"This is a gift that I have, simple, simple; a foolish extravagant spirit, full of forms, figures, shapes, objects, ideas, apprehensions, motions, revolutions: these are begot in the ventricle of memory, nourished in the womb of pia mater, and delivered upon the mellowing of occasion."

"By heaven, I do love: and it hath taught me to rhyme, and to be melancholy."

"God give him grace to groan!"

"What fool is not so wise To lose an oath to win a paradise?"

"Like a demigod here sit I in the sky, And wretched fools’ secrets heedfully o’er-eye. More sacks to the mill! O heavens, I have my wish! Dumain transform’d! four woodcocks in a dish!"

"Ill, to example ill, Would from my forehead wipe a perjured note; For none offend where all alike do dote."

"O me, with what strict patience have I sat, To see a king transformed to a gnat! To see great Hercules whipping a gig, And profound Solomon to tune a jig, And Nestor play at push-pin with the boys, And critic Timon laugh at idle toys!"

"Where nothing wants that want itself doth seek."

"Fie, painted rhetoric!"

"Beauty doth varnish age."

"Black is the badge of hell, The hue of dungeons and the school of night."

"Devise, wit; write, pen; for I am for whole volumes in folio."

"By my penny of observation."

"About the sixth hour; when beasts most graze, birds best peck, and men sit down to that nourishment which is called supper."

"A man in all the world’s new fashion planted, That hath a mint of phrases in his brain."

"‘That unlettered small-knowing soul.’"

"Why, all delights are vain; but that most vain, Which, with pain purchased, doth inherit pain: As, painfully to pore upon a book To seek the light of truth; while truth the while Doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look: Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile: So, ere you find where light in darkness lies, Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes."

"Biron: What is the end of study? let me know. King: Why, that to know, which else we should not know. Biron: Things hid and barr’d, you mean, from common sense? King: Ay, that is study’s god-like recompense."

"Biron: Study is like the heaven’s glorious sun, That will not be deep-search’d with saucy looks: Small have continual plodders ever won, Save base authority from others’ books. These earthly godfathers of heaven’s lights, That give a name to every fixèd star, Have no more profit of their shining nights Than those that walk and wot not what they are. Too much to know, is to know nought but fame; And every godfather can give a name. King: How well he’s read, to reason against reading!"

"‘A child of our grandmother Eve, a female; or, for thy more sweet understanding, a woman.’"

"Sweet smoke of rhetoric!"

"I thought he slept, and put My clouted brogues from off my feet."

"Fear no more the heat o' the sun Nor the furious winter's rages; Thou thy worldly task hast done, Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages: Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney-sweepers, come to dust."

"By Jupiter, an angel! or, if not, An earthly paragon! Behold divineness No elder than a boy."

"Weariness Can snore upon the flint, when resty sloth Finds the down pillow hard."

"Triumphs for nothing, and lamenting toys, Is jollity for apes and grief for boys."

"With fairest flowers, Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele, I'll sweeten thy sad grave; thou shall not lack The flower that's like thy face, pale primrose, nor The azur'd harebell, like thy veins."

"Our court shall be a little Academe, Still and contemplative in living art."

"Fat paunches have lean pates; and dainty bits Make rich the ribs, but bankrupt quite the wits."

"Come on, then; I will swear to study so, To know the thing I am forbid to know: As thus,—to study where I well may dine, When I to feast expressly am forbid; Or study where to meet some mistress fine, When mistresses from common sense are hid."

"Or having sworn too hard a keeping oath, Study to break it, and not break my troth."

"At Christmas I no more desire a rose, Than wish a snow in May’s new-fangled shows; But like of each thing that in season grows."

"So study evermore is overshot: While it doth study to have what it would, It doth forget to do the thing it should; And when it hath the thing it hunteth most, ’Tis won as towns with fire, so won, so lost."

"One whom the music of his own vain tongue Doth ravish like enchanting harmony."

"A high hope for a low heaven: God grant us patience!"

"Affliction may one day smile again; and till then, sit thee down, sorrow!"

"The world was very guilty of such a ballad some three ages since: but, I think, now ’tis not to be found."

"Love is a familiar; Love is a devil: there is no evil angel but Love."

"Adieu, valour! rust, rapier! be still, drum! for your manager is in love; yea, he loveth."

"Beauty is bought by judgement of the eye, Not utter’d by base sale of chapmen’s tongues."

"Bold of your worthiness, we single you As our best-moving fair solicitor."

"A merrier man, Within the limit of becoming mirth, I never spent an hour’s talk withal: His eye begets occasion for his wit; For every object that the one doth catch, The other turns to a mirth-moving jest, Which his fair tongue, conceit’s expositor, Delivers in such apt and gracious words, That aged ears play truant at his tales, And younger hearings are quite ravished; So sweet and voluble is his discourse."

"Your wit’s too hot, it speeds too fast, ’twill tire."

"Remuneration! O, that’s the Latin word for three farthings."

"And I, forsooth, in love! I that have been love’s whip; A very beadle to a humorous sigh."

"I seek a wife! A woman, that is like a German clock, Still a-repairing, ever out of frame, And never going aright, being a watch, But being watch’d that it may still go right!"

"And, out of question, so it is sometimes, Glory grows guilty of detested crimes, When, for fame’s sake, for praise, an outward part, We bend to that the working of the heart."

"O thou monster Ignorance, how deformed dost thou look!"

"O, the charity of a penny cord! it sums up thousands in a trice."