All Quotes

"I am a man, More sinn'd against than sinning."

"The art of our necessities is strange, And can make vile things precious."

"He that has and a little tiny wit, With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, Must make content with his fortunes fit, Though the rain it raineth every day."

"O, that way madness lies; let me shun that; No more of that."

"Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are, That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm, How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides, Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you From seasons such as these? O! I have ta'en Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp; Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel, That thou mayst shake the superflux to them, And show the heavens more just."

"Revenons à nos moutons."

"Is man no more than this? Consider him well. Thou owest the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume. Ha! here's three on 's are sophisticated; thou art the thing itself; unaccomodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art."

"The prince of darkness is a gentleman."

"Child Rowland to the dark tower came, His word was still, —Fie, foh, and fum, I smell the blood of a British man."

"He's mad, that trusts in the tameness of a wolf, a horse's health, a boy's love, or a whore's oath."

"Cry you mercy, I took you for a joint-stool."

"Go, thrust him out at gates, and let him smell His way to Dover."

"I have no way, and therefore want no eyes; I stumbled when I saw: full oft 'tis seen, Our means secure us, and our mere defects Prove our commodities."

"And worse I may be yet: the worst is not, So long as we can say, This is the worst."

"As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods, — They kill us for their sport."

"You are not worth the dust which the rude wind Blows in your face."

"She that herself will sliver and disbranch From her material sap, perforce must wither And come to deadly use."

"Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile: Filths savour but themselves."

"It is the stars, The stars above us, govern our conditions;"

"How fearful And dizzy 'tis to cast one's eyes so low! The crows and choughs, that wing the midway air Show scarce so gross as beetles; halfway down Hangs one that gathers samphire, — dreadful trade! Methinks he seems no bigger than his head. The fishermen, that walk upon the beach, Appear like mice, and yond tall anchoring bark Diminished to her cock; her cock, a buoy Almost too small for sight. The murmuring surge, That on the unnumber'ed idle pebbles chafes, Cannot be heard so high."

"Ay, every inch a king: When I do stare, see how the subject quakes. I pardon that man's life. — What was thy cause? — Adultery? — Thou shalt not die: die for adultery! No: The wren goes to't, and the small gilded fly Does lecher in my sight. Let copulation thrive; for Gloster's bastard son Was kinder to his father than my daughters Got 'tween the lawful sheets. To't, luxury, pell-mell! for I lack soldiers. — Behold yond simpering dame, Whose face between her forks presages snow; That minces virtue, and does shake the head To hear of pleasure's name; — The fitchew nor the soiled horse goes to't With a more riotous appetite Down from the waist they are centaurs, Though women all above. But to the girdle do the gods inherit, Beneath is all the fiend's; there's hell, there's darkness, There is the sulphurous pit; burning, scalding, stench, consumption! — fie, fie, fie! pah, pah! Give me an ounce of civet, good apothecary, to sweeten my imagination: there's money for thee."

"Gloucester: O! let me kiss that hand! Lear: Let me wipe it first; it smells of mortality."

"A man may see how this world goes with no eyes. Look with thine ears: see how yond justice rails upon yon simple thief. Hark, in thine ear: change places; and, handy-dandy, which is the justice, which is the thief?"

"There thou mightst behold the great image of authority: a dog's obeyed in office."

"Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear; Robes and furr'd gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold, And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks; Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw does pierce it."

"When we are born, we cry that we are come To this great stage of fools — This' a good block: — It were a delicate strategem to shoe A troop of horse with felt: I'll put 't in proof; And when I have stol'n upon these sons-in-law, Then kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill!"

"You do me wrong to take me out o' the grave: — Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears Do scald like molten lead."

"I am a very foolish fond old man, Fourscore and upward, not an hour more or less; And, to deal plainly, I fear I am not in my perfect mind."

"You must bear with me: Pray you now, forget and forgive: I am old and foolish."

"Men must endure Their going hence, even as their coming hither: Ripeness is all."

"We are not the first Who, with best meaning, have incurr'd the worst."

"Come, let's away to prison; We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage: When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down, And ask of thee forgiveness: so we'll live, And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues Talk of court news; and we'll talk with them too, Who loses and who wins; who's in, who's out; — And take upon's the mystery of things, As if we were God's spies: and we'll wear out, In a wall'd prison, packs and sects of great ones That ebb and flow by the moon."

"The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices Make instruments to plague us."

"The wheel is come full circle: I am here."

"Howl, howl, howl, howl! O! you are men of stones: Had I your tongues and eyes, I'd use them so That heaven's vaults should crack. — She's gone for ever! — I know when one is dead, and when one lives; She's dead as earth."

"And my poor fool is hang'd! No, no, no life! Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life, And thou no breath at all? Thou'lt come no more, Never, never, never, never, never! Pray you, undo this button: thank you sir. Do you see this? Look on her, look, her lips, Look there, look there!"

"Vex not his ghost: O! let him pass; he hates him That would upon the rack of this tough world Stretch him out longer."

"I have a journey, sir, shortly to go. My master calls me; I must not say no."

"The weight of this sad time we must obey; Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say. The oldest hath borne most: we that are young Shall never see so much, nor live so long."

"Plain language sounds purely objective. On the one hand, it has not the accent of mere vituperation, it is thoroughly dignified; and on the other, it is not the language of a person who is mainly concerned with wangling somebody into believing something. When Mr. Jefferson wrote that one of his associates in Washington's cabinet was "a fool and a blabber," his words, taken in their context, make exactly the same impression of calm, disinterested and objective appraisal as if he had remarked that the man had black hair and brown eyes. Or again, while we are about it, let us examine the most extreme example of this sort of thing that I have so far found in English literature, which is Kent's opinion of Oswald, in King Lear:"

"Lear is a play [that] contains a great deal of veiled social criticism — but it is all uttered either by the Fool, by Edgar when he is pretending to be mad, or by Lear during his bouts of madness. In his sane moments Lear hardly ever makes an intelligent remark."

"When we have done our best, we should wait the result in peace."

"We often hear of bad weather, but in reality no weather is bad. It is all delightful, though in different ways. Some weather may be bad for farmers or crops, but for man all kinds are good. Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating."

"Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under the trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the blue sky, is by no means waste of time."

"Earth and Sky, Woods and Fields, Lakes and Rivers, the Mountain and the Sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books."

"There are three great questions which in life we have over and over again to answer. Is it right or wrong? Is it true or false? Is it beautiful or ugly? Our education ought to help us to answer these questions."

"A beautiful world we live in, when it IS possible, and when many other such things are possible, and not only possible, but done—done, see you!—under that sky there, every day. Long live the Devil. Let us go on."

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."

"France, less favoured on the whole as to matters spiritual than her sister of the shield and trident, rolled with exceeding smoothness down hill, making paper money and spending it."

"The mail was in its usual genial position that the guard suspected the passengers, the passengers suspected one another and the guard, they all suspected everybody else, and the coachman was sure of nothing but the horses; as to which cattle he could with a clear conscience have taken his oath on the two Testaments that they were not fit for the journey."