text:
All's Well That Ends Well

All's Well That Ends Well is a play by William Shakespeare. It is often considered one of his problem plays, not easily classifiable as a comedy or tragedy. It was probably written in the later middle part of Shakespeare's career, between 1601 and 1608.

Act I
In manners, as in shape! thy blood and virtue Contend for empire in thee; and thy goodness Share with thy birthright! '''Love all, trust a few, Do wrong to none''': be able for thine enemy Rather in power than use, and keep thy friend Under thy own life’s key: be check’d for silence, But never tax’d for speech. What heaven more will That thee may furnish, and my prayers pluck down, Fall on thy head!
 * Be thou blest, Bertram; and succeed thy father
 * Countess Of Rousillon, Act I, Scene i

 * 'T were all one That I should love a bright particular star, And think to wed it.
 * Helena, scene i

 * The hind, that would be mated by the lion, Must die for love.
 * Helena, scene i

 * Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, Which we ascribe to Heaven.
 * Helena, scene i

 * His good remembrance, sir, Lies richer in your thoughts, than on his tomb; So in approof lives not his epitaph, As in your royal speech.
 * Bertram, scene ii

 * Service is no heritage.
 * Clown, scene iii

 * He must needs go, that the devil drives.
 * Clown, scene iii

 * Even so it was with me, when I was young: If we are nature’s, these are ours; this thorn Doth to our rose of youth rightly belong: Our blood to us, this to our blood is born; It is the show and seal of nature’s truth, Where love’s strong passion is impress’d in youth: By our remembrances of days foregone, Such were our faults; — or then we thought them none. Her eye is sick on’t: I observe her now.
 * Countess of Rousillon, scene iii

 * My friends were poor, but honest.
 * Helena, scene iii

Act II

 * Great floods have flown From simple sources; and great seas have dried, When miracles have by the greatest been denied. Oft expectation fails, and most oft there Where most it promises.
 * Helena, scene i

 * I will show myself highly fed, and lowly taught.
 * Clown, scene ii

 * They say, miracles are past.
 * Lafeu, scene iii

 * All the learned and authentic fellows.
 * Lafeu, scene iii

 * From lowest place when virtuous things proceed, The place is dignified by the doer’s deed.
 * King of France, scene iii

 * A young man, married, is a man that ’s marr’d.
 * Parolles, scene iii

 * Make the coming hour o’erflow with joy, And pleasure drown the brim.
 * Parolles, scene iv

Act III

 * No legacy is so rich as honesty.
 * Mariana, scene v

Act IV

 * The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together.
 * 1st Lord, scene iii

 * Simply the thing I am Shall make me live.
 * Parolles, scene iii

 * All's well that ends well still: the fine's the crown; Whate'er the course, the end is the renown.
 * Helena, scene iv

Act V

 * Whose words all ears took captive.
 * Lafeu, scene iii

 * Praising what is lost, Makes the remembrance dear.
 * King of France, scene iii

 * For we are old, and on our quick'st decrees The inaudible and noiseless foot of time Steals, ere we can effect them.
 * King of France, scene iii

 * All impediments in fancy’s course Are motives of more fancy.
 * Bertram, scene iii

 * 'T is but the shadow of a wife you see, The name and not the thing.
 * Helena, scene iii

 * The bitter past, more welcome is the sweet.
 * King of France, scene iii

title: All's Well That Ends Well


text:
As You Like It

As You Like It is a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1599 or 1600.

Act I

 * As I remember, Adam, it was upon this fashion, — bequeathed me by will but poor a thousand crowns, and, as thou say'st, charged my brother, on his blessing, to breed me well: and there begins my sadness.
 * Orlando, Sc. i

 * I know you are my eldest brother: and in the gentle condition of blood, you should so know me. The courtesy of nations allows you my better in that you are the first-born; but the same tradition takes not away my blood, were there twenty brothers betwixt us: I have as much of my father in me as you, albeit; I confess, your coming before me is nearer to his reverence.
 * Orlando to Oliver, Sc. i

 * I no further offend you than becomes me for my good.
 * Orlando to Oliver, Sc. i

 * Now will I stir this gamester: I hope I shall see an end of him: for my soul, yet I know not why, hates nothing more than he. Yet he's gentle; never schooled and yet learned; full of noble device; of all sorts enchantingly beloved; and, indeed, so much in the heart of the world, and especially of my own people, who best know him, that I am altogether misprised: but it shall not be so long; this wrestler shall clear all: nothing remains but that I kindle the boy thither, which now I'll go about.
 * Oliver, Sc. i

 * Celia: Let us sit and mock the good housewife Fortune from her wheel, that her gifts may henceforth be bestowed equally. Rosalind: I would we could do so; for her benefits are mightily misplaced: and the bountiful blind woman doth most mistake in her gifts to women. Celia: 'Tis true; for those that she makes fair, she scarce makes honest; and those that she makes honest, she makes very ill-favouredly. Rosalind: Nay; now thou goest from Fortune's office to Nature's: Fortune reigns in gifts of the world, not in the lineaments of Nature. Celia: No? When Nature hath made a fair creature, may she not by Fortune fall into the fire? — Though Nature hath given us wit to flout at Fortune, hath not Fortune sent in this fool to cut off the argument?
 * Sc. ii

 * How now, wit! whither wander you?
 * Celia, Sc. ii

 * The more pity that fools may not speak wisely what wise men do foolishly.
 * Touchstone, Sc. ii

 * Well said: that was laid on with a trowel.
 * Celia, Sc. ii

 * I show more mirth than I am mistress of; and would you yet I were merrier? Unless you could teach me to forget a banished father, you must not learn me how to remember any extraordinary pleasure.
 * Rosalind, Sc. ii

 * I will forget the condition of my estate, to rejoice in yours.
 * Rosalind, Sc. ii

 * Since the little wit that fools have was silenced, the little foolery that wise men have makes a great show.
 * Celia, Sc. ii

 * Celia: Young gentleman, your spirits are too bold for your years. You have seen cruel proof of this man's strength: if you saw yourself with your eyes, or knew yourself with your judgment, the fear of your adventure would counsel you to a more equal enterprise. We pray you, for your own sake, to embrace your own safety and give over this attempt. Rosalind: Do, young sir; your reputation shall not therefore be misprised: we will make it our suit to the duke that the wrestling might not go forward. Orlando: I beseech you, punish me not with your hard thoughts: wherein I confess me much guilty to deny so fair and excellent ladies anything. But let your fair eyes and gentle wishes go with me to my trial: wherein if I be foiled there is but one shamed that was never gracious; if killed, but one dead that is willing to be so: I shall do my friends no wrong, for I have none to lament me: the world no injury, for in it I have nothing; only in the world I fill up a place, which may be better supplied when I have made it empty.  Rosalind: The little strength that I have, I would it were with you.
 * Sc. ii

 * Your heart’s desires be with you!
 * Celia, Sc. ii

 * Sir, you have wrestled well, and overthrown more than your enemies.
 * Rosalind, Sc. ii

 * One out of suits with fortune.
 * Rosalind, Sc. ii

 * My pride fell with my fortunes.
 * Rosalind, Sc. ii

 * Hereafter, in a better world than this, I shall desire more love and knowledge of you.
 * Le Beau, Sc. ii

 * Celia: Not a word? Rosalind: Not one to throw at a dog.
 * Sc. iii

 * O, how full of briars is this working-day world!
 * Rosalind, Sc. iii

 * Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.
 * Rosalind, Sc. iii

 * We’ll have a swashing and a martial outside, As many other mannish cowards have.
 * Rosalind, Sc. iii

Act II

 * Sweet are the uses of adversity, Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head; And this our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.
 * Duke Senior, Sc. i

 * The big round tears Coursed one another down his innocent nose In piteous chase.
 * First Lord, Sc. i

 * Poor deer, quoth he, thou makest a testament As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more To that which had too much.
 * First Lord, Sc. i
 * Quoting Jaques

 * Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens.
 * First Lord, Sc. i
 * Quoting Jaques

 * And He that doth the ravens feed, Yea, providently caters for the sparrow, Be comfort to my age!
 * Adam, Sc. iii

 * For in my youth I never did apply Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood.
 * Adam, Sc. iii

 * Therefore my age is as a lusty winter, Frosty, but kindly.
 * Adam, Sc. iii

 * 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.
 * Orlando, Sc. iii

 * Ay, now am I in Arden: the more fool I. When I was at home, I was in a better place; but travellers must be content.
 * Touchstone, Sc. iv

 * If thou remember’st not the slightest folly That ever love did make thee run into, Thou hast not lov’d.
 * Silvius, Sc. iv

 * I shall ne’er be 'ware of mine own wit, till I break my shins against it.
 * Touchstone, Sc. iv

 * Under the greenwood tree Who loves to lie with me, And tune 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.
 * Amiens, Sc. v

 * Live a little; comfort a little; cheer thyself a little.
 * Orlando, Sc. vi

 * I met a fool i’ the forest, A motley fool.
 * Jaques, Sc. vii

 * And rail’d on Lady Fortune in good terms, In good set terms.
 * Jaques, Sc. vii

 * And then he drew a dial from his poke, And looking on it with lack-lustre eye, Says very wisely, It is ten o’clock: Thus we may see, quoth he, how the world wags.
 * Jaques, Sc. vii

 * And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe, And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot; And thereby hangs a tale.
 * Jaques, Sc. vii

 * My lungs began to crow like chanticleer, That fools should be so deep-contemplative; And I did laugh, sans intermission An hour by his dial.
 * Jaques, Sc. vii

 * Motley ’s the only wear.
 * Jaques, Sc. vii

 * If ladies be but young and fair, They have the gift to know it; and in his brain, Which is as dry as the remainder biscuit After a voyage, he hath strange places cramm’d With observation, the which he vents In mangled forms.
 * Jaques, Sc. vii

 * I am ambitious for a motley coat.
 * Jaques, Sc. vii

 * I must have liberty Withal, as large a charter as the wind, To blow on whom I please.
 * Jaques, Sc. vii

 * The why is plain as way to parish church.
 * Jaques, Sc. vii

 * Whate'er you are, That in this desert inaccessible, Under the shade of melancholy boughs, Lose and neglect the creeping hours of time; If ever you have look’d on better days, If ever been where bells have knoll’d to church, If ever sat at any good man’s feast, If ever from your eyelids wip'd a tear, And know what 'tis to pity and be pitied — Let gentleness my strong enforcement be.
 * Orlando, Sc. vii

 * True is it that we have seen better days.
 * Duke Senior, Sc. vii

 * And wip'd our eyes Of drops that sacred pity hath engender’d.
 * Duke Senior, Sc. vii

 * Oppress’d with two weak evils, age and hunger.
 * Orlando, Sc. vii

 * '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: And 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 everything.
 * Jaques, Sc. vii

 * 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.
 * Amiens, Sc. vii

Act III

 * Sir, I am a true laborer: I earn that I eat, get that I wear, owe no man hate, envy no man's happiness, glad of other men's good, content with my harm: and the greatest of my pride is, to see my ewes graze, and my lambs suck.
 * Corin, Sc. i

 * The fair, the chaste, and unexpressive she.
 * Orlando, Sc. ii

 * It goes much against my stomach. Hast any philosophy in thee, shepherd?
 * Touchstone, Sc. ii

 * He that wants money, means, and content, is without three good friends.
 * Corin, Sc. ii

 * This is the very false gallop of verses.
 * Touchstone, Sc. ii

 * Let us make an honourable retreat.
 * Touchstone, Sc. ii

 * With bag and baggage.
 * Touchstone, Sc. ii

 * O, wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful wonderful! and yet again wonderful, and after that, out of all whooping.
 * Celia, Sc. ii

 * Answer me in one word.
 * Rosalind, Sc. ii

 * Do you not know I am a woman? when I think, I must speak.
 * Rosalind, Sc. ii

 * I do desire we may be better strangers.
 * Orlando, Sc. ii

 * Time travels in divers paces with divers persons. I’ll tell you who Time ambles withal, who Time trots withal, who Time gallops withal, and who he stands still withal.
 * Rosalind, Sc. ii

 * Every one fault seeming monstrous, till his fellow fault came to match it.
 * Rosalind, Sc. ii

 * Neither rhyme nor reason can express how much.
 * Orlando, Sc. ii

 * I would the gods had made thee poetical.
 * Touchstone, Sc. iii

 * But mistress, know yourself; down on your knees, And thank Heaven, fasting, for a good man’s love: For I must tell you friendly in your ear, — Sell while you can; you are not for all markets.
 * Rosalind, Sc. v

 * Who ever lov'd, that lov'd not at first sight?
 * Phebe, Sc. v

Act IV

 * It is a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted from many objects, and, indeed, the sundry contemplation of my travels, which, by often rumination, wraps me in a most humorous sadness.
 * Jaques, Sc. i

 * I have gained my experience.
 * Jaques, Sc. i

 * I had rather have a fool to make me merry than experience to make me sad.
 * Rosalind, Sc. i

 * I will scarce think you have swam in a gondola.
 * Rosalind, Sc. i

 * I warrant him heart-whole.
 * Rosalind, Sc. i

 * Very good orators, when they are out, they will spit; and for lovers, lacking (God warn us!) matter, the cleanliest shift is to kiss.
 * Rosalind, Sc. i

 * Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love.
 * Rosalind, Sc. i

 * Orlando: And wilt thou have me? Rosalind: Ay, and twenty such. Orlando: What sayest thou? Rosalind: Are you not good? Orlando: I hope so. Rosalind: Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing?
 * Sc. i

 * Orlando: I take thee, Rosalind, for wife. Rosalind: I might ask you for your commission; but,— I do take thee, Orlando, for my husband: — there's a girl goes before the priest; and, certainly, a woman's thought runs before her actions. Orlando: So do all thoughts; they are winged. Rosalind: Now tell me how long you would have her, after you have possessed her. Orlando: For ever and a day. Rosalind: Say "a day," without the "ever." No, no, Orlando: men are April when they woo, December when they wed: maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives.
 * Sc. i

 * That blind rascally boy, that abuses every one's eyes, because his own are out, let him be judge how deep I am in love. — I'll tell thee, Aliena, I cannot be out of the sight of Orlando: I'll go find a shadow, and sigh till he come.
 * Rosalind, Sc. i

 * The horn, the horn, the lusty horn, Is not a thing to laugh to scorn.
 * First Lord, Sc. ii

 * Chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy.
 * Oliver, Sc. iii

Act V

 * It is meat and drink to me.
 * Touchstone, Sc. i

 * So-so is good, very good, very excellent good; and yet it is not; it is but so-so.
 * Touchstone, Sc. i

 * The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.
 * Touchstone, Sc. i

 * I will kill thee a hundred and fifty ways.
 * Touchstone, Sc. i

 * No sooner met, but they looked; no sooner looked, but they loved; no sooner loved, but they sighed; no sooner sighed, but they asked one another the reason; no sooner knew the reason but they sought the remedy.
 * Rosalind, Sc. ii

 * How bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes!
 * Orlando, Sc. ii

 * It was a lover and his lass, With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino! That o’er the green corn-field did pass In the spring time, the only pretty ring time, When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding: Sweet lovers love the Spring.
 * Pages, Sc. iii

 * Here comes a pair of very strange beasts, which in all tongues are called fools.
 * Jaques, Sc. iv

 * An ill-favoured thing, sir, but mine own.
 * Touchstone, Sc. iv

 * Rich honesty dwells like a miser, sir, in a poor house, as your pearl in your foul oyster.
 * Touchstone, Sc. iv

 * O sir, we quarrel in print, by the book; as you have books for good manners: I will name you the degrees. The first, the Retort Courteous; the second, the Quip Modest; the third, the Reply Churlish; the fourth, the Reproof Valiant; the fifth, the Countercheque Quarrelsome; the sixth, the Lie with Circumstance; the seventh, the Lie Direct. All these you may avoid but the Lie Direct; and you may avoid that too, with an If. I knew when seven justices could not take up a quarrel, but when the parties were met themselves, one of them thought but of an If, as, "If you said so, then I said so;" and they shook hands and swore brothers. 'Your If is the only peacemaker; much virtue in If''.
 * Touchstone, Sc. iv

 * Good wine needs no bush.
 * Rosalind, epilogue

 * What a case am I in.
 * Rosalind, epilogue

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: As You Like It


text:
Henry V (play)

Henry V is a play by William Shakespeare based on the life of King Henry V of England. It deals with the events immediately before and after the Battle of Agincourt during the Hundred Years' War. The play is thought to date from the first few months of 1599 and is the final part of a tetralogy, preceded by Richard II, Henry IV, Part I and Henry IV, Part II.

Prologue

 * 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.
 * Chorus

Act I

 * Consideration, like an angel, came And whipp'd the offending Adam out of him.
 * Archbishop of Canterbury, scene i

 * 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.
 * Archbishop of Canterbury, scene i

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

 * 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.
 * King Henry, scene ii

Act II

 * Base is the slave that pays.
 * Pistol, scene i

 * 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.
 * Mistress Quickly, scene iii

 * As cold as any stone.
 * Mistress Quickly, scene iii

 * Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin, As self-neglecting.
 * Dauphin, scene iv

Act III

 * 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.
 * King Henry, scene i

 * And sheath'd their swords for lack of argument.
 * King Henry, scene i

 * 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!
 * King Henry, scene i

 * I would give all my fame for a pot of ale, and safety.
 * Boy, scene ii

 * Men of few words are the best men.
 * Boy, scene ii

 * This is the latest parle we will admit: Therefore to our best mercy give yourselves, Or, like to men proud of destruction, Defy us to our worst: for, as I am a soldier, (A name, that, in my thoughts, becomes me best,) If I begin the battery once again, I will not leave the half-achieved Harfleur, Till in her ashes she lie buried. The gates of mercy shall be all shut up, And the flesh'd soldier, rough and hard of heart, In liberty of bloody hand, shall range With conscience wide as hell; mowing like grass Your fresh-fair virgins and your flowering infants. What is it then to me, if impious War, Array'd in flames, like to the prince of fiends, Do, with his smirch'd complexion, all fell feats Enlink'd to waste and desolation? What is't to me, when you yourselves are cause, If your pure maidens fall into the hand Of hot and forcing violation? What rein can hold licentious wickedness, When down the hill he holds his fierce career? We may as bootless spend our vain command Upon the enraged soldiers in their spoil, As send precepts to the Leviathan To come ashore. Therefore, you men of Harfleur, Take pity of your town, and of your people, Whiles yet my soldiers are in my command; Whiles yet the cool and temperate wind of grace O'erblows the filthy and contagious clouds Of deadly murder, spoil, and villainy. If not, why, in a moment, look to see The blind and bloody soldier, with foul hand, Defile the locks of your shrill-shrieking daughters; Your fathers taken by the silver beards, And their most reverend heads dash'd to the walls; Your naked infants spitted upon pikes, Whiles the mad mothers with their howls confus'd Do break the clouds, as did the wives of Jewry At Herod's bloody-hunting slaughtermen. What say you? Will you yield, and this avoid? Or, guilty in defence, be thus destroy'd?
 * King Henry, scene iii

 * For when lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom, the gentler gamester is the soonest winner.
 * King Henry, scene viii (or vi)

 * I thought, upon one pair of English legs Did march three Frenchmen.
 * King Henry, scene vi

 * You may as well say, — that’s a valiant flea that dare eat his breakfast on the lip of a lion.
 * Orleans, scene vii

Act IV

 * The hum of either army stilly sounds, That the fix'd sentinels almost receive The secret whispers of each other’s watch. Fire answers fire, and through their paly flames Each battle sees the other’s umber'd face: Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs Piercing the night’s dull ear; and from the tents, The armourers, accomplishing the knights, With busy hammers closing rivets up, Give dreadful note of preparation.
 * Chorus, prologue

 * There is some soul of goodness in things evil, Would men observingly distil it out.
 * King Henry, scene i

 * Every subject’s duty is the king’s; but every subject’s soul is his own.
 * King Henry, scene i

 * That’s a perilous shot out of an elder-gun.
 * Williams, scene i

 * The wretched slave, Who, with a body fill'd, and vacant mind, Gets him to rest, cramm'd with distressful bread.
 * King Henry, scene i

 * Such a wretch, Winding up days with toil, and nights with sleep, Had the fore-hand and vantage of a king.
 * King Henry, scene i

 * If we are mark'd to die, we are enough To do our country loss; and if to live, The fewer men, the greater share of honour. God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more. By Jove, I am not covetous for gold, Nor care I, who doth feed upon my cost; It yearns me not, if men my garments wear; Such outward things dwell not in my desires: But, if it be a sin to covet honour, I am the most offending soul alive.
 * King Henry, scene iii; variant editions read: If we are mark'd to die, we are enow To do our country loss...

 * O, do not wish one more! Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host, That he which hath no stomach to this fight, Let him depart; his passport shall be made, And crowns for convoy put into his purse: We would not die in that man's company, That fears his fellowship to die with us.
 * King Henry, scene iii

 * This day is call'd — the feast of Crispian: He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd, And rouse him at the name of Crispian. He that outlives this day, and sees old age, Will yearly on the vigil feast his friends, And say, "To-morrow is Saint Crispian;" Then will he strip his sleeve, and show his scars, And say, "These wounds I had on Crispin's day." Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot, But he'll remember, with advantages, What feats he did that day. Then shall our names, Familiar in his mouth as household words, — Harry the King, Bedford, and Exeter, Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester, Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd. This story shall the good man teach his son; And Crispian shall ne'er go by From this day to the ending of the world, But we in it shall be remember'd, — We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. For he to-day that sheds his blood with me, Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile, This day shall gentle his condition: And gentlemen in England, now a-bed, Shall think themselves accurs'd, they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap, whiles any speaks, That fought with us upon Saint Crispian's day.
 * King Henry, scene iii

 * There is a river in Macedon; and there is also moreover a river at Monmouth;... and there is salmons in poth.
 * Fluellen, scene vii

 * O God! Thy arm was here, And not to us, but to Thy arm alone, Ascribe we all.
 * King Henry, scene viii

 * An arrant traitor, as any's in the universal 'orld, or in France, or in England.
 * Fluellen, scene viii

Act V

 * There is occasions and causes why and wherefore in all things.
 * Fluellen, scene i

 * By this leek, I will most horribly revenge; I eat, and eat, — I swear.
 * Pistol, scene i

 * All hell shall stir for this!
 * Pistol, scene i

 * A fair face will wither; a full eye will wax hollow: but a good heart, Kate, is the sun and the moon; or, rather, the sun and not the moon; for it shines bright, and never changes, but keeps his course truly. If thou would have such a one, take me: and take me, take a soldier; take a soldier, take a king: and what say'st thou then to my love? Speak, my fair, and fairly, I pray thee.
 * King Henry, scene ii

 * If he be not fellow with the best king, thou shalt find the best king of good fellows.
 * King Henry, scene ii

 * Dear Kate, you and I cannot be confined within the weak list of a country's fashion: we are the makers of manners, Kate.
 * King Henry, scene ii

title: Henry V (play)


text:
Henry VIII (play)

Henry VIII (c. 1613) was one of the last plays written by William Shakespeare and was based on the life of Henry VIII of England. An alternative title, All is True, is recorded in contemporary documents, the title Henry VIII not appearing until the play's publication in the First Folio of 1623. Stylistic evidence indicates that the play was written by Shakespeare in collaboration with, or revised by, John Fletcher.

Act I

 * Order gave each thing view.
 * Norfolk, scene i

 * No man’s pie is freed From his ambitious finger.
 * Buckingham, scene i

 * Anger is like A full-hot horse, who being allow’d his way, Self-mettle tires him.
 * Norfolk, scene i

 * Be to yourself As you would to your friend.
 * Norfolk, scene i

 * Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot That it do singe yourself.
 * Norfolk, scene i

 * 'Tis but the fate of place, and the rough brake That virtue must go through.
 * Wolsey, scene ii

Act II

 * The mirror of all courtesy.
 * 2 Gentleman, scene i

 * This bold bad man.
 * Lord Chamberlain, scene ii

 * 'Tis better to be lowly born, And range with humble livers in content, Than to be perk'd up in a glistering grief, And wear a golden sorrow.
 * Anne, scene iii

Act III

 * Orpheus, with his lute, made trees, And the mountain-tops that freeze, Bow themselves when he did sing.
 * Singer, scene i

 * 'Tis well said again, And 'tis a kind of good deed to say well; And yet, words are no deeds.
 * King Henry, scene ii

 * Read o'er this; And after, this: and then to breakfast with What appetite you have.
 * King Henry, scene ii

 * I have touch'd the highest point of all my greatness; And, from that full meridian of my glory, I haste now to my setting: I shall fall Like a bright exhalation in the evening, And no man see me more.
 * Wolsey, scene ii

 * Press not a falling man too far!
 * Lord Chamberlain, scene ii

 * Farewell! a long farewell, to all my greatness! This is the state of man: to-day he puts forth The tender leaves of hope; 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 forever 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.
 * Wolsey, scene ii

 * I feel within me A peace above all earthly dignities, A still and quiet conscience.
 * Wolsey, scene ii

 * A load would sink a navy, — too much honour.
 * Wolsey, scene ii

 * And sleep in dull cold marble.
 * Wolsey, scene ii

 * Say, Wolsey, — that once trod the ways of glory, And sounded all the depths and shoals of honour, — Found thee a way, out of his wreck, to rise in; A sure and safe one, though thy master miss'd it.
 * Wolsey, scene ii

 * I charge thee, fling away ambition; By that sin fell the angels.
 * Wolsey, scene ii

 * Love thyself last: cherish those hearts that hate thee; Corruption wins not more than honesty. Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace, To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not: Let all the ends thou aim’st at, be thy country’s, Thy God’s, and truth’s; then if thou fall’st, O Cromwell, Thou fall’st a blessed martyr!
 * Wolsey, scene ii

 * 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.
 * Wolsey, scene ii

Act IV

 * A royal train, believe me.
 * 2 Gentleman, scene i

 * An old man, broken with the storms of state, Is come to lay his weary bones among ye; Give him a little earth for charity!
 * Griffith, quoting Wolsey, scene ii

 * He gave his honours to the world again, His blessed part to heaven, and slept in peace.
 * Griffith, scene ii

 * So may he rest; his faults lie gently on him!
 * Queen Katharine, scene ii

 * He was a man Of an unbounded stomach, ever ranking Himself with princes.
 * Queen Katharine, scene ii

 * Men’s evil manners live in brass; their virtues We write in water.
 * Griffith, scene ii

 * He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one; Exceeding wise, fair-spoken, and persuading: Lofty and sour to them that lov'd him not; But to those men that sought him, sweet as summer, And though he were unsatisfied in getting, (Which was a sin) yet in bestowing, madam, He was most princely.
 * Griffith, scene ii

 * After my death I wish no other herald, No other speaker of my living actions, To keep mine honour from corruption, But such an honest chronicler as Griffith.
 * Queen Katharine, scene ii

Act V

 * To dance attendance on their lordships’ pleasures.
 * King Henry, scene ii

 * 'Tis a cruelty, To load a falling man.
 * Cromwell, scene ii

 * You were ever good at sudden commendations, Bishop of Winchester. But know, I come not To hear such flattery now; and in my presence, They are too thin and bare to hide offences.
 * King Henry, scene iii

 * Those about her From her shall read the perfect ways of honour.
 * Cranmer, scene iv

 * Wherever the bright sun of heaven shall shine, His honour and the greatness of his name Shall be, and make new nations.
 * Cranmer, scene iv

 * A most unspotted lily shall she pass To the ground, and all the world shall mourn her.
 * Cranmer, scene iv

title: Henry VIII (play)


text:
Measure for Measure

Measure for Measure is a play, written in 1603, by William Shakespeare. It is known as one of Shakespeare's three problem plays because it cannot be easily classified as a tragedy or comedy.

Act I

 * Thyself and thy belongings Are not thine own so proper, as to waste Thyself upon thy virtues, them on thee. Heaven doth with us as we with torches do, Not light them for themselves; for if our virtues Did not go forth of us, ’t were all alike As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touch’d, But to fine issues, nor Nature never lends The smallest scruple of her excellence, But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines Herself the glory of a creditor, Both thanks and use.
 * Duke Vincentio, scene i

 * He was ever precise in promise-keeping.
 * Lucio, scene ii

 * We have strict statutes and most biting laws, The needful bits and curbs to headstrong steeds, — Which for these fourteen years we have let sleep; Even like an o'ergrown lion in a cave, That goes not out to prey. Now, as fond fathers, Having bound up the threat'ning twigs of birch, Only to stick it in their children's sight For terror, not to use, in time the rod Becomes more mock'd than fear'd; so our decrees, Dead to infliction, to themselves are dead, And liberty plucks justice by the nose; The baby beats the nurse, and quite athwart Goes all decorum.
 * Duke Vincentio, scene iii

 * I have on Angelo impos'd the office; Who may, in the ambush of my name, strike home.
 * Duke Vincentio, scene iii

 * I hold you as a thing ensky’d and sainted.
 * Lucio, scene iv

 * A man whose blood Is very snow-broth; one who never feels The wanton stings and motions of the sense.
 * Lucio, scene iv

 * He arrests him on it; And follows close the rigour of the statute, To make him an example.
 * Lucio, scene iv

 * Our doubts are traitors, And make us lose the good we oft might win, By fearing to attempt.
 * Lucio, scene iv

Act II

 * 'Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus, Another thing to fall. I do not deny, The jury, passing on the prisoner’s life, May in the sworn twelve have a thief or two Guiltier than him they try.
 * Angelo, scene i

 * Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.
 * Escalus, scene i

 * This will last out a night in Russia, When nights are longest there.
 * Angelo, scene i

 * Condemn the fault, and not the actor of it?
 * Angelo, 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.
 * Isabella, scene ii

 * Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once; And He that might the vantage best have took Found out the remedy. How would you be, If He, which is the top of judgment, should But judge you as you are?
 * Isabella, scene ii

 * The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept.
 * Angelo, scene ii

 * O! it is excellent To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous To use it like a giant.
 * Isabella, scene ii

 * But man, proud man, Drest in a little brief authority, Most ignorant of what he’s most assur'd; His glassy essence, like an angry ape, Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven, As make the angels weep.
 * Isabella, scene ii

 * That in the captain’s but a choleric word, Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.
 * Isabella, scene ii

 * Our compell’d sins Stand more for number than for accompt.
 * Angelo, scene iv

 * Let me be ignorant and in nothing good, But graciously to know I am no better.
 * Isabella, scene iv

Act III

 * The miserable have no other medicine, But only hope.
 * Claudio, scene i

 * Be absolute for death; either death or life Shall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with life, If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing That none but fools would keep: a breath thou art, Servile to all the skyey influences, That dost this habitation, where thou keep'st Hourly afflict; merely, thou art death's fool; For him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun, And yet runn'st toward him still. Thou art not noble; For all the accommodations that thou bear'st Are nurs'd by baseness. Thou art by no means valiant; For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork Of a poor worm. Thy best of rest is sleep, And that thou oft provok'st; yet grossly fear'st Thy death, which is no more. Thou art not thyself For thou exist'st on many a thousand grains That issue out of dust. Happy thou art not; For what thou hast not, still thou striv'st to get; And what thou hast, forgett'st. Thou art not certain; For thy complexion shifts to strange effects, After the moon. If thou art rich, thou art poor; For, like an ass whose back with ingots bows, Thou bear'st thy heavy riches but a journey, And death unloads thee. Friend hast thou none; For thine own bowels, which do call thee sire, The mere effusion of thy proper loins, Do curse the gout, serpigo, and the rheum, For ending thee no sooner. Thou hast nor youth nor age, But, as it were, an after-dinner's sleep, Dreaming on both: for all thy blessed youth Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms Of palsied eld; and when thou art old and rich Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty, To make thy riches pleasant. What's yet in this That bears the name of life? Yet in this life Lie hid more thousand deaths: yet death we fear, That makes these odds all even.
 * Duke Vincentio, scene i

 * The sense of death is most in apprehension; And the poor beetle, that we tread upon, In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great As when a giant dies.
 * Isabella, scene i

 * O, 'tis the cunning livery of hell, The damned'st body to invest and cover In rev'rend guards!
 * Isabella, scene i

 * Ay, but to die, and go we know not where; To lie in cold obstruction and to rot; This sensible warm motion to become A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice; To be imprison’d in the viewless winds, And blown with restless violence round about The pendent world.
 * Claudio, scene i

 * The weariest and most loathed worldly life That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment Can lay on nature, is a paradise To what we fear of death.
 * Claudio, scene i

 * The hand that hath made you fair hath made you good.
 * Duke Vincentio, scene i

 * Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.
 * Duke Vincentio, scene i

 * There, at the moated grange, resides this dejected Mariana.
 * Duke Vincentio, scene i

 * He who the sword of heaven will bear Should be as holy as severe; Pattern in himself to know, Grace to stand, and virtue go; More nor less by others paying Than by self-offences weighing. Shame on him whose cruel striking Kills for faults of his own liking! Twice treble shame on Angelo, To weed my vice and let his grow! O, what may man within him hide, Though angel on the outward side! Making practise on the times, To draw with idle spiders' strings Most ponderous and substantial things! Craft against vice I must apply: With Angelo to-night shall lie His old betrothed but despised; So disguise shall, by the disguised, Pay with falsehood false exacting, And perform an old contracting.
 * Duke Vincentio, scene ii

Act IV
Take, oh 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 seal'd in vain,
 * seal'd in vain.

 * Boy, scene i

 * Every true man’s apparel fits your thief.
 * Abhorson, scene ii

 * Alack, when once our grace we have forgot, Nothing goes right! we would, and we would not.
 * Angelo, scene iv

Act V

 * A forted residence ’gainst the tooth of time And razure of oblivion.
 * Duke Vincentio, scene i

 * Truth is truth To the end of reckoning.
 * Isabella, scene i

 * My business in this state Made me a looker-on here in Vienna, Where I have seen corruption boil and bubble, Till it o'er-run the stew.
 * Duke Vincentio, 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.
 * Mariana, scene i

 * What’s mine is yours, and what is yours is mine.
 * Duke Vincentio, scene i

title: Measure for Measure


text:
The Merchant of Venice

The Merchant of Venice (1696-1598) is one of William Shakespeare's best-known plays, in which a merchant in Venice named Antonio defaults on a large loan provided by a Jewish moneylender, Shylock.

Act I

 * In sooth, I know not why I am so sad. It wearies me, you say it wearies you.
 * Antonio, scene i

 * My ventures are not in one bottom trusted, Nor to one place.
 * Antonio, scene i

 * Now, by two-headed Janus, Nature hath fram'd strange fellows in her time.
 * Salarino, scene i

 * Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable.
 * Salarino, scene i

 * You have too much respect upon the world: They lose it that do buy it with much care.
 * Gratiano, scene i

 * Antonio: I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano; A stage, where every man must play a part, And mine a sad one. Gratiano Let me play the fool.
 * scene i

 * Why should a man whose blood is warm within, Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster?
 * Gratiano, scene i

 * There are a sort of men, whose visages Do cream and mantle like a standing pond; And do a willful stillness entertain, With purpose to be dress'd in an opinion Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit; As who should say, I am Sir Oracle, And when I ope my lips, let no dog bark!
 * Gratiano, scene i

 * I do know of these, That therefore only are reputed wise, For saying nothing.
 * Gratiano, scene i

 * Fish not with this melancholy bait, For this fool-gudgeon, this opinion.
 * Gratiano, scene i

 * Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in all Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day ere you find them; and when you have them, they are not worth the search.
 * Bassanio, scene i

 * In my school-days, when I had lost one shaft, I shot his fellow of the self-same flight The self-same way, with more advised watch, To find the other forth; and by adventuring both, I oft found both.
 * Bassanio, scene i

 * In Belmont is a lady richly left; And she is fair, and fairer than that word, Of wondrous virtues. Sometimes from her eyes I did receive fair speechless messages.
 * Bassanio, scene i

Which makes her seat of Belmont Colchos' strand, And many Jasons come in quest of her.
 * Her sunny locks Hang on her temples like a golden fleece;
 * Bassanio, scene i

 * They are as sick that surfeit with too much, as they that starve with nothing. It is no mean happiness, therefore, to be seated in the mean; superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer.
 * Nerissa, scene ii

 * If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottages princes’ palaces.
 * Portia, scene ii

 * The brain may devise laws for the blood; but a hot temper leaps o’er a cold decree.
 * Portia, scene ii

 * He doth nothing but talk of his horse.
 * Portia, scene ii

 * God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man.
 * Portia, scene ii

 * When he is best, he is a little worse than a man; and when he is worst, he is little better than a beast.
 * Portia, scene ii

 * I dote on his very absence.
 * Portia, scene ii

 * My meaning in saying he is a good man, is, to have you understand me that he is sufficient.
 * Shylock, scene iii

 * Ships are but boards, sailors but men: there be land-rats and water-rats, water-thieves and land-thieves.
 * Shylock, scene iii

 * I will buy with you, sell with you, talk with you, walk with you, and so following; but I will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray with you.
 * Shylock, scene iii

 * If I can catch him once upon the hip, I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him. He hates our sacred nation; and he rails, Even there where merchants most do congregate, On me, my bargains, and my well-won thrift, Which he calls interest.
 * Shylock, scene iii

 * The devil can cite scripture for his purpose. An evil soul producing holy witness, Is like a villain with a smiling cheek; A goodly apple rotten at the heart: O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!
 * Antonio, scene iii

 * Signior Antonio, many a time and oft In the Rialto you have rated me About my moneys, and my usances: Still have I borne it with a patient shrug, For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe. You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog, And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine, And all for use of that which is mine own. Well then, it now appears you need my help: Go to then: you come to me, and you say, Shylock, we would have monies; You say so; You, that did void your rheum upon my beard, And foot me, as you would spurn a stranger cur Over your threshold; monies is your suit. What should I say to you? Should I not say, Hath a dog money? is it possible A cur can lend three thousand ducats? or Shall I bend low, and in a bondman’s key, With bated breath and whispering humbleness, Say this, — Fair sir, you spet on me Wednesday last; You spurn'd me such a day; another time You call'd me — dog; and for these courtesies I'll lend you thus much monies?
 * Shylock, scene iii

 * For when did friendship take A breed for barren metal of his friend?
 * Antonio, scene iii

 * O father Abram! what these Christians are, Whose own hard dealings teaches them suspect The thoughts of others!
 * Shylock, scene iii

 * I like not fair terms and a villain's mind.
 * Bassanio, scene iii

Act II

 * Mislike me not for my complexion, The shadow’d livery of the burnish’d sun.
 * Prince of Morocco, scene i

 * An honest exceeding poor man.
 * Old Gobbo, scene ii

 * The young gentleman (according to Fates and Destinies and such odd sayings, the Sisters Three, and such branches of learning) is, indeed, deceased; or, as you would say in plain terms, gone to heaven.
 * Launcelot Gobbo, scene ii

 * The very staff of my age, my very prop.
 * Old Gobbo, scene ii

 * It is a wise father that knows his own child.
 * Launcelot Gobbo, scene ii

 * Truth will come to light; murder cannot be hid long; a man's son may; but, in the end, truth will out.
 * Launcelot Gobbo, scene ii

 * In the twinkling of an eye.
 * Launcelot Gobbo, scene ii

 * But hear thee, Gratiano; Thou art too wild, too rude and bold of voice; Parts that become thee happily enough, And in such eyes as ours appear not faults; But where thou art not known, why, there they show Something too liberal. Pray thee, take pain To allay with some cold drops of modesty, Thy skipping spirit, lest through thy wild behavior, I be misconstrued in the place I go to, And lose my hopes.
 * Bassiano, scene ii

 * I know the hand: in faith, 'tis a fair hand; And whiter than the paper it writ on Is the fair hand that writ.
 * Lorenzo, scene iv

 * The vile squeaking of the wry-necked fife.
 * Shylock, scene v

 * There will come a Christian by,/Shall be worth a Jewess' eye.
 * Launcelot Gobbo, scene v

 * Fast bind, fast find. A proverb never stale in thrifty mind.
 * Shylock, scene v

 * All things that are, Are with more spirit chased than enjoy’d. How like a younker, or a prodigal, The scarfed bark puts from her native bay, Hugg’d and embraced by the strumpet wind! How like the prodigal doth she return, With over-weather’d ribs and ragged sails, Lean, rent, and beggar’d by the strumpet wind!
 * Gratiano, scene vi

 * But love is blind, and lovers cannot see The pretty follies that themselves commit.
 * Jessica, scene vi

 * Must I hold a candle to my shames?
 * Jessica, scene vi

 * For she is wise, if I can judge of her, And fair she is, if that mine eyes be true, And true she is, as she hath proved herself, And therefore, like herself, wise, fair and true, Shall she be placed in my constant soul.
 * Lorenzo, scene vi

 * All that glisters is not gold, Often have you heard that told: Many a man his life hath sold, But my outside to behold: Gilded tombs do worms infold. Had you been as wise as bold, Young in limbs, in judgment old, Your answer had not been inscroll'd. Fare you well, your suit is cold.
 * Prince of Morocco, reading Portia's note, scene vii; this is the source of the popular paraphrase "All that glitters is not gold."

 * Salerino: I saw Bassanio and Antonio part: Bassanio told him he would make some speed Of his return: he answer'd, 'Do not so; Slubber not business for my sake, Bassanio But stay the very riping of the time; And for the Jew's bond which he hath of me, Let it not enter in your mind of love: Be merry, and employ your chiefest thoughts To courtship and such fair ostents of love As shall conveniently become you there:' And even there, his eye being big with tears, Turning his face, he put his hand behind him, And with affection wondrous sensible He wrung Bassanio's hand; and so they parted. Solanio: I think he only loves the world for him.
 * scene viii

 * Even in the force and road of casualty.
 * Prince of Arragon, scene ix

 * The fire seven times tried this; Seven times tried that judgment is, That did never choose miss. Some there be that shadow's kiss, And have but a shadow's bliss. There be fools alive, iwis, Silver'd o'er, and so was this. Take what wife you will to bed, I will ever be your head: So be gone; you are sped.
 * Prince of Arragon, reading Portia's note, scene ix

 * Hanging and wiving goes by destiny.
 * Nerissa, scene ix

Act III

 * If my gossip, Report, be an honest woman of her word.
 * Salarino, scene i
 * Salarino: Why, I am sure, if he forfeit, thou wilt not take his flesh? What's that good for? Shylock: To bait fish withal: if it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me, and hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies; and what's his reason?  I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we shall resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.
 * Shylock, scene i
 * He makes a swan-like end, Fading in music.
 * Portia, scene ii
 * Singer: Tell me where is fancy bred, Or in the heart, or in the head? How begot, how nourished? Reply, reply. It is engender'd in the eyes, With gazing fed; and fancy dies In the cradle where it lies. Let us all ring fancy's knell; I'll begin it, — Ding, dong, bell. All: Ding, dong, bell.
 * Scene ii

 * In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt, But, being season’d with a gracious voice, Obscures the show of evil?
 * Bassanio, scene ii

 * There is no vice so simple, but assumes Some mark of virtue in his outward parts.
 * Bassanio, scene ii

 * Thus ornament is but the guiled shore To a most dangerous sea; the beauteous scarf Veiling an Indian beauty; in a word, The seeming truth which cunning times put on To entrap the wisest.
 * Bassanio, scene ii

 * An unlesson’d girl, unschool’d, unpractis'd; Happy in this, she is not yet so old But she may learn.
 * Portia, scene ii
 * Here are a few of the unpleasant’st words That ever blotted paper!
 * Bassanio, scene ii

 * The dearest friend to me, the kindest man, The best-condition’d and unwearied spirit In doing courtesies.
 * Bassanio, scene ii

 * Thus when I shun Scylla, your father, I fall into Charybdis, your mother.
 * Launcelot Gobbo, scene v

 * Let it serve for table-talk.
 * Lorenzo, scene v

Act IV

 * A harmless necessary cat.
 * Shylock, scene i

 * What, wouldst thou have a serpent sting thee twice?
 * Shylock, scene i

 * If you deny me, fie upon your law! There is no power in the decrees of Venice. I stand for judgement: answer — shall I have it?
 * Shylock, scene i

 * I am a tainted wether of the flock, Meetest for death; the weakest kind of fruit Drops earliest to the ground.
 * Antonio, scene i

 * I never knew so young a body with so old a head.
 * Clerk, scene i

 * The quality of mercy is not strain'd, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath: it is twice bless’d; It blesseth him that gives and him that takes. ’Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes The throned monarch better than his crown; His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, The attribute to awe and majesty, Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings; But mercy is above this sceptred sway, It is enthroned in the hearts of kings, It is an attribute to God himself; And earthly power doth then show likest God’s, When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew, Though justice be thy plea, consider this, That in the course of justice none of us Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy; And that same prayer, doth teach us all to render The deeds of mercy.
 * Portia, scene i

 * A Daniel come to judgment! yea, a Daniel! — O wise young judge, how I do honor thee! I pray you, let me look upon the bond.
 * Shylock, scene i

 * Shylock: Is it so nominated in the bond? Portia: It is not so express'd, but what of that? 'Twere good you do so much for charity. Shylock: I cannot find it: 'tis not in the bond.
 * Scene i

 * Commend me to your honorable wife. Tell her the process of Antonio's end; Say how I loved you, speak me fair in death. And when the tale is told, bid her be judge Whether Bassanio had not once a love.
 * Antonio, scene i

 * This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood; The words expressly are, a pound of flesh. Take then thy bond, take thou thy pound of flesh; But, in the cutting it, if thou dost shed One drop of Christian blood, thy lands and goods Are by the laws of Venice confiscate Unto the state of Venice.
 * Portia, scene i

 * An upright judge, a learned judge!
 * Gratiano, scene i

 * A second Daniel, a Daniel, Jew! Now, infidel, I have you on the hip.
 * Gratiano, scene i

 * A Daniel, still say I; a second Daniel! — I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word.
 * Gratiano, scene i

 * Nay, take my life and all; pardon not that; You take my house, when you do take the prop That doth sustain my house; you take my life, When you do take the means whereby I live.
 * Shylock, scene i

 * He is well paid that is well satisfied.
 * Portia, scene i

Act V

 * How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank! Here we will sit, and let the sounds of music Creep in our ears: soft stillness, and the night, Become the touches of sweet harmony. Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold. There’s not the smallest orb which thou behold’st But in his motion like an angel sings, Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins. Such harmony is in immortal souls; But, whilst this muddy vesture of decay Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.
 * Lorenzo, scene i

 * I am never merry when I hear sweet music.
 * Jessica, scene i

 * The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; The motions of his spirit are dull as night, And his affections dark as Erebus: Let no such man be trusted.
 * Lorenzo, scene i

 * How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
 * Portia, scene i

 * How many things by season season’d are To their right praise, and true perfection! — Peace, ho! the moon sleeps with Endymion, And would not be awak'd!
 * Portia, scene i

 * This night, methinks, is but the daylight sick.
 * Portia, scene i

 * These blessed candles of the night.
 * Bassanio, scene i

 * Fair ladies, you drop manna in the way Of starved people.
 * Lorenzo, scene i

 * We will answer all things faithfully.
 * Portia, scene i

Quotes about The Merchant of Venice

 * I reviewed the other moments scholars cite to prove Shylock's "humanity." There were two lines of Shylock treasuring his dead wife's ring, unlike the play's Christian men who give their wives' rings away. But unlike the other men, Shylock never gets his ring back--because his daughter steals it, and becomes a Christian, and inherits what remains of his estate at the play's triumphant end. Then there was the trial scene, where modern actors often make Shylock seem tragic rather than horrific. But that was performance, not text. Finally, scholars point to the many times Shylock explains why he is so revolting: Christians treat him poorly, so he returns the favor. But for this to satisfy, one must accept that Jews are revolting to begin with, and that their repulsiveness simply needs to be explained. None of it worked. And then I saw just how deep the gaslighting went: I felt obligated to make it work, to contort this revolting material into something that excused it. I have a doctorate in literature. I am aware that Shakespeare's plays contain many layers and mean many things. But the degrading hideousness of this character is obvious even to a ten-year-old, and no matter how many more layers the play contains, that is unambiguously one of them.
 * Dara Horn "Commuting with Shylock" in People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present (2021)

 * This inhumanity of mercenary commerce is the more notable because it is a fulfilment of the law that the corruption of the best is the worst. … And this is the ultimate lesson which the leader of English intellect meant for us … in the tale of the "Merchant of Venice"; in which the true and incorrupt merchant,—kind and free, beyond every other Shakespearian conception of men,—is opposed to the corrupted merchant, or usurer; the lesson being deepened by the expression of the strange hatred which the corrupted merchant bears to the pure one, mixed with intense scorn.
 * John Ruskin, Unto This Last (1860), 3

title: The Merchant of Venice


text:
A Midsummer Night's Dream

A Midsummer Night's Dream, written in approximately 1595 or 1596, is a romantic comedy by William Shakespeare. The play is set in Athens, and consists of several subplots that revolve around the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta. One subplot involves a conflict among four Athenian lovers. Another follows a group of six amateur actors rehearsing the play which they are to perform before the wedding. Both groups find themselves in a forest inhabited by fairies who manipulate the humans and are engaged in their own domestic intrigue.

Act I

 * Four days will quickly steep themselves in nights; Four nights will quickly dream away the time; And then the moon, like to a silver bow New bent in heaven, shall behold the night Of our solemnities.
 * Hippolyta, scene i.

 * But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd Than that, which, withering on the virgin thorn, Grows, lives, and dies, in single blessedness.
 * Theseus, scene i.

 * For aught that ever I could read, Could ever hear by tale or history, The course of true love never did run smooth.
 * Lysander, scene i.

 * O, hell! to choose love by another’s eye.
 * Hermia, scene i.

 * Swift as a shadow, short as any dream, Brief as the lightning in the collied night, That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth, And ere a man hath power to say, — Behold! The jaws of darkness do devour it up: So quick bright things come to confusion.
 * Lysander, scene i.

 * Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind. Nor hath love’s mind of any judgement taste; Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste. And therefore is love said to be a child Because in choice he is so oft beguiled.
 * Helena, scene i.

 * Masters, spread yourselves.
 * Bottom, scene ii.

 * This is Ercles’ vein.
 * Bottom, scene ii.

 * Nay, faith, let me not play a woman; I have a beard coming
 * Flute, scene ii.

 * I’ll speak in a monstrous little voice.
 * Bottom, scene ii.

 * I am slow of study.
 * Snug, scene ii.

 * That would hang us, every mother’s son.
 * All, scene ii.

 * I will roar you as gently as any sucking dove; I will roar you, an ’twere any nightingale.
 * Bottom, scene ii.

 * A proper man, as one shall see in a summer’s day.
 * Quince, scene ii.

Act II

 * Over hill, over dale, Thorough bush, thorough briar, Over park, over pale, Thorough flood, thorough fire, I do wander everywhere, Swifter than the moon's sphere; And I serve the fairy queen, To dew her orbs upon the green. The cowslips tall her pensioners be; In their gold coats, spots you see; Those be rubies, fairy favours, In their freckles live our savours. I must go seek some dew-drops here, And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear. Farewell, thou lob of spirits, I'll be gone; My queen and all her elves come here anon!
 * Fairy, scene i.

 * Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.
 * Oberon, scene i.

 * The human mortals.
 * Titania, scene i.

 * Once I sat upon a promontory, And heard a mermaid, on a dolphin's back, Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath, That the rude sea grew civil at her song; And certain stars shot madly from their spheres, To hear the sea-maid’s music.
 * Oberon, scene i.

 * And the imperial votaress passed on, In maiden meditation, fancy-free. Yet mark’d I where the bolt of Cupid fell: It fell upon a little western flower, Before, milk-white, now purple with love’s wound, — And maidens call it love-in-idleness.
 * Oberon, scene i.

 * I’ll put a girdle round about the earth In forty minutes.
 * Puck, scene i.

 * My heart Is true as steel.
 * Helena, scene i.

 * I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, Where ox-lips and the nodding violet grows; Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine.
 * Oberon, scene i.

 * What thou seest when thou dost wake, Do it for thy true-love take, Love and languish for his sake: Be it ounce, or cat, or bear, Pard, or boar with bristled hair, In thy eye that shall appear When thou wakest, it is thy dear: Wake when some vile thing is near.
 * Oberon, scene ii.

Act III

 * A lion among ladies, is a most dreadful thing.
 * Bottom, scene i.

 * Flute: Must I speak now? Quince: Ay, marry, must you: for you must understand he goes but to see a noise that he heard, and is to come again.
 * Scene i.

 * O monstrous! O strange! we are haunted. Pray, masters! fly, masters! Help!
 * Quince, scene i.

 * Bless thee, Bottom! bless thee! thou art translated.
 * Quince, scene i.

 * I see their knavery: this is to make an ass of me; to fright me, if they could.
 * Bottom, scene i.

 * And yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays.
 * Bottom, scene i.

 * Lord, what fools these mortals be!
 * Puck, scene ii.

 * And those things do best please me, That do befall preposterously.
 * Puck, scene ii.

 * So we grew together, Like to a double cherry, seeming parted; But yet a union in partition, Two lovely berries moulded on one stem.
 * Helena, scene ii.

 * I am amazed and know not what to say.
 * Hermia, scene ii.

 * Cupid is a knavish lad Thus to make poor females mad.
 * Puck, scene ii.

 * And though she be but little, she is fierce.
 * Helena, scene ii, referring to her friend Hermia.

Act IV

 * I have an exposition of sleep come upon me.
 * Bottom scene i.

 * I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was.
 * Bottom, scene i.

 * The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man’s hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was.
 * Bottom, scene i.

 * It seems to me that yet we sleep, we dream.
 * Demetrius, scene i.

Act V

 * Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend More than cool reason ever comprehends. The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, Are of imagination all compact: One sees more devils than vast hell can hold — That is the madman; The lover, all as frantic, Sees Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt. The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven; And, as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name. Such tricks hath strong imagination, That, if it would but apprehend some joy, It comprehends some bringer of that joy; Or, in the night, imagining some fear, How easy is a bush suppos'd a bear.
 * Theseus, scene i.

 * But all the story of the night told over, And their minds transfigur'd so together, More witnesseth than fancy's images, And grows to something of great constancy, But howsoever strange, and admirable.
 * Hippolyta, scene i.

 * For never anything can be amiss, When simpleness and duty tender it.
 * Theseus, scene i.

 * The true beginning of our end.
 * Quince, scene i.

 * The best in this kind are but shadows; and the worst are no worse, if imagination amend them.
 * Theseus, scene i.

 * A very gentle beast, and of a good conscience.
 * Theseus, scene i.

 * I am a-weary of this moon; would he would change!
 * Hippolyta, scene i.

 * Theseus: This passion, and the death of a dear friend, would go near to make a man look sad. Hippolyta: Beshrew my heart, but I pity the man.
 * Scene i.

 * The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve.
 * Theseus, scene i.

 * If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended, That you have but slumber'd here While these visions did appear. And this weak and idle theme, No more yielding, but a dream, Gentles, do not reprehend; If you pardon, we will mend. And, as I am an honest Puck, If we have unearned luck, Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue, We will make amends ere long: Else the Puck a liar call. So good night unto you all. Give me your hands, if we be friends, And Robin shall restore amends.
 * Puck, scene i.

title: A Midsummer Night's Dream


text:
Much Ado About Nothing

Much Ado About Nothing is a comedy by William Shakespeare. First published in 1600, it was likely first performed in the winter of 1598-1599.

Act I

 * A victory is twice itself when the achiever brings home full numbers.
 * Leonato, scene i

 * He hath borne himself beyond the promise of his age, doing, in the figure of a lamb, the feats of a lion: he hath indeed better bettered expectation, than you must expect of me to tell you how.
 * Messenger, scene i

 * How much better is it to weep at joy than to joy at weeping!
 * Leonato, scene i

 * A very valiant trencher-man.
 * Beatrice, scene i

 * Beatrice: What is he to a lord? Messenger: A lord to a lord, a man to a man; stuffed with all honourable virtues. Beatrice: It is so indeed, he is no less than a stuffed man, but for the stuffing, — Well, we are all mortal.
 * Scene i

 * They never meet, but there is a skirmish of wit between them.
 * Leonato, scene i

 * In our last conflict four of his five wits went halting off, and now is the whole man governed with one: so that if he have wit enough to keep himself warm, let him bear it for a difference between himself and his horse; for it is all the wealth that he hath left, to be known a reasonable creature.
 * Beatrice, scene i

 * He wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat; it ever changes with the next block.
 * Beatrice, scene i

 * Messenger: I see, lady, the gentleman is not in your books. Beatrice: No; an he were, I would burn my study.
 * Scene i

 * He is sooner caught than the pestilence, and the taker runs presently mad. God help the noble Claudio! if he have caught the Benedick, it will cost him a thousand pound ere he be cured.
 * Beatrice, scene i

 * Don Pedro: The fashion of the world is to avoid cost, and you encounter it. Leonato: Never came trouble to my house in the likeness of your grace: for trouble being gone, comfort should remain; but when you depart from me, sorrow abides and happiness takes his leave.
 * Scene i

 * Benedick: What, my dear Lady Disdain! are you yet living? Beatrice: Is it possible disdain should die while she hath such meet food to feed it as Signior Benedick? Courtesy itself must convert to disdain, if you come in her presence.
 * Scene i

 * Benedick: I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart; for, truly, I love none. Beatrice: A dear happiness to women: they would else have been troubled with a pernicious suitor.
 * Scene i

 * I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me.
 * Beatrice, scene i

 * I would my horse had the speed of your tongue, and so good a continuer.
 * Benedick, scene i

 * I dare swear he is no hypocrite, but prays from his heart.
 * Don Pedro, scene i

 * Do you question me, as an honest man should do, for my simple true judgment; or would you have me speak after my custom, as being a professed tyrant to their sex?
 * Benedick, scene i

 * Benedick: Would you buy her, that you enquire after her? Claudio: Can the world buy such a jewel?
 * Scene i

 * Shall I never see a bachelor of threescore again?
 * Benedick, scene i

 * Like the old tale, my lord: it is not so, nor 'twas not so; but, indeed, God forbid it should be so.
 * Benedick, scene i

 * Don Pedro: By my troth, I speak my thought. Claudio: And in faith, my lord, I spoke mine. Benedick: And by my two faiths and troths, my lord, I spoke mine. Claudio: That I love her, I feel. Don Pedro: That she is worthy, I know. Benedick: That I neither feel how she should be loved nor know how she should be worthy, is the opinion that fire cannot melt out of me: I will die in it at the stake.
 * Scene i

 * That a woman conceived me, I thank her; that she brought me up, I likewise give her most humble thanks; but that I will have a recheat winded in my forehead, or hang my bugle in an invisible baldrick, all women shall pardon me. Because I will not do them the wrong to mistrust any, I will do myself the right to trust none; and the fine is, — for the which I may go the finer, — I will live a bachelor.
 * Benedick, scene i

 * Don Pedro: In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke. Benedick: The savage bull may; but if ever the sensible Benedick bear it, pluck off the bull's horns, and set them in my forehead; and let me be vilely painted; and in such great letters as they write, Here is good horse to hire, let them signify under my sign, — Here you may see Benedick the married man.
 * Scene i

 * Nay, mock not, mock not. The body of your discourse is sometime guarded with fragments, and the guards are but slightly basted on neither: ere you flout old ends any further, examine your conscience: and so I leave you.
 * Benedick, scene i

Act II

 * He is of a very melancholy disposition.
 * Hero, scene i

 * He that hath a beard is more than a youth; and he that hath no beard is less than a man.
 * Beatrice, scene i

 * As merry as the day is long.
 * Beatrice, scene i

 * I have a good eye, uncle; I can see a church by day-light.
 * Beatrice, scene i

 * Speak low, if you speak love.
 * Don Pedro, scene i

 * Friendship is constant in all other things, Save in the office and affairs of love: Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues; Let every eye negotiate for itself, And trust no agent: for beauty is a witch Against whose charms faith melteth into blood.
 * Claudio, scene i

 * I was born to speak all mirth and no matter.
 * Beatrice, scene i

 * Don Pedro: Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you; for, out of question, you were born in a merry hour. Beatrice: No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star danced, and under that was I born.
 * Scene i

 * Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were but little happy, if I could say how much.
 * Claudio, scene i

 * If we can do this, then Cupid is no longer an archer; his glory shall be ours, for we are the only love-gods.
 * Don Pedro, scene i

 * He was wont to speak plain, and to the purpose.
 * Benedick, scene iii

 * ''Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more, Men were deceivers ever; One foot in sea, and one on shore, To one thing constant never. Then sigh not so, But let them go, And be you blithe and bonny,  Converting all your sounds of woe Into Hey nonny, nonny.
 * Balthazar, scene iii

 * Sits the wind in that corner?
 * Benedick, scene iii

 * Shall quips, and sentences, and these paper bullets of the brain, awe a man from the career of his humour? No; the world must be peopled. When I said, I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.
 * Benedick, scene iii

Act III

 * Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.
 * Hero, scene i

 * From the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, he is all mirth.
 * Don Pedro, scene ii

 * Every one can master a grief, but he that has it.
 * Benedick, scene ii

 * Are you good men and true?
 * Dogberry, scene iii

 * To be a well-favoured man is the gift of fortune; but to write and read comes by nature.
 * Dogberry, scene iii

 * The most senseless and fit man.
 * Dogberry, scene iii

 * You shall comprehend all vagrom men.
 * Dogberry, scene iii

 * 2 Watch: How if 'a will not stand? Dogberry: Why, then, take no note of him, but let him go; and presently call the rest of the watch together, and thank God you are rid of a knave.
 * scene iii

 * Is most tolerable, and not to be endured.
 * Dogberry, scene iii

 * Why, then, let them alone till they are sober: if they make you not then the better answer, you may say, they are not the men you took them for.
 * Dogberry, scene iii

 * The most peaceable way for you, if you do take a thief, is to let him show himself what he is, and steal out of your company.
 * Dogberry, scene iii

 * I know that Deformed.
 * 1 Watch, scene iii

 * The fashion wears out more apparel than the man.
 * Conrade, scene iii

 * I thank God, I am as honest as any man living, that is an old man, and no honester than I.
 * Verges, scene v

 * Comparisons are odorous.
 * Dogberry, scene v

 * If I were as tedious as a king, I could find it in my heart to bestow it all of your worship.
 * Dogberry, scene v

 * A good old man, sir; he will be talking: as they say, When the age is in, the wit is out.
 * Dogberry, scene v

Act IV

 * O, what men dare do! what men may do! what men daily do, not knowing what they do!
 * Claudio, scene i

 * O, what authority and show of truth Can cunning sin cover itself withal!
 * Claudio, scene i

 * I never tempted her with word too large; But, as a brother to his sister, show’d Bashful sincerity and comely love.
 * Claudio, scene i

 * I have mark’d A thousand blushing apparitions To start into her face; a thousand innocent shames In angel whiteness beat away those blushes.
 * Friar, scene i

 * For it so falls out That what we have we prize not to the worth, Whiles we enjoy it, but being lack’d and lost, Why, then we rack the value; then we find The virtue, that possession would not show us Whiles it was ours.
 * Friar, scene i

 * The idea of her life shall sweetly creep Into his study of imagination; And every lovely organ of her life, Shall come apparell’d in more precious habit, More moving-delicate, and full of life, Into the eye and prospect of his soul.
 * Friar, scene i

 * I do love nothing in the world so well as you: is not that strange?
 * Benedick, scene i

 * Masters, it is proved already that you are little better than false knaves; and it will go near to be thought so shortly.
 * Dogberry, scene ii

 * Yea, marry, that's the eftest way.
 * Dogberry, scene ii

 * Flat burglary, as ever was committed.
 * Dogberry, scene ii

 * O villain! thou wilt be condemned into everlasting redemption for this.
 * Dogberry, scene ii

 * O, that he were here to write me down — an ass! — but, masters, remember, that I am an ass; though it be not written down, yet forget not that I am an ass.
 * Dogberry, scene ii

 * A fellow that hath had losses; and one that hath two gowns, and every thing handsome about him.
 * Dogberry, scene ii

Act V

 * Patch grief with proverbs.
 * Leonato, scene i

 * Men Can counsel, and speak comfort to that grief Which they themselves not feel.
 * Leonato, scene i

 * Charm ache with air, and agony with words.
 * Leonato, scene i

 * ’T is all men’s office to speak patience To those that wring under the load of sorrow; But no man’s virtue nor sufficiency, To be so moral, when he shall endure The like himself.
 * Leonato, scene i

 * Therein do men from children nothing differ.
 * Antonio, scene i

 * For there was never yet philosopher, That could endure the tooth-ache patiently.
 * Leonato, scene i

 * Some of us will smart for it.
 * Antonio, scene i

 * Don Pedro: Officers, what offense have these men done? Dogberry: Marry, sir, they have committed false report; moreover, they have spoken untruths; secondarily, they are slanders; sixth and lastly, they have belied a lady; thirdly, they have verified unjust things; and, to conclude, they are lying knaves. Don Pedro: First, I ask thee what they have done; thirdly, I ask thee what’s their offense; sixth and lastly, why they are committed; and, to conclude, what you lay to their charge.
 * scene i

 * I was not born under a rhyming planet.
 * Benedick, scene ii

 * Foul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is but foul breath, and foul breath is noisome; therefore I will depart unkissed.
 * Beatrice, scene ii

 * Done to death by slanderous tongues.
 * Claudio, scene iii

title: Much Ado About Nothing


text:
Pericles, Prince of Tyre

Pericles, Prince of Tyre (ca. 1607 – 1608) is a play written at least in part by William Shakespeare and is included in modern editions of his collected plays.

Act I

 * An arrow shot From a well-experienc’d archer hits the mark His eye doth level at.
 * Antiochus, scene i.

Act II

 * 3 Fisherman: Master, I marvel how the fishes live in the sea. 1 Fisherman: Why, as men do a-land: the great ones eat up the little ones.
 * Scene i.

 * Contend not, sir; for we are gentlemen, That neither in our hearts, nor outward eyes, Envy the great, nor do the low despise.
 * 1 Knight, scene iii.
 * Compare Torquato Tasso: L'alte non temo, e l'umili non sdegno "The proud I fear not, nor the meek disdain", Gerusalemme Liberata (1581), Canto II, Stanza 46.

 * I see that Time's the king of men, For he's their parent, and he is their grave, And gives them what he will, not what they crave.
 * Pericles, scene iii.

Act IV

 * I never kill'd a mouse, nor hurt a fly.
 * Marina, scene i

title: Pericles, Prince of Tyre


text:
Richard III (play)

The Life and Death of King Richard III (c. 1591) is William Shakespeare's version of the short career of Richard III of England, who is depicted as a villain. The play is sometimes listed as a tragedy but more correctly belongs among the histories. It picks up the story from Henry VI, Part 3 and is the conclusion of a series that begins with Richard II.

Act I

 * Now is the winter of our discontent Made glorious summer by this sun of York; And all the clouds, that lour'd upon our house, In the deep bosom of the ocean buried. Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths; Our bruised arms hung up for monuments; Our stern alarums chang'd to merry meetings, Our dreadful marches to delightful measures. Grim-visag'd war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front; And now, — instead of mounting barbed steeds, To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,— He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber To the lascivious pleasing of a lute. But I, — that am not shap'd for sportive tricks, Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass; I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love’s majesty, To strut before a wanton ambling nymph; I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion, Cheated of feature by dissembling nature, Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time Into this breathing world, scarce half made up, And that so lamely and unfashionable, That dogs bark at me, as I halt by them,— Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace, Have no delight to pass away the time, Unless to spy my shadow in the sun And descant on mine own deformity. And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover To entertain these fair well-spoken days, I am determined to prove a villain And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
 * Richard, Duke of Gloucester, scene i

 * Villain, thou know'st no law of God nor man; No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity.
 * Lady Anne, scene ii

 * To leave this keen encounter of our wits.
 * Richard, Duke of Gloucester, scene ii

 * Look, how this ring encompasseth thy finger, Even so thy breast encloseth my poor heart; Wear both of them, for both of them are thine.
 * Richard, Duke of Gloucester, scene ii

 * Was ever woman in this humour woo'd? Was ever woman in this humour won? I'll have her; — but I will not keep her long.
 * Richard, Duke of Gloucester, scene ii

 * A sweeter and a lovelier gentleman, — Fram'd in the prodigality of nature, Young, valiant, wise, and, no doubt, right royal, — The spacious world cannot again afford.
 * Richard, Duke of Gloucester, scene ii

 * I cannot tell: the world is grown so bad, That wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch: Since every Jack became a gentleman, There's many a gentle person made a Jack.
 * Richard, Duke of Gloucester, scene iii

 * Thy friends suspect for traitors while thou liv'st, And take deep traitors for thy dearest friends! No sleep close up that deadly eye of thine, Unless it be while some tormenting dream Affrights thee with a hell of ugly devils! Thou elvish-mark'd, abortive, rooting hog! Thou that wast seal'd in thy nativity The slave of nature and the son of hell! Thou slander of thy heavy mother's womb! Thou loathed issue of thy father's loins! Thou rag of honour! thou detested—
 * Queen Margaret, scene iii

 * But then I sigh, and, with a piece of scripture, Tell them that God bids us do good for evil: And thus I clothe my naked villainy With odd old ends, stol'n out of holy writ; And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.
 * Richard, Duke of Gloucester, scene iii

 * Talkers are no good doers: be assur'd, We go to use our hands, and not our tongues.
 * First Murderer, scene iii

 * O, I have pass'd a miserable night, So full of ugly sights, of ghastly dreams, That, as I am a christian-faithful man, I would not spend another such a night, Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days. — So full of dismal terror was the time!
 * Clarence, scene iv

 * Methoughts that I had broken from the Tower, And was embark'd to cross to Burgundy; And, in my company, my brother Gloster; Who from my cabin tempted me to walk Upon the hatches: thence we look'd toward England, And cited up a thousand heavy times, During the wars of York and Lancaster, That had befall'n us. As we pac'd along Upon the giddy footing of the hatches, Methought that Gloster stumbled; and, in falling, Struck me, that thought to stay him, overboard Into the tumbling billows of the main. O Lord, methought what pain it was to drown! What dreadful noise of waters in my ears! What sights of ugly death within my eyes! Methoughts I saw a thousand fearful wrecks; A thousand men that fishes gnaw'd upon; Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl, Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels, All scatt'red in the bottom of the sea: Some lay in dead men's skulls; and in the holes Where eyes did once inhabit there were crept,— As 'twere in scorn of eyes,—reflecting gems,
 * Clarence, scene iv

 * I pass'd, methought, the melancholy flood, With that grim ferryman which poets write of, Unto the kingdom of perpetual night.
 * Clarence, scene iv

 * Clarence is come; false, fleeting, perjured Clarence, That stabbed me in the field by Tewksbury; Seize on him, Furies, take him to your torments!
 * Clarence, scene iv

 * Sorrow breaks seasons and reposing hours, Makes the night morning, and the noon-tide night. Princes have but their titles for their glories, An outward honour for an inward toil; And, for unfelt imagination, They often feel a world of restless cares: So that, between their titles and low name, There's nothing differs but the outward fame.
 * Brackenbury, scene iv

 * First Murderer: How dost thou feel thyself now? Second Murderer: Faith, some certain dregs of conscience are yet within me. First Murderer: Remember our reward, when the deed's done. Second Murderer: Zounds, he dies; I had forgot the reward. First Murderer: Where is thy conscience now? Second Murderer: In the Duke of Gloucester's purse. First Murderer: So, when he opens his purse to give us our reward, thy conscience flies out. Second Murderer: Let it go; there's few or none will entertain it. First Murderer: How if it come to thee again? Second Murderer: I'll not meddle with it, it is a dangerous thing, it makes a man a coward; a man cannot steal, but it accuseth him; a man cannot swear, but it checks him; a man cannot lie with his neighbour's wife, but it detects him: 'tis a blushing shame-faced spirit, that mutinies in a man's bosom; it fills one full of obstacles: it made me once restore a purse of gold, that I found; it beggars any man that keeps it: it is turned out of all towns and cities for a dangerous thing; and every man that means to live well, endeavors to trust to himself, and live without it. First Murderer: Zounds, it is even now at my elbow, persuading me not to kill the duke.
 * Scene iv

Act II

 * Edward, my lord, your son, our king, is dead. — Why grow the branches when the root is gone? Why wither not the leaves that want their sap? — If you will live, lament; if die, be brief, That our swift-winged souls may catch the king's; Or, like obedient subjects, follow him To his new kingdom of perpetual rest.
 * Queen Elizabeth, scene ii

 * A parlous boy: — go to, you are too shrewd.
 * Queen Elizabeth, scene iv

Act III

 * So wise, so young, they say, do never live long.
 * Richard, Duke of Gloucester, scene i

 * That Julius Caesar was a famous man; With what his valour did enrich his wit, His wit set down to make his valour live: Death makes no conquest of this conqueror; For now he lives in fame, though not in life.
 * Edward, Prince of Wales, scene i

 * An if I live until I be a man, I'll win our ancient right in France again, Or die a soldier, as I liv'd a king.
 * Edward, Prince of Wales, scene i

 * Off with his head!
 * Richard, Duke of Gloucester, scene iv

 * Woe, woe for England! Not a whit for me!
 * Hastings, scene iv

 * O momentary grace of mortal men, Which we more hunt for than the grace of God! Who builds his hope in air of your fair looks, Lives like a drunken sailor on a mast, Ready, with every nod, to tumble down Into the fatal bowels of the deep.
 * Hastings, scene iv

 * O bloody Richard! —miserable England! I prophesy the fearfull'st time to thee That ever wretched age hath look'd upon. — Come, lead me to the block; bear him my head: They smile at me who shortly shall be dead.
 * Hastings, scene iv

 * A beauty-waning and distressed widow, Even in the afternoon of her best days.
 * Buckingham, scene vii

 * Alas, why would you heap this care on me?
 * Richard, Duke of Gloucester, scene vii

Act IV

 * But shall we wear these glories for a day? Or shall they last, and we rejoice in them?
 * King Richard, scene ii

 * O bitter consequence, That Edward still should live, true noble prince. Cousin, thou wast not wont to be so dull. Shall I be plain? I wish the bastards dead, And I would have it suddenly performed!
 * King Richard, scene ii

 * Say, have I thy consent that they shall die?
 * King Richard, scene ii

 * I must be married to my brother's daughter, Or else my kingdom stands on brittle glass: — Murder her brothers, and then marry her! Uncertain way of gain! But I am in So far in blood, that sin will pluck on sin. Tear-falling pity dwells not in this eye.
 * King Richard, scene ii

 * King Richard: I am not in the giving vein to-day. Buckingham: Why, then resolve me whe'r you will or no. King Richard: Tut, tut, thou troublest me; I am not in the vein.
 * Scene ii

 * Their lips like four red roses on a stalk.
 * Tyrrel, quoting Forrest, scene iii

 * The sons of Edward sleep in Abraham’s bosom, And Anne my wife hath bid the world good night.
 * King Richard, scene iii

 * So; now prosperity begins to mellow, And drop into the rotten mouth of death. Here in these confines slily have I lurk’d, To watch the waning of mine enemies. A dire induction am I witness to, And will to France; hoping the consequence Will prove as bitter, black, and tragical.
 * Queen Margaret, scene iv

 * Forbear to sleep the night, and fast the day; Compare dead happiness with living woe; Think that thy babes were sweeter than they were, And he that slew them fouler than he is; Bettering thy loss makes the bad-causer worse; Revolving this will teach thee how to curse.
 * Queen Margaret, scene iv

 * Let not the heavens hear these tell-tale women Rail on the Lord’s anointed.
 * King Richard, scene iv

 * Bloody you are. Bloody will be thy end. Shame sets your life, And will your death attend.
 * Duchess of York, scene iv

 * Look, what is done cannot be now amended: Men shall deal unadvisedly sometimes, Which after-hours give leisure to repent. If I did take the kingdom from your sons, To make amends, I'll give it to your daughter. If I have kill'd the issue of your womb, To quicken your increase, I will beget Mine issue of your blood upon your daughter.
 * King Richard, scene iv

 * An honest tale speeds best, being plainly told.
 * Queen Elizabeth, scene iv

 * Is the chair empty? is the sword unsway'd? Is the king dead? the empire unpossess'd?
 * King Richard, scene iv

Act V

 * Fellows in arms, and my most loving friends, Bruis'd underneath the yoke of tyranny, Thus far into the bowels of the land Have we march'd on without impediment.
 * Henry, Earl of Richmond, scene ii

 * True hope is swift, and flies with swallows' wings; Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings.
 * Henry, Earl of Richmond, scene ii

 * The king's name is a tower of strength, Which they upon the adverse faction want.
 * King Richard, scene iii

 * Despair and die!
 * The Ghosts of Edward of Wales; Henry VI; Clarence; Grey; Rivers; Vaughan; Hastings; The Princes; Anne and Buckingham, scene iii

 * Give me another horse,—bind up my wounds,— Have mercy, Jesu!—Soft! I did but dream.— O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me!— The lights burn blue.—It is now dead midnight. Cold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh. What, do I fear myself? there's none else by: Richard loves Richard; that is, I am I. Is there a murderer here? No;—yes, I am: Then fly. What, from myself? Great reason why,— Lest I revenge. What,—myself upon myself! Alack, I love myself. Wherefore? for any good That I myself have done unto myself? O, no! alas, I rather hate myself For hateful deeds committed by myself! I am a villain: yet I lie, I am not.
 * King Richard, scene iii

 * My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, And every tongue brings in a several tale, And every tale condemns me for a villain.
 * King Richard, scene iii

 * I shall despair. There is no creature loves me; And if I die, no soul shall pity me. Nay, wherefore should they? since that I myself Find in myself no pity to myself.
 * King Richard, scene iii

 * The early village cock Hath twice done salutation to the morn.
 * Ratcliff, scene iii

 * By the apostle Paul, shadows to-night Have struck more terror to the soul of Richard, Than can the substance of ten thousand soldiers, Armed in proof, and led by shallow Richmond!
 * King Richard, scene iii

 * Not shine to-day! Why, what is that to me, More than to Richmond? for the selfsame heaven That frowns on me, looks sadly upon him.
 * King Richard, scene iii

 * A thing devised by the enemy.
 * King Richard, scene iii

 * Conscience is but a word that cowards use, Devis'd at first to keep the strong in awe; Our strong arms be our conscience, swords our law.
 * King Richard, scene iii

 * Rescue, my lord of Norfolk, rescue, rescue! The king enacts more wonders than a man, Daring an opposite to every danger; His horse is slain, and all on foot he fights, Seeking for Richmond in the throat of death: Rescue, fair lord, or else the day is lost!
 * Catesby, scene iv

 * I have set my life upon a cast, And I will stand the hazard of the die! I think there be six Richmonds in the field; Five have I slain to-day instead of him.
 * King Richard, scene iv

 * A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!
 * King Richard, scene iv

 * God and your arms be prais'd, victorious friends; The day is ours, the bloody dog is dead.
 * Henry, Earl of Richmond, scene v

 * Inter their bodies as becomes their births. Proclaim a pardon to the soldiers fled, That in submission will return to us; And then, as we have ta'en the sacrament, We will unite the white rose and the red: — Smile heaven upon this fair conjunction, That long have frown'd upon their emnity!
 * Henry, Earl of Richmond, scene v

Quotes about Richard III

 * In his 1916 essay "The Exceptions", Sigmund Freud interprets Richard's opening soliloquy saying "we all demand reparation for early wounds to our narcissism, our self-love."

 * In Iran one cannot stage... Richard III... because no Iranian should see the death of a prince or a king on the stage. He might jump to conclusions, as if contemporary Iranian history itself is devoid of attempts at regicide.
 * Reza Baraheni (1977) The Crowned Cannibals: Writings on Repression in Iran, p. 11

 * The thing that is always so surprising about plays written in another century is how remarkably elastic they are. When you listen to the way in which Shakespeare attacks relationships, for example, even though the words may start off sounding foreign, in actuality they are so accessible, the motivations so clear, the resonances so contemporary. When you put it in a modern context - we could well be in a place with someone like Gaddafi or Mubarak - it becomes apparent how Richard III resonates with that type of personality, with media and manipulation, alliances and petty jealousies.
 * Kevin Spacey, as quoted in The Old Vic, Summer 2011

title: Richard III (play)