“There's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple. If the ill spirit have so fair a house, Good things will strive to dwell with't”
Source: The plays and poems of William Shakspeare
“Fairest Cordelia, that art most rich, being poor; Most choice, forsaken; and most loved, despised! Thee and thy virtues here I seize upon: Be it lawful I take up what's cast away. Gods, gods! 'tis strange that from their cold'st neglect My love should kindle to inflamed respect. Thy dowerless daughter, king, thrown to my chance, Is queen of us, of ours, and our fair France: Not all the dukes of waterish Burgundy Can buy this unprized precious maid of me. Bid them farewell, Cordelia, though unkind: Thou losest here, a better where to find.”
Source: The Tragedy of King Lear
“Make use of time, let not advantage slip;
Beauty within itself should not be wasted:
Fair flowers that are not gather'd in their prime
Rot and consume themselves in little time.”
“On a day - alack the day! -
Love, whose month is ever May,
Spied a blossom passing fair
Playing in the wanton air”
Source: The Works of William Shakespeare: The Text Formed from an Entirely New Collation of the Old Editions : with the Various Readings, Notes, a Life of the Poet, and a History of the Early English Stage
“To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
For as you were when first your eye I eyed,
Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold
Have from the forests shook three summers' pride,
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn'd
In process of the seasons have I seen,
Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd,
Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.”
“Women are as roses, whose fair flower, being once displayed, doth fall that very hour.”
“Under the colour of commending him I have access my own love to prefer; But Silvia is too fair, too true, too holy, To be corrupted with my worthless gifts.”
Source: The Plays of Shakespeare
“Gloucester, we have done deeds of charity, made peace of enmity, fair love of hate, between these swelling wrong-incensed peers.”
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
“Let us sit and mock the good housewife Fortune from her wheel, that her gifts may henceforth be bestowed equally, I would we could do so for her benefits are mightily misplaced and the bountiful blind girl doth most mistake in her gifts to women. 'Tis true for those that she makes fair she scarce makes honest and those that she makes honest she makes very ill-favouredly. Nay, now thou goest from Fortunes office to Natures. Fortune reigns in gifts of the world, not in the lineaments of Nature.”
“Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,
And for thy maintenance commits his body
To painful labour both by sea and land,
To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe;
And craves no other tribute at thy hands
But love, fair looks and true obedience;
Too little payment for so great a debt.”
“Thy tongue
Makes Welsh as sweet as ditties highly penn'd,
Sung by a fair queen in a summer's bower,
With ravishing division, to her lute.”
“Is she not passing fair?”
Source: The Two Gentlemen of Verona: Third Series
“The hand that hath made you fair hath made you good.
Pity is the virtue of the law, and none but tyrants use it cruelly.”
“For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright, who art as black as hell, as dark as night.”
“And writers say, as the most forward bud
Is eaten by the canker ere it blow,
Even so by love the young and tender wit
Is turn'd to folly, blasting in the bud,
Losing his verdure even in the prime,
And all the fair effects of future hopes.”
Source: The Plays of Shakespeare
“I prithee gentle friend,
Let thy fair wisdom, not thy passions, sway
In this uncivil and unjust extent
Against thy peace.”
“You'd be so lean, that blast of January
Would blow you through and through. Now, my fair'st friend,
I would I had some flowers o' the spring that might
Become your time of day.”
“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, Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage; Then lend the eye a terrible aspect; . . . . Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide, Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit To his full height. On, on, you noblest English.”
Source: The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
“Every fair from fair sometime declines”
“Speak me fair in death.”
Source: Shakespeare's Comedy of the Merchant of Venice
“The day shall not be up so soon as I,
To try the fair adventure of tomorrow.”
Source: King John
“Good morning to you, fair and gracious daughter.”
Source: Making Sense of Measure for Measure! a Students Guide to Shakespeare's Play (Includes Study Guide, Biography, and Modern Retelli
“Of all the fair resort of gentlemen
That every day with parle encounter me,
In thy opinion which is worthiest love?”
Source: The Complete Works of Shakspeare, Revised from the Best Authorities : with a Memoir, and Essay on His Genius
“Now the fair goddess, Fortune,
Fall deep in love with thee, and her great charms
Misguide thy opposers' swords!”
Source: The plays and poems of William Shakspeare
“Fair, kind, and true, have often lived alone.”
Source: The Dramatic Works of Shakespeare
“Even so; an't please your worship, Brakenbury,
You may partake of any thing we say:
We speak no treason, man; we say the King
Is wise and virtuous, and his noble queen
Well struck in years, fair, and not jealous;
We say that Shore's wife hath a pretty foot,
A cherry lip, a bonny eye, a passing pleasing tongue;
And that the Queen's kindred are made gentlefolks.”
Source: Histories of Shakespeare in Plain and Simple English (a Modern Translation and the Original Version)
“And she's fair I love.”
Source: Romeo and Juliet
“Virtuous and fair, royal and gracious.”
Source: First Tetralogy In Plain and Simple English: Includes Henry VI Parts 1 - 3 & Richard III
“'Tis not to make me jealous
To say my wife is fair, feeds well, loves company,
Is free of speech, sings, plays, and dances well;
Where virtue is, these are more virtuous.”
Source: THE PLAYS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.: CONTAINING, ROMEO and JULIET. HAMLET, PRINCE of DENMARK. OTHELLO, the MOOR of VENICE. VOLUME the TENTH
“That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty.”
Source: The plays and poems of William Shakspeare
“Sir, he's a good dog, and a fair dog.”
Source: Shakespeare's Plays, with notes by H. Neele. With engraved plates
“Withal I did infer your lineaments,
Being the right idea of your father,
Both in your form and nobleness of mind;
Laid open all your victories in Scotland,
Your discipline in war, wisdom in peace,
Your bounty, virtue, fair humility;
Indeed, left nothing fitting for your purpose
Untouch'd or slightly handled in discourse.”
Source: King Richard III
“To this urn let those repair
That are either true or fair;
For these dead birds sigh a prayer.”
Source: The Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare: With Notes Critical, Historical and Explanatory, Selected from the Most Eminent Commentators
“Now old desire doth in his deathbed lie,
And young affection gapes to be his heir;
That fair for which love groan'd for and would die,
With tender Juliet match'd, is now not fair.”
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
“Not an angel of the air,
Bird melodious or bird fair,
Be absent hence!”
Source: The Two Noble Kinsmen
“Because I cannot flatter and look fair,
Smile in men's faces, smooth, deceive, and cog,
Duck with French nods and apish courtesy,
I must be held a rancorous enemy.”
Source: Richard III
“Come, go with us, speak fair; you may salve so,
Not what is dangerous present, but the los
Of what is past.”
Source: Three Classical Tragedies
“What the vengeance, could he not speak 'em fair?”
Source: The New Oxford Shakespeare: Modern Critical Edition: The Complete Works
“Fair youth, I would I could make thee believe I love.”
Source: The Plays of William Shakspeare: Accurately Printed from the Text of Mr. Steeven's Last Edition...
“She says I am not fair, that I lack manners;
She calls me proud, and that she could not love me,
Were man as rare as Phoenix.”
Source: The Complete Works of William Shakespeare In Plain and Simple English
“Who is Silvia What is she, That all our swains commend her Holy, fair, and wise is she.”
“Good morrow, fair ones; pray you, if you know,
Where in the purlieus of this forest stands
A sheep-cote fenc'd about with olive trees?”
Source: Merchant of Venice. As you like it. All's well that ends well. Taming of the shrew. Winter's tale
“I once did hold it, as our statists do,
A baseness to write fair, and labour'd much
How to forget that learning; but, sir, now
It did me yeoman's service.”
“Holy, fair, and wise is she;
The heaven such grace did lend her,
That she might admired be.”
“But thou art fair, and at thy birth, dear boy,
Nature and Fortune join'd to make thee great:
Of Nature's gifts thou mayst with lilies boast,
And with the half-blown rose; but Fortune, O!”
Source: The Complete Works of William Shakspeare. Printed from the Text of the Most Renowned Editors, with ... Engravings, Accounts Historical and Explanatory of Each Play, a Copious and Elaborate Glossary, and the Author's Life [by C. Symmons].
“If you did wed my sister for her wealth,
Then for her wealth's sake use her with more kindness;
Or, if you like elsewhere, do it by stealth;
Muffle your false love with some show of blindness;
Let not my sister read it in your eye;
Be not thy tongue thy own shame's orator;
Look sweet, speak fair, become disloyalty;
Apparel vice like virtue's harbinger;
Bear a fair presence, though your heart be tainted;
Teach sin the carriage of a holy saint;
Be secret-false.”
Source: The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: Dramatic and Poetic
“And do so, love, yet when they have devised
What strainèd touches rhetoric can lend,
Thou, truly fair, wert truly sympathized
In true plain words by thy true-telling friend;
And their gross painting might be better used
Where cheeks need blood; in thee it is abused.”
Source: The Sonnets and Narrative Poems
“The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
For that sweet odour which doth in it live.”
“. . . it is impossible you should take true root but by the fair weather that you make yourself it is needful that you frame the season of your own harvest.”
Source: The plays of William Shakespeare: With the corrections and illustrations of various commentators
“If she be fair and wise, fairness and wit,
The one's for use, the other useth it.”
Source: Othello: Third Series
