Love's Labour's Lost

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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: 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!"

"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."

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

"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!"

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

"‘That unlettered small-knowing soul.’"

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

"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."

"The rational hind Costard."

"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."

"Assist me some extemporal god of rhyme, for I am sure I shall turn sonnet."

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

"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 man of sovereign parts he is esteem’d; Well fitted in arts, glorious in arms: Nothing becomes him ill that he would well."

"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."

"Biron: What time o’ day? Rosaline: The hour that fools should ask."

"Warble, child; make passionate my sense of hearing."

"By my penny of observation."

"Sweet smoke of rhetoric!"

"The boy hath sold him a bargain, a goose, that’s flat. Sir, your pennyworth is good, an your goose be fat. To sell a bargain well is as cunning as fast and loose."

"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."

"This wimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy; This senior-junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid; Regent of love-rhymes, lord of folded arms, The anointed sovereign of sighs and groans, Liege of all loiterers and malcontents, Dread prince of plackets, king of codpieces, Sole imperator and great general Of trotting ’paritors:—O my little heart!"

"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."

"It is a most pathetical nit!"

"A buck of the first head."

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

"He hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in a book; he hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink."

"His intellect is not replenished; he is only an animal, only sensible in the duller parts."

"Many can brook the weather that love not the wind."

"You two are book-men."

"Dictynna, goodman Dull."

"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."

"The elegancy, facility, and golden cadence of poesy."

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

"God give him grace to groan!"

"Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives, Live register’d upon our brazen tombs, And then grace us in the disgrace of death; When, spite of cormorant devouring Time, The endeavour of this present breath may buy That honour which shall bate his scythe’s keen edge, And make us heirs of all eternity."