William Shakespeare Quotes
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Heaven truly knows that thou art false as hell.
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In God's name cheerly on, courageous friends, To reap the harvest of perpetual peace By this one bloody trial of sharp war.
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Can you nominate in order now the degrees of the lie? I will name you the degrees. The first, the Retort Courteous; the second, the Quip Modest; the third, the Reply Churlish; the fourth, the Reproof Valiant; the fifth; the Countercheck Quarrelsome; the sixth, the Lie with Circumstance; the seventh, the Lie Direct. All these you may avoid but the Lie Direct; and you may avoid that too, with an If. . . . Your If is the only peace-maker; much virtue in If.
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Past and to come, seems best; things present, worse.
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Let's teach ourselves that honorable stop, Not to outsport discretion.
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Let me twine Mine arms about that body, where against My grained ash an hundred times hath broke And scarr'd the moon with splinters: here I clip The anvil of my sword, and do contest As hotly and as nobly with thy love As ever in ambitious strength I did Contend against thy valour. Know thou first, I loved the maid I married; never man Sigh'd truer breath; but that I see thee here, Thou noble thing! more dances my rapt heart Than when I first my wedded mistress saw Bestride my threshold.
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Use every man according to his desert and who should 'scape whipping? Use them after your own honor and dignity, the less they deserve ... the more merit in your bounty.
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I praise God for you, sir: your reasons at dinner have been sharp and sententious; pleasant without scurrility, witty without affectation, audacious without impudency, learned without opinion, and strange with-out heresy.
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The Devil hath power To assume a pleasing shape.
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Man, proud man, drest in a little brief authority, most ignorant of what he's most assur d, glassy essence, like an angry ape, plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven, as make the angels weep.
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Free from gross passion or of mirth or anger
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My free drift Halts not particularly, but moves itself In a wide sea of wax; no levelled malice Infects one comma in the course I hold, But flies an eagle flight, bold and forth on, Leaving no tract behind.
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My rage is gone, And I am struck with sorrow. Take him up. Help, three o' th' chiefest soldiers; I'll be one. Beat thou the drum, that it speaks mournfully, Trail your steel spikes. Though in this city he Hath widowed and unchilded many a one, Which to this hour bewail the injury, Yet he shall have a noble memory. Assist.
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In jest, there is truth.
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'By heaven, that thou art fair, is most infallible true, that thou art beauteous truth itself, that thou art lovely. More fairer than fair, beautiful than beauteous, truer than truth itself, have commiseration on thy heroical vassal.
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Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper, Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee, And for thy maintenance commits his body To painful labour both by sea and land, To watch the night in storms, the day in cold, Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe; And craves no other tribute at thy hands But love, fair looks and true obedience; Too little payment for so great a debt.
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I am a subject, And I challenge law. Attorneys are denied me, And therefore personally I lay my claim To my inheritance of free descent.
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God bless thee; and put meekness in thy breast, Love, charity, obedience, and true duty!
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Thyself and thy belongings Are not thine own so proper, as to waste Thyself upon thy virtues, they on thee. Heaven doth with us as we with torches do, Not light them for themselves; for if our virtues Did not go forth of us 't were all alike As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touch'd But to fine issues; nor Nature never lends The smallest scruple of her excellence, But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines Herself the glory of a creditor - Both thanks and use.
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Fie, fie upon her! There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip, Nay, her foot speaks; her wanton spirits look out At every joint and motive of her body.
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I am sure care's an enemy to life.
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Each substance of a grief has twenty shadows.
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What, keep a week away? Seven days and nights, Eightscore-eight hours, and lovers' absent hours More tedious than the dial eightscore times! O weary reckoning!
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Join not with grief, fair woman, do not so, To make my end too sudden.