“Live loath'd and long,
Most smiling, smooth, detested parasites,
Courteous destroyers, affable wolves, meek bears,
You fools of fortune, trencher friends, time flies
Cap and knee slaves, vapors, and minute jacks.”
Source: THE PLAYS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.: CONTAINING, TIMON OF ATHENS. TITUS ANDRONICUS. MACBETH. C. MMARCIUS CORIOLANUS. VOLUME the EIGHTH
“Poor wretches that depend
On greatness' favor, dream as I have done;
Wake, and find nothing.”
Source: The Dramatic Works of William Shakspeare: Julius Cæser. Antony and Cleopatra. Cymbeline. Titus Andronicus. Pericles
“The caterpillars of the commonwealth,
Which I have sworn to weed and pluck away.”
Source: Richard II
“The thorny point
Of bare distress hath ta'en from me the show
Of smooth civility; yet am I inland bred
And know some nurture.”
Source: As You Like it
“Nay, I am the very pink of courtesy.”
“Women are angels, wooing:
Things won are done; joy's soul lies in the doing:
That she beloved knows naught, that knows not this--
Men prize the thing ungained more than it is.”
“Plenty and peace breed cowards; hardness ever of hardiness is mother.”
Source: The plays of Shakespeare, from the text of S. Johnson, with the prefaces, notes &c. of Rowe, Pope and many other critics. 6 vols. [in 12 pt. Followed by] Shakespeare's poems
“Thou slave, thou wretch, thou coward!
Thou little valiant, great in villainy!
Thou ever strong upon the stronger side!
Thou Fortune's champion, that dost never fight
But where her humorous ladyship is by
To teach thee safety.”
Source: The Plays of William Shakspeare: Accurately Printed from the Text of the Corrected Copy Left by the Late George Steevens. With a Selection of Explanatory and Historical Notes, from the Most Eminent Commentators; a History of the Stage, a Life of Shakespeare, &c.[edited] by Alexander Chalmers
“For my part, I may speak it to my shame,
I have a truant been to chivalry;
And so I hear he doth account me too.”
Source: Henry IV
“Foul fiend of France and hag of all despite,
Encompassed with thy lustful paramours,
Becomes it thee to taunt his valiant age
And twit with cowardice a man half dead?”
Source: The New Oxford Shakespeare: Modern Critical Edition: The Complete Works
“Milk-livered man,
That bear'st a cheek for blows, a head for wrongs;
Who hast not in thy brows an eye discerning
Thine honor from thy suffering; [that not know'st
Fools do those villains pity who are punished
Ere they have done their mischief. Where's thy drum?
France spreads his banners in our noiseless land,
With plumed helm thy state begins to threat,
Whilst thou, a moral fool, sits still and cries
'Alack, why does he so?']”
“Foul deeds will rise,
Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes.”
“Between the acting of a dreadful thing
And the first motion, all the interim is
Like a phantasma or a hideous dream.”
“Tremble, thou wretch,
That hast within thee undivulged crimes
Unwhipped of justice.”
Source: Shakspeare's tragedy of King Lear, with notes, adapted for schools and for private study by J. Hunter
“If little faults proceeding on distemper
Shall not be winked at, how shall we stretch our eye
When capital crimes, chewed, swallowed, and digested,
Appear before us?”
Source: King Henry V
“The wounds invisible that Love's keen arrows make.”
Source: The plays of William Shakespeare
“All the contagion of the south light on you,
You shames of Rome! you herd of--boils and plagues
Plaster you o'er; that you may be abhorr'd
Further than seen, and one infect another
Against the wind a mile!”
Source: The plays of William Shakspeare, with the corrections and illustr. of various commentators, to which are added notes by S. Johnson and G. Steevens, revised and augmented by I. Reed, with a glossarial index
“May never glorious sun reflex his beams
Upon the country where you make abode!
But darkness and the gloomy shade of death
Environ you till mischief and despair
Drive you to break your necks or hang yourselves.”
Source: The Dramatic Works and Poems
“Villains, vipers, damn'd without redemption;
Dogs, easily won to fawn on any man;
Snakes in my heart-blood warm'd, that sing my heart;
Three Judases, each one thrice worse than Judas.”
Source: The Wars of the Roses In Plain and Simple English: Includes Henry VI Parts 1 - 3 & Richard III, Richard II, Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, and Henry V
“If is a custom,
More honor'd in the breach than the observance.”
Source: The Shakspearian Reader: A Collection of the Most Approved Plays of Shakspeare : Carefully Revised, with Introductory and Explanatory Notes, and a Memoir of the Author : Prepared Expressly for the Use of Classes, and the Family Reading Circle
“The breach of custom
Is breach of all.”
Source: The New Shaksperian Dictionary of Quotations: (With Marginal Classification and Reference.)
“The tyrant custom, most grave senators,
Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war
My thrice-driven bed of down.”
“What man dare, I dare.
Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear,
The armed rhinoceros, or th' Hyrcan tiger;
Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves
Shall never tremble.”
“Thou hast her, France; let her be thine, for we
Have no such daughter, nor shall ever see
That face of hers again. Therefore be gone
Without our grace, our love, our benison.”
Source: King Lear
“The gray-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night,
Checkering the eastern clouds with streaks of light.”
Source: The dramatic works of William Shakspeare...: embracing a life of the poet, and notes, original and selected...
“The morning steals upon the night,
Melting the darkness.”
Source: The Mind of Shakspeare, as Exhibited in His Works. By the Rev. A. A. Morgan
“Yon grey lines
That fret the clouds are messengers of day.”
Source: Julius Caesar ... With explanatory French notes, by Ad. Brown. Improved with a copious selection of notes from Johnson, Steevens, Malone, Theobald, Warburton, etc
“My way of life
Is fall'n into the sear and yellow leaf.”
“Yet writers say, as in the sweetest bud
The eating canter dwells, so eating love
Inhabits in the finest wits of all.”
“For what I will, I will, and there an end.”
Source: Plays ...
“Sick in the world's regard, wretched and low.”
Source: Henry IV
“Is this government of Britain's Isle, and this the royalty of Albion's King?”
“How slow
This old moon wanes! she lingers my desires,
Like to a stepdame, or a dowager,
Long withering out a young man's revenue.”
Source: A Midsummer Night's Dream: Arden Performance Editions
“Extremity is the trier of spirits.”
“Fairies use flowers for their charactery.”
Source: The plays of William Shakespeare ...: With the corrections and illustrations of various commentators
“Fairies, black, grey, green, and white,
You moonshine revellers, and shades of night,
You orphan heirs of fixed destiny,
Attend your office and your quality.”
Source: The Merry Wives of Windsor
“Past all shame, so past all truth.”
“Farewell the tranquil mind! farewell content!
Farewell the plumed troops, and the big wars
That make ambition virtue.”
“Farewell the plumed troop, and the big wars
That make ambition virtue! O, farewell!
Farewell the neighing steed and the shrill trump,
The spirit-stirring drum, th' ear-piercing fife,
The royal banner, and all quality,
Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war!”
“And mind, with my heart in't; and now farewell
Till half an hour hence.”
Source: Shakespeare's The Tempest: With Introduction, and Notes Explanatory and Critical. For Use in Schools and Classes
“If ever (as that ever may be near) you meet in some fresh cheek the power of fancy, then shall you know the wounds invisible that love's keen, arrows make.”
Source: Dramatic Works: From the Text of the Corrected Copies of Steevens and Malone
“In maiden meditation, fancy free.”
“Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm, more longing, wavering, sooner lost and won, than women's are.”
Source: Twelfth Night: Third Series
“Hang those that talk of fear.”
Source: The plays of William Shakspeare, with the corrections and illustr. of various commentators, to which are added notes by S. Johnson and G. Steevens, revised and augmented by I. Reed, with a glossarial index
“Nothing routs us but the villainy of our fears.”
Source: The Shakespearian Dictionary, Forming a General Index to All the Popular Expressions, and Most Striking Passages in the Works of Shakespeare, from a Few Words to Fifty Or More Lines ... By T. Dolby
“But let the frame of things disjoint, both the worlds suffer,
Ere we will eat our meal in fear, and sleep
In the affliction of these terrible dreams
That shake us nightly.”
“To fear the foe, since fear oppresseth strength,
Gives, in your weakness, strength unto your foe,
And so your follies fight against yourself.
Fear, and be slain--so worse can come to fight;
And fight and die is death destroying death,
Where fearing dying pays death servile breath.”
Source: The Wars of the Roses In Plain and Simple English: Includes Henry VI Parts 1 - 3 & Richard III, Richard II, Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, and Henry V
“Chain me with roaring bears;
Or shut me nightly in a charnel-house,
O'er-covered quite with dead men's rattling bones,
With reeky shanks and yellow chapless skulls;
Or bid me go into a new-made grave,
And hide me with a dead man in his shroud;
Things that, to hear them told, have made me tremble;
And I will do it without Fear or Doubt,
To live an unstain'd Wife of my sweet Love.”
Source: Romeo and Juliet
“O, where is loyalty?
If it be banished from the frosty head,
Where shall it find a harbor in the earth?”
Source: Henry VI
“No visor does become black villainy so well as soft and tender flattery.”
Source: Romeo and Juliet. Comedy of errors. Titus Andronicus. Pericles
