“A knavish speech sleeps in a fool's ear.”

“Cupid is a knavish lad,Thus to make poor mortals mad!”

“More fools know Jack Fool than Jack Fool knows.”

“Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.Sometimes a thousand twangling instrumentsWill hum about mine ears; and sometime voices,That, if I then had waked after long sleep,Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,The clouds methought would open, and show richesReady to drop upon me; that, when I waked,I cried to dream again.”

“Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard,A serpent stung me; so the whole ear of DenmarkIs by a forged process of my deathRankly abused: but know, thou noble youth,The serpent that did sting thy father's lifeNow wears his crown.”

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

“What, are there masques? Hear you me, Jessica:Lock up my doors; and when you hear the drumAnd the vile squealing of the wry-neck'd fife,Clamber not you up to the casements then,Nor thrust your head into the public streetTo gaze on Christian fools with varnish'd faces,But stop my house's ears, I mean my casements:Let not the sound of shallow foppery enter”