Love's Labour's Lost

"O queen of queens! how far dost thou excel, No thought can think, nor tongue of mortal tell."

"King: Sweet fellowship in shame! Biron: One drunkard loves another of the name."

"Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye, ’Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument, Persuade my heart to this false perjury?"

"What fool is not so wise To lose an oath to win a paradise?"

"Like a demigod here sit I in the sky, And wretched fools’ secrets heedfully o’er-eye. More sacks to the mill! O heavens, I have my wish! Dumain transform’d! four woodcocks in a dish!"

"On a day—alack the day!— Love, whose month is ever May, Spied a blossom passing fair Playing in the wanton air: Through the velvet leaves the wind, All unseen, can passage find; That the lover, sick to death, Wish himself the heaven’s breath. Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow; Air, would I might triumph so! But, alack, my hand is sworn Ne’er to pluck thee from thy thorn; Vow, alack, for youth unmeet, Youth so apt to pluck a sweet! Do not call it sin in me, That I am forsworn for thee; Thou for whom Jove would swear Juno but an Ethiope were; And deny himself for Jove, Turning mortal for thy love."

"Ill, to example ill, Would from my forehead wipe a perjured note; For none offend where all alike do dote."

"O me, with what strict patience have I sat, To see a king transformed to a gnat! To see great Hercules whipping a gig, And profound Solomon to tune a jig, And Nestor play at push-pin with the boys, And critic Timon laugh at idle toys!"

"Young blood doth not obey an old decree: We cannot cross the cause why we were born."

"What peremptory eagle-sighted eye Dares look upon the heaven of her brow, That is not blinded by her majesty?"

"Where nothing wants that want itself doth seek."

"Fie, painted rhetoric!"

"To things of sale a seller’s praise belongs."

"Beauty doth varnish age."

"Black is the badge of hell, The hue of dungeons and the school of night."

"Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of light."

"O, some authority how to proceed; Some tricks, some quillets, how to cheat the devil."

"From women's eyes this doctrine I derive: They are the ground, the books, the academes, From whence doth spring the true Promethean fire."

"Why, universal plodding prisons up The nimble spirits in the arteries, As motion and long-during action tires The sinewy vigour of the traveller."

"For where is any author in the world, Teaches such beauty as a woman’s eye? Learning is but an adjunct to ourself And where we are our learning likewise is Then when ourselves we see in ladies’ eyes. Do we not likewise see our learning there?"

"But love, first learnèd in a lady’s eyes, Lives not alone immurèd in the brain."

"It adds a precious seeing to the eye."

"A lover’s eyes will gaze an eagle blind; A lover’s ear will hear the lowest sound."

"Love’s feeling is more soft and sensible Than are the tender horns of cockled snails."

"For valour, is not Love a Hercules, Still climbing trees in the Hesperides? Subtle as Sphinx; as sweet and musical As bright Apollo’s lute, strung with his hair; And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods Make heaven drowsy with the harmony."

"Never durst poet touch a pen to write Until his ink were temper’d with Love’s sighs."

"From women’s eyes this doctrine I derive: They sparkle still the right Promethean fire; They are the books, the arts, the academes, That show, contain and nourish all the world: Else none at all in ought proves excellent."

"Let us once lose our oaths to find ourselves, Or else we lose ourselves to keep our oaths."

"For charity itself fulfils the law, And who can sever love from charity?"

"Allons! allons! Sow’d cockle reap’d no corn."

"Your reasons at dinner have been sharp and sententious; pleasant without scurrility, witty without affection, audacious without impudency, learned without opinion, and strange without heresy."

"He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument."

"I abhor such fanatical phantasimes, such insociable and point-devise companions; such rackers of orthography."

"Priscian! a little scratched, ’twill serve."

"They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps."

"O, they have lived long on the alms-basket of words. I marvel thy master hath not eaten thee for a word; for thou art not so long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus: thou art easier swallowed than a flap-dragon."

"An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst have it to buy gingerbread."

"In the posteriors of this day, which the rude multitude call the afternoon."

"Had she been light, like you, Of such a merry, nimble, stirring spirit, She might ha’ been a grandam ere she died: And so may you; for a light heart lives long."

"The letter is too long by half a mile."

"Princess: None are so surely caught, when they are catch’d, As wit turn’d fool: folly, in wisdom hatch’d, Hath wisdom’s warrant and the help of school, And wit’s own grace to grace a learned fool. Rosaline: The blood of youth burns not with such excess As gravity’s revolt to wantonness. Maria: Folly in fools bears not so strong a note As foolery in the wise, when wit doth dote; Since all the power thereof it doth apply To prove, by wit, worth in simplicity."

"Muster your wits; stand in your own defence; Or hide your heads like cowards, and fly hence."

"They say, that they have measured many a mile, To tread a measure with you on this grass."

"The tongues of mocking wenches are as keen As is the razor’s edge invisible, Cutting a smaller hair than may be seen; Above the sense of sense; so sensible Seemeth their conference; their conceits have wings Fleeter than arrows, bullets, wind, thought, swifter things."

"Fair ladies mask’d are roses in their bud; Dismask’d, their damask sweet commixture shown, Are angels vailing clouds, or roses blown."

"The ladies call him sweet; The stairs, as he treads on them, kiss his feet."

"Nor woo in rhyme, like a blind harper’s song!"

"Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise, Three-piled hyperboles, spruce affectation, Figures pedantical; these summer-flies Have blown me full of maggot ostentation."

"Henceforth my wooing mind shall be express’d In russet yeas, and honest kersey noes: And, to begin, wench,—so God help me, la!— My love to thee is sound, sans crack or flaw."

"Let me take you a button-hole lower."