Henry IV, Part I
- If all the year were playing holidays
To sport would be as tedious as to work.
Act I, scene ii, lines 208-209
- There's villainous news abroad.
Act II, scene iv
- The better part of valor is discretion.
Act V, scene iv, line 119
Henry IV, Part II
- Open your ears; for which of you will stop
The vent of hearing when loud Rumor speaks?
Introduction, lines 1-2
- Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.
Act III, scene i, line 31
- How quickly nature falls into revolt
When gold becomes her object!
Act IV, scene v, lines 65-66
- How ill white hairs becomes a fool and jester!
Act V, scene v, line 48
Henry V
- Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
Act III, scene i, lines 1-2
- Men of few words are the best men.
Act III, scene ii, line 37
- There is some soul of goodness in things evil,
Would men observingly distill it out.
IV,i,4
- There is occasions and causes why and wherefore in all things.
V,i,3
Henry VI, Part I
- Fight till the last gasp.
Act I, scene ii, line 127
- Glory is like a circle in the water,
Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself,
Till by broad spreading it disperse to nought.
Act I, scene ii, lines 133-135
- Unbidden guests
Are often welcomest when they are gone.
Act II, scene ii, lines 55-56
- Delays have dangerous ends.
Act III, scene ii, line 33
- Care is no cure, but rather corrosive
For things that are not to be remedied.
Act III, scene iii, lines 3-4
- Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety
Act III, scene iii, line 9
Henry VI, Part II
- To weep is to make less the depth of grief.
Act II, scene i, line 85
- The game's afoot!
Act III, scene i, line 32
- Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep.
Act III, scene i, line 53
- The first thing we do, lets kill all the lawyers.
Act IV, scene ii, lines 83-84 [Dick the Butcher]
- Small things make base men proud.
Act IV, scene i, line 106
- Presume not that I am the thing I was.
Act V, scene v, line 57
Henry VI, Part III
- My crown is in my heart, not on my head;
Not deck'd with diamonds and Indian stones,
Nor to be seen: my crown is call'd content;
A crown it is that seldom kings enjoy.
III,i,62
- Hasty marriage seldom proveth well.
IV,i,18
- A little fire is quickly trodden out;
Which, being suffered, rivers cannot quench.
IV,viii,7
King Henry VIII
- Two women placed together make cold weather.
I,iv
- Orpheus with his lute made trees,
And the mountain-tops that freeze,
Bow themselves when he did sing:
To his music plants and flowers
Ever sprung; as sun and showers
There had made a lasting spring.
Everything that heard him play,
Even the billows of the sea,
Hung their heads, and then lay by.
In sweet music is such an art,
Killing care and grief of heart.
III,i,3
- So farewell to the little good you bear me.
Farewell! a long farewell, to all my greatness!
This is the state of man: to-day he puts forth
The tender leaves of hopes; to-morrow blossoms,
And bears his blushing honours thick upon him;
The third day comes a frost, a killing frost,
And, when he thinks, good easy man, full surely
His greatness is a-ripening, nips his root,
And then he falls, as I do. I have ventur’d,
Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders,
This many summers in a sea of glory,
But far beyond my depth. My high-blown pride
At length broke under me, and now has left me,
Weary and old with service, to the mercy
Of a rude stream that must for ever hide me.
Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye!
I feel my heart new open’d. O, how wretched
Is that poor man that hangs on princes’ favours!
There is, betwixt that smile we would aspire to,
That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin,
More pangs and fears than wars or women have;
And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer,
Never to hope again.
Act III, scene ii, lines 455–457 [Cardinal Wolsey]
- Had I but serv’d my God with half the zeal
I serv’d my king, He would not in mine age
Have left me naked to mine enemies.
Act III, scene ii, lines 455–457 [Cardinal Wolsey]
Julius Caesar
- Beware the Ides of March
I,ii,18
- Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much; such men are dangerous.
I,ii,194
- Seldom he smiles, and smiles in such a sort
As if he mock'd himself nad scorn'd his spirit
That could be moved to smile at anything!
I,ii,205
- You are my true and hounorable wife:
As dear to me as are the ruddy drops
That visit my sad heart.
II,i,288
- When beggars die, there are no comets seen;
The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.
II,ii,30
- Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.
II,ii,32
- Let me have men about me that are fat,
Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights:
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much; such men are dangerous.
I,ii,192
- Et tu, Brute? Then fall Caesar.
III,i,77
- O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,
That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!
Thou art the ruins of the noblest man
That ever lived in the tide of times.
III,i,254
- Cry 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war;
III,i,273
- Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar.
III,ii,75
- This was the most unkindest cut of all.
III,ii,185
- Good reasons must of force give place to better.
IV,iii,202
- There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when serves,
Or lose our ventures.
IV,iii,217
- This was the noblest Roman of them all.
All the conspirators, save only he,
Did that they did in envy of Caesar;
He only, in a general honest thought
And common good to all, made one of them.
His life was gentle, and the elements
So mix’d in him that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world, “This was a man!”
Act V, scene v, lines 68–75. [Antony]
King John
- Strong reasons make strong actions.
III,iv
- What surety of the world, what hope, what stay,
- When this was now a king, and now clay?
V,vii,68
King Lear
- Come not between the dragon and his wrath.
I,i,124
- Who is it that can tell me who I am?
I,iv,236
- How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have an ungrateful child.
I,iv,295
- You see me here, you gods, a poor old man,
As full of grief as age; wretched in both.
II,iv,271
- Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound
Upon a wheel of fire; that mine own tears
Do scald like molten lead.
IV,vii,46
- The wheel is come full circle.
V,iii,176
Macbeth
- If you can look into the seeds of time,
And tell me which grain will grow and which will not,
Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear
Your favours nor your hate.
Act I, scene iii, lines 58-61
- Yet I do fear thy nature;
It is too full of the milk of human kindness
To catch the nearest way.
Act I, scene v, lines 17-19
- If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly.
Act I, scene vii, lines 1-2
- We fail!
But screw your courage to the sticking-place,
And we'll not fail.
Act I, scene vii, lines 58-59
- Things without all remedy
Should be without regard: what's done is done.
Act III, scene ii, lines 11-12
- We have scorched the snake, not killed it.
Act III, scene ii, line 13
- Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle towards my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Act III, scene iv, line 63-65
- Great business must be wrought ere noon.
Act III, scene v, line 22
- Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Act IV, scene i, lines 10-11
- By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.
Act IV, scene i, lines 45-46
- Out, damned spot! Out, I say!
Act V, scene i, line 38
- What's done cannot be undone.
Act V, scene i, line 71
- To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle.
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more; it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Act V, scene v, lines 19-28
Measure for Measure
- Our doubts are traitors,
And make us lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to attempt.
Act I, Scene iv
- Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.
Act II, Scene i
- Condemn the fault, and not the actor of it?
Act II, Scene ii
- No ceremony that to great ones ’longs,
Not the king’s crown, nor the deputed sword,
The marshal’s truncheon, nor the judge’s robe,
Become them with one half so good a grace
As mercy does.
Act II, Scene ii
- The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept.
Act II, Scene ii
- O, it is excellent
To have a giant’s strength; but it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant.
Act II, Scene ii
- But man, proud man,
Drest in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he ’s most assured,
His glassy essence, like an angry ape,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As make the angels weep.
Act II, Scene ii
- The miserable have no other medicine,
But only hope.
Act III, Scene i
- The hand that hath made you fair hath made you good.
Act III, Scene i
- Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.
Act III, Scene i
- O, what may man within him hide,
Though angel on the outward side!
Act III, Scene ii
- Take, O, take those lips away,
That so sweetly were forsworn;
And those eyes, the break of day,
Lights that do mislead the morn:
But my kisses bring again, bring again;
Seals of love, but sealed in vain, sealed in vain.
Act V, Scene i
- Every true man’s apparel fits your thief.
Act IV, Scene ii
- Truth is truth
To the end of reckoning.
Act V, Scene i
- They say, best men are moulded out of faults,
And, for the most, become much more the better
For being a little bad.
Act V, Scene i
- What ’s mine is yours, and what is yours is mine.
Act V, Scene i
The Merchant of Venice
- Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time.
Act I, scene i, line 51
- His reasons are two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff; you shall seek all day ere you find them; and when you find them they are no worth the search.
Act II, scene i
- It is a wise father that knows his own child.
Act II, scene ii, line 76
- The quality of mercy is not strained,--
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
On the place beneath;
Act IV, scene i, lines 183-185
- The man who hath no music in himself...
Let no such man be trusted.
Act V, scene i, lines 83-84
The Merry Wives of Windsor
- Thou art the Mars of malcontents.
Act I, Scene iii
- Here will be an old abusing of God’s patience and the king’s English.
Act II, Scene iiii
- We burn daylight.
Act II, Scene i
- Why, then the world ’s mine oyster,
Which I with sword will open.
Act II, Scene ii
- This is the short and the long of it.
Act II, Scene ii
- Unless experience be a jewel.
Act II, Scene ii
- Like a fair house, built on another man’s ground.
Act II, Scene ii
- We have some salt of our youth in us.
Act II, Scene iii
- I cannot tell what the dickens his name is. 2
Act III, Scene ii
- O, what a world of vile ill-favour’d faults
Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year!
Act III, Scene iv
- As good luck would have it. 3
Act III, Scene v
- The rankest compound of villanous smell that ever offended nostril.
Act III, Scene v
- This is the third time; I hope good luck lies in odd numbers…. There is divinity in odd numbers, either in nativity, chance, or death.
Act V, Scene i
A Midsummer Night's Dream
- For aught that ever I could read,
Could ever hear by tale or history,
The course of true love never did run smooth.
Act I, scene i, lines 132-134
- Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.
Act I, scene i, lines 234-235
- To say the truth, reason and love keep little company together now-a-days.
Lord, What fools these mortals be!
Act III, scene ii, lines 115-116
Much Ado About Nothing
- Beauty is a witch,
Against whose charms faith melteth into blood.
Act II, scene i, lines 77-78
- I pray thee cease thy counsel,
Which falls into my ears as profitless
As water in a seive.
Act II, scene i
- Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever,
One foot in sea and one on shore,
To one thing constant never.
Act II, scene ii, lines 63-66
- Beauty is a witch.
Act II, scene i, line 177
- Comparisons are odorous.
Act III, scene v, line 15
- There was never yet philosopher
That could endure the toothache patiently.
Act V, scene i, lines 35-36
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