“I do I know not what, and fear to findMine eye too great a flatterer for my mind.Fate, show thy force. Ourselves we do not owe.What is decreed must be; and be this so.”

“When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see,For all the day they view things unrespected;But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,And darkly bright are bright in dark directed.Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright,How would thy shadow's form form happy showTo the clear day with thy much clearer light,When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so!How would, I say, mine eyes be blessed madeBy looking on thee in the living day,When in dead night thy fair imperfect shadeThrough heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay!All days are nights to see till I see thee,And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.”

“I had rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose in his grace; and it better fits my blood to be disdained of all than to fashion a carriage to rob love from any: in this, though I cannot be said to be a flattering honest man, it must not be denied but I am a plain-dealing villain. I am trusted with a muzzle and enfranchised with a clog; therefore I have decreed not to sing in my cage. If I had my mouth, I would bite; if I had my liberty, I would do my liking: in the meantime, let me be that I am, and seek not to alter me.”

“Love is too young to know what conscience is,  Yet who knows not conscience is born of love?  Then, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss,  Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove:  For, thou betraying me, I do betray  My nobler part to my gross body's treason;  My soul doth tell my body that he may  Triumph in love; flesh stays no farther reason,  But rising at thy name doth point out thee,  As his triumphant prize. Proud of this pride,  He is contented thy poor drudge to be,  To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.    No want of conscience hold it that I call    Her 'love,' for whose dear love I rise and fall.”

“I do love thee so, That I will shortly send thy soul to heaven”

“If I profane with my unworthiest handThis holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready standTo smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.Juliet:Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,Which mannerly devotion shows in this;For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.Romeo:Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?Juliet:Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.Romeo:O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.Juliet:Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.Romeo:Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take.Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged.Juliet:Then have my lips the sin that they have took.Romeo:Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged!Give me my sin again.Juliet:You kiss by the book.”

“Is it thy will, thy image should keep openMy heavy eyelids to the weary night?Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken,While shadows like to thee do mock my sight?Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from theeSo far from home into my deeds to pry,To find out shames and idle hours in me,The scope and tenor of thy jealousy?O, no! thy love, though much, is not so great:It is my love that keeps mine eye awake:Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat,To play the watchman ever for thy sake:For thee watch I, whilst thou dost wake elsewhere,From me far off, with others all too near.”