“love is blindand lovers cannot see the pretty follies that themselves commit”

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

“Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly.”

“Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,Such shaping fantasies, that apprehendMore than cool reason ever comprehends.The lunatic, the lover and the poetAre of imagination all compact:One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:The poet's eye, in fine frenzy rolling,Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;And as imagination bodies forthThe forms of things unknown, the poet's penTurns them to shapes and gives to airy nothingA local habitation and a name.”

“And therefore, — since I cannot prove a lover,To entertain these fair well-spoken days, —I am determined to prove a villain,And hate the idle pleasures of these days.”

“O Mistress mine, where are you roaming?O, stay and hear; your true love's coming,That can sing both high and low:Trip no further, pretty sweeting;Journeys end in lovers meeting,Every wise man's son doth know.What is love? 'Tis not hereafter;Present mirth hath present laughter;What's to come is still unsure:In delay there lies not plenty;Then, come kiss me, sweet and twenty,Youth's a stuff will not endure.”

“Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs;Being purg'd, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes;Being vex'd, a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears;What is it else? A madness most discreet,A choking gall, and a preserving sweet.”