Henry VI, Part 3

"I am your butt, and I abide your shot."

"Farewell, faint-hearted and degenerate king, In whose cold blood no spark of honour bides."

"How sweet a thing it is to wear a crown, Within whose circuit is Elysium, And all that poets feign of bliss and joy."

"O, tiger's heart, wrapped in a woman's hide!"

"Women are soft, mild, pitiful and flexible, Thou stern, obdurate, flinty, rough, remorseless!"

"And many strokes, though with a little axe, Hew down and fell the hardest-timber'd oak."

"To weep, is to make less the depth of grief: Tears, then, for babes; blows, and revenge for me!"

"The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on."

"Didst thou never hear That things ill got had ever bad success? And happy always was it for that son, Whose father for his hoarding went to hell?"

"This battle fares like to the morning's war, When dying clouds contend with growing light; What time the shepherd, blowing of his nails, Can neither call it perfect day, nor night."

"O God! methinks, it were a happy life, To be no better than a homely swain; To sit upon a hill, as I do now, To carve out dials quaintly, point by point, Thereby to see the minutes how they run: How many make the hour full complete, How many hours bring about the day, How many days will finish up the year, How many years a mortal man may live."

"Gives not the hawthorn-bush a sweeter shade To shepherds, looking on their silly sheep, Than doth a rich embroidered canopy To kings, that fear their subjects' treachery?"

"The common people swarm like summer flies."

"Let me embrace thee, sour adversity; For wise men say it is the wisest course."

"I know, I am too mean to be your queen; And yet too good to be your concubine."

"Peace, impudent and shameless Warwick, peace! Proud setter-up and puller-down of kings!"

"Yet hasty marriage seldom proveth well."

"What fates impose, that men must needs abide; It boots not to resist both wind and tide."

"Fearless minds climb soonest unto crowns."

"A little fire is quickly trodden out, Which being suffer'd, rivers cannot quench."

"My pity hath been balm to heal their wounds."

"Lo, now my glory smear'd in dust and blood! My parks, my walks, my manors that I had, Even now forsake me; and, of all my lands, Is nothing left me, but my body's length! Why, what is pomp, rule, reign, but earth and dust? And, live we how we can, yet die we must."

"Why, courage, then! what cannot be avoided, 'Twere childish weakness to lament or fear."

"Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind; The thief doth fear each bush an officer."

"Down, down to hell; and say I sent thee thither."

"Then, since the heavens have shap'd my body so, Let hell make crook'd my mind to answer it. I have no brother, I am like no brother: And this word—love, which greybeards call divine, Be resident in men like one another, And not in me; I am myself alone."