All Quotes

"The best way is, to slander Valentine With falsehood, cowardice, and poor descent; Three things that women highly hold in hate."

"You must lay lime, to tangle her desires By wailful sonnets."

"Ay, much the force of heaven-bred poesy."

"A man I am, cross’d with adversity."

"Who is Silvia? what is she, That all our swains commend her? Holy, fair, and wise is she, The heaven such grace did lend her, That she might admiréd be. Is she kind, as she is fair? For beauty lives with kindness Love doth to her eyes repair, To help him of his blindness: And, being helped, inhabits there. Then to Silvia let us sing, That Silvia is excelling; She excels each mortal thing Upon the dull earth dwelling: To her let us garlands bring."

"Is she not passing fair?"

"How use doth breed a habit in a man!"

"O heaven! were man But constant, he were perfect."

"Come not within the measure of my wrath."

"Camillo: You pay a great deal too dear for what's given freely. Archidamus: Believe me, I speak as my understanding instructs me, and as mine honesty puts it to utterance."

"You put me off with limber vows; but I, Though you would seek to unsphere the stars with oaths, Should yet say, Sir, no going. Verily, You shall not go; a lady's verily's As potent as a lord's. Will you go yet? Force me to keep you as a prisoner, Not like a guest; so you shall pay your fees When you depart, and save your thanks. How say you? My prisoner or my guest? by your dread verily, One of them you shall be."

"We were, fair queen, Two lads that thought there was no more behind, But such a day to-morrow as to-day, And to be boy eternal."

"What we chang'd Was innocence for innocence; we knew not The doctrine of ill-doing, nor dream'd That any did."

"Of this make no conclusion, lest you say Your queen and I are devils: yet, go on; The offences we have made you do, we'll answer, If you first sinn'd with us, and that with us You did continue fault, and that you slipp'd not With any but with us."

"Leontes: Hermione, my dearest, thou never spok'st To better purpose. Hermione: Never? Leontes: Never, but once. Hermione: What! have I twice said well? when was't before?"

"My last good deed was to entreat his stay; What was my first? it has an elder sister, Or I mistake you: O, would her name were Grace! But once before I spoke to the purpose: when? Nay, let me have't; I long."

"They say we are Almost as like as eggs."

"Hang off, thou cat, thou burr!"

"Follow! nay, I’ll go with thee, cheek by jole."

"I am amazed, and know not what to say."

"Cupid is a knavish lad Thus to make poor females mad."

"Thou painted maypole."

"She was a vixen when she went to school; And though she be but little, she is fierce."

"Night’s swift dragons cut the clouds full fast, And yonder shines Aurora’s harbinger; At whose approach, ghosts, wandering here and there, Troop home to churchyards: damned spirits all, That in crossways and floods have burial, Already to their wormy beds are gone."

"Jack shall have Jill; Nought shall go ill. The man shall have his mare again, and all shall be well."

"I am such a tender ass, if my hair do but tickle me, I must scratch."

"I have a reasonable good ear in music. Let’s have the tongs and the bones."

"I have an exposition of sleep come upon me."

"A calendar, a calendar! look in the almanac; find out moonshine, find out moonshine."

"My Oberon! what visions have I seen! Methought I was enamour’d of an ass."

"Music, ho! music, such as charmeth sleep!"

"Fairy king, attend, and mark: I do hear the morning lark."

"My love shall hear the music of my hounds."

"These things seem small and undistinguishable, Like far-off mountains turned into clouds."

"It seems to me That yet we sleep, we dream."

"I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was."

"The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man’s hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was."

"I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream: it shall be called Bottom's Dream, because it hath no bottom."

"Where are these lads? where are these hearts?"

"And, most dear actors, eat no onions nor garlic, for we are to utter sweet breath."

"Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend More than cool reason ever comprehends. The lunatic, the lover and the poet Are 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 a fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven; And as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name. Such tricks hath strong imagination, That, if it would but apprehend some joy, It comprehends some bringer of that joy; Or in the night, imagining some fear, How easy is a bush supposed a bear!"

"But all the story of the night told over, And their minds transfigured so together, More witnesseth than fancy's images, And grows to something of great constancy; But, howsoever, strange and admirable."

"Come now; what masques, what dances shall we have, To wear away this long age of three hours Between our after-supper and bed-time? Where is our usual manager of mirth? What revels are in hand? Is there no play, To ease the anguish of a torturing hour?"

"Merry and tragical! tedious and brief! That is, hot ice and wondrous strange snow. How shall we find the concord of this discord?"

"Hard-handed men, that work in Athens here, Which never labour’d in their minds till now."

"For never any thing can be amiss, When simpleness and duty tender it."

"The true beginning of our end."

"Whereat, with blade, with bloody blameful blade, He bravely broach’d his boiling bloody breast."

"The best in this kind are but shadows; and the worst are no worse, if imagination amend them."

"A very gentle beast, and of a good conscience."