A breath thou art, Servile to all the skyey influences. -Measure for Measure. Act iii. Sc. 1.
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. -Much Ado about Nothing. Act ii. Sc. 1.
If I were as tedious as a king, I could find it in my heart to bestow it all of your worship. -Much Ado about Nothing. Act iii. Sc. 5.
I have mark'd A thousand blushing apparitions To start into her face, a thousand innocent shames In angel whiteness beat away those blushes. -Much Ado about Nothing. Act iv. Sc. 1.
Some of us will smart for it. -Much Ado about Nothing. Act v. Sc. 1.
Small have continual plodders ever won Save base authority from others' books. These earthly godfathers of heaven's lights That give a name to every fixed star Have no more profit of their shining nights Than those that walk and wot not what they are. -Love's Labour 's Lost. Act i. Sc. 1.
A man of sovereign parts he is esteem'd; Well fitted in arts, glorious in arms: Nothing becomes him ill that he would well. -Love's Labour 's Lost. Act ii. Sc. 1.
From women's eyes this doctrine I derive: They sparkle still the right Promethean fire; They are the books, the arts, the academes, That show, contain, and nourish all the world. -Love's Labour 's Lost. Act iv. Sc. 3.
But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd Than that which withering on the virgin thorn Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness. -A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Sc. 1.
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, âBehold!â The jaws of darkness do devour it up: So quick bright things come to confusion. -A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Sc. 1.
My heart Is true as steel. -A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act ii. Sc. 1.
Bless thee, Bottom! bless thee! thou art translated. -A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act iii. Sc. 1.
So we grew together, Like to a double cherry, seeming parted, But yet an union in partition. -A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act iii. Sc. 2.
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. -A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act iv. Sc. 1.
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 supposed a bear! -A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act v. Sc. 1.
I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano,â A stage, where every man must play a part; And mine a sad one. -The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 1.
A goodly apple rotten at the heart: O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath! -The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 3.
Tell me where is fancy bred, Or in the heart or in the head? How begot, how nourished? Reply, reply. -The Merchant of Venice. Act iii. Sc. 2.
There is no vice so simple but assumes Some mark of virtue in his outward parts. -The Merchant of Venice. Act iii. Sc. 2.
The quality of mercy is not strain'd, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest: It blesseth him that gives and him that takes. 'T is 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. -The Merchant of Venice. Act iv. Sc. 1.
Your heart's desires be with you! -As You Like It. Act i. Sc. 2.
We 'll have a swashing and a martial outside, As many other mannish cowards have. -As You Like It. Act i. Sc. 3.
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. -As You Like It. Act ii. Sc. 3.
I must have liberty Withal, as large a charter as the wind, To blow on whom I please. -As You Like It. Act ii. Sc. 7.
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 woful 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 lined, 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 saved, 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. -As You Like It. Act ii. Sc. 7.