Quote collection
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"Dreams, indeed, are ambition; for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream. And I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality that it is but a shadow's shadow."
"I am as vigilant as a cat to steal cream."
"Keep time! How sour sweet music is when time is broke and no proportion kept! So is it in the music of men's lives. I wasted time and now doth time waste me."
"When we mean to build, We first survey the plot, then draw the model; And when we see the figure of the house, Then must we rate the cost of the erection."
"Time shall unfold what plaited cunning hides: Who cover faults, at last shame them derides."
"Tis in my memory lock'd, And you yourself shall keep the key of it."
"When we our betters see bearing our woes, We scarcely think our miseries our foes."
"Grief fills the room up of my absent child, Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me, Puts on his pretty look, repeats his words, Remembers me of his gracious parts, Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form"
"Nothing routs us but the villainy of our fears."
"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 shape, and gives to airy nothing a local habitation and a name; such tricks hath strong imagination."
"Some grief shows much of love, But much of grief shows still some want of wit."
"How sometimes nature will betray its folly, Its tenderness, and make itself a pastime To harder bosoms!"
"What early tongue so sweet saluteth me? Young son, it argues a distemper'd head So soon to bid good morrow to thy bed: Care keeps his watch in every old man's eye, And where care lodges, sleep will never lie; But where unbruised youth with unstuff'd brain Doth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth reign."
"I could a tale unfold whose lightest word Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood, Make thy two eyes like stars start from their spheres, Thy knotted and combined locks to part, And each particular hair to stand on end Like quills upon the fretful porpentine. But this eternal blazon must not be To ears of flesh and blood. List, list, O list!"
"I have been studying how I may compare This prison where I live unto the world; And, for because the world is populous, And here is not a creature but myself, I cannot do it. Yet I'll hammer it out."
"No, by my soul, I never in my life Did hear a challenge urged more modestly, Unless a brother should a brother dare To gentle exercise and proof of arms."
"But shall we wear these glories for a day? Or shall they last, and we rejoice in them?"
"Haply for I am black, And have not those soft parts of conversation That chamberers have; or for I am declined Into the vale of years—yet that’s not much— She’s gone. I am abused, and my relief Must be to loathe her. O curse of marriage, That we can call these delicate creatures ours And not their appetites! I had rather be a toad And live upon the vapor of a dungeon Than keep a corner in the thing I love For others’ uses. Yet ’tis the plague of great ones; Prerogatived are they less than the base. ’Tis destiny unshunnable, like death."
"Give me to drink mandragora."
"I do not seek to quench your love's hot fire, But qualify the fire's extreme rage, Lest it should burn above the bounds of reason."