“This is the very ecstasy of love,Whose violent property fordoes itselfAnd leads the will to desperate undertakingsAs oft as any passion under heavenThat does afflict our natures.”

“I do believe you think what now you speak, but what we do determine oft we break. Purpose is but the slave to memory, of violent birth, but poor validity, which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree, but fall, unshaken, when they mellow be. Most unnecessary 'tis that we forget to pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt. What to ourselves in passion we propose, the passion ending, doth the purpose lose. The violence of either grief or joy their own enactures with themselves destroy. Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament. Grief joys, joy grieves on slender accident. This world is not for aye, nor 'tis not strange that even our loves should with our fortunes change. For 'tis a question left us yet to prove, whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love. The great man down, you mark his favorite flies. The poor advanced makes friends of enemies. And hitherto doth love on fortune tend, for who not needs shall never lack a friend, and who in want a hollow friend doth try, directly seasons him his enemy. But, orderly to end where I begun, our wills and fates do so contrary run that our devices still are overthrown. Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own. So think thou wilt no second husband wed, but die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead.”

“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind. Nor hath love's mind of any judgment taste; Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste: And therefore is love said to be a child, Because in choice he is so oft beguil'd.”

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

“I have no spurTo prick the sides of my intent, but onlyVaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itselfAnd falls on the other.”

“Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.”

“Oft expectation fails, and most oft there where most it promises; and oft it hits where hope is coldest, and despair most fits.”