"I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, Straining upon the start. The game's afoot; Follow your spirit: and upon this charge, Cry — God for Harry! England and Saint George!"

"And sheath'd their swords for lack of argument."

"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our English dead! In peace, there ’s nothing so becomes a man, As modest stillness and humility: But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger; Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood."

"Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin, As self-neglecting."

"As cold as any stone."

"Sure, he's not in hell; he's in Arthur's bosom, if ever man went to Arthur's bosom. 'A made a finer end, and went away, an it had been any christom child; 'a parted even just between twelve and one, even at the turning o’ the tide: for after I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers, and smile upon his fingers' ends, I knew there was but one way; for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and a’ babbled of green fields."

"Base is the slave that pays."

"We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us; His present and your pains we thank you for: When we have match'd our rackets to these balls, We will, in France, by God's grace, play a set Shall strike his father's crown into the hazard."

"So work the honey-bees; Creatures that, by a rule in nature, teach The act of order to a peopled kingdom."

"Turn him to any cause of policy, The Gordian knot of it he will unloose, Familiar as his garter; that, when he speaks, The air, a charter'd libertine, is still."

"Consideration, like an angel, came And whipp'd the offending Adam out of him."

"O! for a muse of fire, that would ascend The brightest heaven of invention! A kingdom for a stage, princes to act, And monarchs to behold the swelling scene! Then should the warlike Harry, like himself, Assume the port of Mars, and at his heels, Leashed in like hounds, should famine, sword, and fire Crouch for employment."

"There is occasions and causes why and wherefore in all things."

"Old John of Gaunt, time-honour'd Lancaster."

"That which in mean men we entitle patience, Is pale cold cowardice in noble breasts."

"In rage, deaf as the sea, hasty as fire."

"I wasted time, and now doth time waste me."

"Thoughts tending to content, flatter themselves That they are not the first of fortune's slaves, Nor shall not be the last."

"It is as hard to come as for a camel To thread the postern of a small needle’s eye."

"As in a theatre, the eyes of men, After a well-grac'd actor leaves the stage, Are idly bent on him that enters next, Thinking his prattle to be tedious."

"But soft, but see, or rather do not see, My fair rose wither: yet look up, behold, That you in pity may dissolve to dew, And wash him fresh again with true-love tears."

"I am greater than a king: For when I was a king, my flatterers Were then but subjects; being now a subject, I have a king here to my flatterer. Being so great, I have no need to beg."

"O, that I were a mockery king of snow."

"You may my glories and my state depose, But not my griefs; still am I king of those."

"And there, at Venice, gave His body to that pleasant country’s earth, And his pure soul unto his captain Christ, Under whose colours he had fought so long."

"And my large kingdom, for a little grave, A little, little grave, an obscure grave."

"He is come to ope The purple testament of bleeding war."

"No matter where. Of comfort no man speak: Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs; Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth; Let's choose executors, and talk of wills: And yet not so — for what can we bequeath Save our deposed bodies to the ground? Our lands, our lives, and all, are Bolingbroke's, And nothing can we call our own but death; And that small model of the barren earth Which serves as paste and cover to our bones. For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground, And tell sad stories of the death of kings: How some have been depos'd, some slain in war, Some haunted by the ghosts they have depos'd; Some poison'd by their wives, some sleeping kill'd; All murder'd — for within the hollow crown That rounds the mortal temples of a king, Keeps Death his court: and there the antic sits, Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp; Allowing him a breath, a little scene To monarchize, be fear'd, and kill with looks; Infusing him with self and vain conceit — As if this flesh, which walls about our life, Were brass impregnable — and, humour'd thus, Comes at the last, and with a little pin Bores through his castle wall, and — farewell king!"

"O, call back yesterday, bid time return."

"Not all the water in the rough rude sea Can wash the balm from an anointed king; The breath of worldly men cannot depose The deputy elected by the Lord."

"He fires the proud tops of the eastern pines."

"Eating the bitter bread of banishment."

"Evermore thanks, the exchequer of the poor."

"The ripest fruit first falls."

"This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, This earth of Majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise; This fortress built by Nature for herself, Against infection and the hand of war, This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall, Or as a moat defensive to a house, Against the envy of less happier lands; This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England, This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings, Fear'd by their breed, and famous by their birth."

"His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last, For violent fires soon burn out themselves."

"The setting sun, and music at the close, As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last, Writ in remembrance, more than things long past."

"They say, the tongues of dying men, Enforce attention, like deep harmony: Where words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain."

"O, who can hold a fire in his hand, By thinking on the frosty Caucasus? Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite, By bare imagination of a feast? Or wallow naked in December snow, By thinking on fantastic summer’s heat? O, no! the apprehension of the good Gives but the greater feeling to the worse: Fell sorrow's tooth doth never rankle more, Than when it bites, but lanceth not the sore."

"All places that the eye of heaven visits, Are to a wise man ports and happy havens. Teach thy necessity to reason thus; There is no virtue like necessity."

"John of Gaunt: What is six winters? they are quickly gone. Bolingbroke: To men in joy; but grief makes one hour ten."

"King Richard: For thee remains a heavier doom, Which I with some unwillingness pronounce: The fly-slow hours shall not determinate The dateless limit of thy dear exile; — The hopeless word of — Never to return, Breathe I against thee, upon pain of life. Norfolk: A heavy sentence, my most sovereign liege, And all unlook'd for from your highness' mouth: A dearer merit, not so deep a maim As to be cast forth in the common air Have I deserved at your highness' hands. The language I have learn'd these forty years, My native English, now I must forego: And now my tongue's use is to me no more Than an unstringed viol, or a harp; Or like a cunning instrument cas'd up, Or, being open, put into his hands That knows no touch to tune the harmony. Within my mouth you have engaol'd my tongue, Doubly porcullis'd with my teeth and lips; And dull, unfeeling, barren ignorance Is made my gaoler to attend on me. I am too old to fawn upon a nurse, Too far in years to be a pupil now; What is thy sentence then but speechless death Which robs my tongue from breathing native breath?"

"Truth hath a quiet breast."

"The daintiest last, to make the end most sweet."