious cloudsTo smother up his beauty from the world,That when he please again to be himself,Being wanted, he may be more wondered atBy breaking through the foul and ugly mistsOf vapours that did seem to strangle him.If all the year were playing holidays,To sport would be as tedious as to work;But when they seldom come, they wished-for come,And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.So, when this loose behaviour I throw offAnd pay the debt I never promisèd,By how much better than my word I am,By so much shall I falsify men’s hopes;And like bright metal on a sullen ground,My reformation, glitt’ring o’er my fault,Shall show more goodly and attract more eyesThan that which hath no foil to set it off.I’ll so offend to make offence a skill,Redeeming time when men think least I will.”

“What's in a name?”

“Those that much covet are with gain so fond,For what they have not, that which they possessThey scatter and unloose it from their bond,And so, by hoping more, they have but less;Or, gaining more, the profit of excessIs but to surfeit, and such griefs sustain,That they prove bankrupt in this poor-rich gain.”

“Small herbs have grace, great weeds to grow apace.”

“Is this a prologue or a posy of a ring?Ophelia: Tis brief, my lordHamlet: As woman's love.”

“Życie jest jedynie przelotnym cieniem;żałosnym aktorem, co przez godzinę puszysię i miota na scenie, po czym znika;opowieścią idioty, pełną wrzasku i wściekłości, a nie znaczącą nic.”

“L'amor d'homes dolents es converteix en por;la por en odi, i l'odi fa que l'un, o bé tots dos,esdevinguin perill d'una mort merescuda.”

“I l'esperança d'una joia és gairebé una joiacomparable a la joia de l'esperança atesa.”

“Tempt not a desperate man”

“Thou art a boil, a plague sore, an embossed carbuncle in my corrupted blood.”

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

“Were kisses all the joys in bed,/One woman would another wed.”

“Fairies, black, grey, green, and white, You moonshine revellers, and shades of night, You orphan heirs of fixed destiny, Attend your office and your quality. William Shakespeare”

“Beauty is bought by judgement of the eye.”

“For who so firm that cannot be seduced?”

“O thou dissembling cub! what wilt thou beWhen time hath sow'd a grizzle on thy case?Or will not else thy craft so quickly grow,That thine own trip shall be thine overthrow?Farewell, and take her; but direct thy feetWhere thou and I henceforth may never meet.”

“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—”

“You know your mother means to feast with me,And calls herself Revenge, and thinks me mad:Hark, villains! I will grind your bones to dustAnd with your blood and it I'll make a paste,And of the paste a coffin I will rearAnd make two pasties of your shameful heads,And bid that strumpet, your unhallow'd dam,Like to the earth swallow her own increase.This is the feast that I have bid her to,And this the banquet she shall surfeit on; (5.2.18)”

“Borne by the trustless wings of false desire.”

“Good with out evil is like light with out darkness which in turn is like righteousness whith out hope.”

“Is there no pity sitting in the clouds That sees into the bottom of my grief? O sweet my mother, cast me not away! Delay this marriage for a month, a week, Or if you do not, make the bridal bed In that dim monument where Tybalt lies.”

“I am not yet of Percy's mind, the Hotspur of the North; he that kills me some six or seven dozen of Scots as a breakfast, washes his hands, and says to his wife, 'Fie upon this quiet life! I want work.”

“But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at such a place;' some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle; for how can they charitably dispose of anything, when blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the king that led them to it; whom to disobey were against all proportion of subjection.”

“And some that smile have in their hearts, I fear, millions of mischiefs.”

“so full of shapes is fancy”

“And where two raging fires meet together, they do consume the thing that feeds their fury.”

“I'll have no husband, if you be not he.”