All's Well That Ends Well
- The hind that would be mated by the lion
Must die for love.
Act I, scene i, lines 33-34, [Helena]
- Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,
Which we ascribe to Heaven.
Act I, scene i, lines 121-122, [Helena]
- My friends were poor but honest.
Act I, scene iii, line 115, [Helena]
- Oft expectation fails, and most oft there
Where most it promises.
Act II, scene i, lines 144-145, [Helena]
- I will show myself highly fed and lowly taught.
Act II, scene ii, line 4, [Clown]
- They say miracles are past; and we have our philosophical persons, to make modern and familiar, things supernatural and causeless
Act II, scene iii, line 3, [Lafeau]
- A young man married is a man that’s marr’d.
Act II, scene iii, line 38, [Parolles]
- The honour of a maid is her name, and no legacy is so rich as honesty
Act III, scene v, line 6, [Mariana]
- The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together: our virtues would be proud if our faults whipped them not; and our crimes would despair if they were not cherished by our virtues.
Act IV, scene iii, line 29, [First Lord]
- I am a man whom fortune hath cruelly scratched.
Ace V, scene ii, line 13 [Parolles]
- Praising what is lost
Makes the remembrance dear.
Act V, scene iii, lines 25-26, [King]
- For we are old, and on our quick’st decrees
The inaudible and noiseless foot of time
Steals ere we can effect them.
Act V, scene iii, lines 51-53, [King]
- The bitter past, more welcome is the sweet.
Act V, scene iii, line 350, [King]
Anthony and Cleopatra
- The nature of bad news infects the teller.
Act I, scene ii, line 96
- Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety; other women cloy
The appetite they feed, but she makes hungry
Where most she satisfies.
Act II, scene ii, lines 241-244
- If I lose mine honor,
I lose myself.
Act III, scene iv, lines 22-23
- To be furious
Is to be frightened out of fear.
Act III, scene xiii, lines 195-196
- I am dying, Egypt, dying; only
I here importune death awhile, until
Of many thousand kisses the poor last
I lay upon thy lips.
Act IV, scene xv, lines 18-21
As You Like It
- Gentleman,
Wear this for me, one out of suits with fortune,
That could give more, but that her hand lacks means
Act I, scene ii, lines 124-126 [Rosiland]
- Hereafter, in a better world than this,
shall desire more love and knowledge of you.
Act I, scene ii, lines 166-167 [Le Beau]
- O, how full of briers is this working-day world!
As You Like It. Act I, scene iii, line 8 [Rosiland]
- Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.
Act I, scene iii, line 98 [Rosiland]
- Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens
Act II, scene i, lines 60 [First Lord]
- The little foolery that wise men have makes a great show.
Act I, scene ii, line 34 [Celia]
- Well said: that was laid on with a trowel.
Act I, scene ii, line 45 [Celia]
- Let me be your servant:
Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty;
For in my youth I never did apply
Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood,
Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo
The means of weakness and debility;
Therefore my age is as a lusty winter,
Frosty, but kindly.
Act II, scene iii, lines 49-54 [Adam]
- O, good old man, how well in thee appears
The constant service of the antique world,
When service sweat for duty, not for meed!
Thou art not for the fashion of these times,
Where none will sweat but for promotion.
Act II, scene iii, lines 59-63 [Orlando]
- Under the greenwood tree
Who loves to lie with me,
And turn his merry note
Unto the sweet bird’s throat,
Come hither, come hither, come hither:
Here shall he see
No enemy
But winter and rough weather.
Act II, scene v, lines 4-5 [Amiens]
- A fool, a fool! I met a fool i’ the forest,
A motley fool; a miserable world! 16
As I do live by food, I met a fool;
Who laid him down and bask’d him in the sun,
And rail’d on Lady Fortune in good terms,
In good set terms, and yet a motley fool.
Act II, scene vii, lines 15-19 [Jaques]
- True is it that we have seen better days
Act II, scene vii, line 126 [Duke Senior]
- All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
Then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden, and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lin’d,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well sav’d, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing.
Act II, scene vii, lines 147-174 [Jaques]
- Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man’s ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude,
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly.
Then heigh-ho! the holly!
This life is most jolly.
Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
That dost not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot:
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp
As friend remember’d not.
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly.
Then heigh-ho! the holly!
This life is most jolly.
Act II,scene vii, lines 185-186 [Amiens]
- I know the more one sickens the worse at ease he is; and that he that wants money, means, and content, is without three good friends; that the property of rain is to wet, and fire to burn; that good pasture makes fat sheep, and that a great cause of the night is lack of the sun; that he that hath learned no wit by nature nor art may complain of good breeding, or comes of a very dull kindred.
Act III, scene ii, line 16 [Corin]
- Come, shepherd, let us make an honourable retreat; though not with bag and baggage, yet with scrip and scrippage.
Act III, scene ii, line 33 [Touchstone]
- I do desire we may be better strangers.
Act III, scene ii, line 98 [Orlando]
- Your accent is something finer than you could purchase in so removed a dwelling.
Act III, scene ii, line 138 [Orlando]
- I pray you, do not fall in love with me,
For I am falser than vows made in wine
Act III, scene v, lines 73-74 [Rosiland]
- I had rather have a fool to make me merry than experience to make me sad
Act IV, scene i, line 12 [Rosiland]
- Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, -- but not for love.
Act IV, scene i, line 40 [Rosiland]
- Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing
Act IV, scene i, line 50 [Rosiland]
- What shall he have that killed the deer?
His leather skin and horns to wear.
Then sing him home.
Take thou no scorn to wear the horn,
It was a crest ere thou wast born;
Thy father’s father wore it,
And thy father bore it.
The horn, the horn, the lusty horn
Is not a thing to laugh to scorn.
Act IV, scene ii, lines 10-18 [2nd Lord]
- I do now remember a saying, ‘The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.’
Act V, scene i, line 22 [Touchstone]
- But, O! how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes
Act V, scene ii, line 16 [Orlando]
The Comedy of Errors
- The jewel best enamelled
Will lose his beauty; and though gold bides still
That others touch, yet often touching will
Wear gold;
Act II, scene i, lines 107-110 [Adriana]
- Since that my beauty cannot please his eye,
I’ll weep what’s left away, and weeping die.
Act II, scene i, lines 112-113 [Adriana]
- For they say every why hath a wherefore.
Act II, scene ii, line 42 [Dromio of Syracuse]
- Come, I will fasten on this sleeve of thine:
Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine,
Whose weakness married to thy stronger state
Makes me with thy strength to communicate.
Act II, scene ii, lines 172-175 [Adriana]
- This is the fairy land: O! spite of spites.
We talk with goblins, owls, and elvish sprites:
If we obey them not, this will ensue,
They’ll suck our breath, or pinch us black and blue.
Act II, scene ii, lines 165-167 [Dromio of Syracuse]
- If the skin were parchment and the blows you gave were ink,
Your own handwriting would tell you what I think.
Act III, scene i, lines 15-16 [Dromio of Ephesus]
- By the wrongs I suffer and the blows I bear.
I should kick, being kick’d; and, being at that pass,
You would keep from my heels and beware of an ass.
Act III, scene i, lines 19-21 [Dromio of Ephesus]
- For slander lives upon succession,
For ever housed where it gets possession.
Act III, scene i, lines 113-114 [Balthazar]
- It is thyself, mine own self's better part;
Mine eye's clear eye, my dear heart's dearer heart;
My food, my fortune, and my sweet hope's aim;
My sole earth's heaven, and my heaven's claim.
Act II. scene ii, lines 65-68 [Antipholus of Syracuse]
- Time is a very bankrupt, and owes more than he’s worth to season.
Nay, he’s a thief too: have you not heard men say,
That Time comes stealing on by night and day?
If Time be in debt and theft, and a sergeant in the way,
Hath he not reason to turn back an hour in a day?
Act IV, scene ii, lines 64-67 [Dromio of Syracuse]
Coriolanus
- In such business
Action is eloquence, and the eyes of the ignorant
More learned than ears.
Act III, scene ii, lines 75-77
Cymbeline
- Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
Act II, scene ii, lines 262-263
- Quiet consummation have,
And renowned be thy grave.
Act II, scene ii, lines 280-281
- The ground that gave them first has them again.
Their pleasures here are past, so is their pain.
Act IV, scene ii, lines 289-290
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
- O! That this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew;
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world.
Act I, scene ii, lines 133-138 [Hamlet]
- It is not nor it cannot come to good;
But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue!
Act I, scene ii, lines 162-163 [Hamlet]
- Neither a borrower, nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
Act I, scene iii, lines 82-83 [Polonius]
- This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Act I, scene iii, lines 85-87 [Polonius]
- Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Act I, scene iv, line 101 [Marcellus]
- Murder most foul, as in the best it it;
But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.
Act I, scene v, line 33-34 [Ghost]
- There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Act I, scene v, line 188-189 [Hamlet]
- Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief. Your noble son is mad
Act II, scene ii, lines 100-102 [Polonius]
- Doubt that the stars are fire
Doubt that the sun doth shine
Doubt that truth be a liar
But never doubt that I love.
Act II, scene ii, lines 125-128 [Polonius quoting Hamlet]
- Though this be madness, yet there is method in it.
Act II, scene ii, line 205 [Polonius]
- What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form, in moving, how express and admirable! in action, how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not me; no, nor woman neither, though, by your smiling, you seem to say so.
Act II, scene ii, line 312
- The play's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.
Act II, scene ii
- To be, or not to be: That is the question:--
Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and, by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause.
Act III, scene i, lines 56-68
- Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the threat of something after death,--
That undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns,--puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others we know not of?
Act III, scene i, lines 76-82
- Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is slicked o'er with the pale cast of thought.
Act III, scene i, lines 83-85
- Get thee to a nunnery.
Act III, scene i, line 121
- God has given you one face
and you make yourselves another.
Act III, scene i, lines 144-145
- Be not too tame neither, but let your own
Discretion be your tutor; suit the action
To the word, the word to the action.
Act III, scene ii, lines 17-19
- Some must watch, while some must sleep;
So runs the world away.
Act III, scene ii, lines 279-280
- My words fly up, my thoughts remain below;
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.
Act III, scene iii, lines 97-98
- O shame, where is thy blush?
Act III, scene iv, line 83
- I must be cruel only to be kind.
Act III, scene iv, line 178
- A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king,
And eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.
Act IV, scene iii, lines 27-28
- How should I your true love know
From another one?
By his cockle hat and staff,
And his sandal shoon.
He is dead and gone, lady,
He is dead and gone;
At his head a grass-green turf,
At his heels a stone
Act IV, scene v, lines 24-32 [Ophelia]
- Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio
A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy;
Act V, scene i, lines 185-186
- Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince.
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.
Act V, scene ii, lines 360-361
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