Quotations and Poems

» Absence » “How like a winter hath my absence been. From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year! What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen, What old December’s bareness everywhere!”

» Absence » “Parting is such sweet sorrow.”

» Acting and Actors » “Oh! it offends me to the soul to hear a robust periwig-pated fellow, tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings.”

» Acting and Actors » “Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you — tripping on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as Leif the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and as I may say, the whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness.”

» Action » “If it were done when ’tis done, then t’were well. It were done quickly.”

» Action » “Things won are done, joy’s soul lies in the doing.”

» Action » “Be great in act, as you have been in thought.”

» Action » “Action is eloquence.”

» Action » “Suit the action to the world, the world to the action, with this special observance, that you overstep not the modesty of nature.”

» Adolescence » “I would there were no age between ten and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest; for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, wronging the anciently, stealing, fighting.”

» Adultery » “O curse of marriage that we can call these delicate creatures ours and not their appetites!”

» Adversity » “Sweet are the uses of adversity which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head.”

» Adversity » “Through tattered clothes, small vices do appear. Robes and furred gowns hide all.”

» Advice » “I shall the effect of this good lesson keeps as watchman to my heart.”

» Age and Aging » “I have lived long enough. My way of life is to fall into the sere, the yellow leaf, and that which should accompany old age, as honor, love, obedience, troops of friends I must not look to have.”

» Age and Aging » “Youth is full of sport, age’s breath is short; youth is nimble, age is lame; Youth is hot and bold, age is weak and cold; Youth is wild, and age is tame.”

» Age and Aging » “With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come. [Merchant Of Venice]“

» Age and Aging » “Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty; for in my youth I never did apply hot and rebellious liquors in my blood; and did not, with unbashful forehead, woo the means of weakness and debility: therefore my age is as a lusty winter, frosty but kindly.”

» Age and Aging » “My age is as a lusty winter, frosty but kindly.”

» Age and Aging » “I wasted time, and now time doth waste me.”

» Age and Aging » “Have you not a moist eye, a dry hand, a yellow cheek, a white beard, a decreasing leg, an increasing belly? Is not your voice broken, your wind short, your chin double, your wit single, and every part about you blasted with antiquity?”

» Age and Aging » “Lord, Lord, how subject we old men are to this vice of lying!”

» Agents » “Let every eye negotiate for itself and trust no agent.”

» Agents » “O world, world! thus is the poor agent despised. O traitors and bawds, how earnestly are you set a-work, and how ill requited! Why should our endeavor be so loved, and the performance so loathed?”

» Alcohol and Alcoholism » “I told you, sir, they were red-hot with drinking; so full of valor that they smote the air, for breathing in their faces, beat the ground for kissing of their feet.”

» Alcohol and Alcoholism » “O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil.”

» Alcohol and Alcoholism » “O God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains! That we should with joy, pleasance, revel, and applause transform ourselves into beasts!”

» Alcohol and Alcoholism » “It provokes the desire but it takes away the performance. Therefore much drink may be said to be an equivocator with lechery: it makes him and it mars him; it sets him on and it takes him off.”

» Alcohol and Alcoholism » “Macduff: What three things does drink especially provoke? Porter: Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine.”

» Ambition » “Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.”

» Ambition » “As he was valiant, I honor him. But as he was ambitious, I slew him.”

» Ambition » “The very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.”

» Antipathy » “Some men there are love not a gaping pig, some that are mad if they behold a cat, and others when the bagpipe sings I the nose cannot contain their urine.”

» Antipathy » “Thou art all ice. Thy kindness freezes.”

» Appreciation » “Let never day nor night unhallowed pass, but still remember what the Lord hath done.”

» Argument » “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 Countercheck Quarrelsome; the sixth, the Lie with Circumstance; the seventh, the Lie Direct.”

» Argument » “In a false quarrel there is no true valor.”

» Argument » “The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.”

» Army and Navy » “‘Tis the soldier’s life to have their balmy slumbers waked with strife.”

» Army and Navy » “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother; be never so vile. This day shall gentle his condition. And gentlemen in England now abed shall think themselves accursed they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks that fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.”

» Arts and Artists » “The object of art is to give life a shape. [Midsummer Nights Dream]“

» Arts and Artists » “O, had I but followed the arts!”

» Astrology » “This is the excellent foppery of the world: that when we are sick in fortune — often the surfeits of our own behavior — we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and stars, as if we were villains on necessity, fools by heavenly compulsion, knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical predominance, drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence. An admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition on the charge of a star!”

» Astronomy » “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 know not what they are.”

» Autumn » “The teeming Autumn big with rich increase, bearing the wanton burden of the prime like widowed wombs after their lords decease.”

» Beards » “He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man.”

» Beauty » “Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good; a shining gloss that fadeth suddenly; a flower that dies when it begins to bud; a doubtful good, a gloss, a glass, a flower, lost, faded, broken, dead within an hour. -”

» Beauty » “To me, fair friend, you never can be old. For as you were when first your eye I eyed. Such seems your beauty still.”

» Bed » “What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?”

» Bereavement » “For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night.”

» Bills » “I did send to you for certain sums of gold, which you denied me.”

» Birth » “When we are born we cry that we are come.. to this great stage of fools.”

» Books and Reading » “O, let my books be then the eloquence and dumb presages of my speaking breast.”

» Bores and Boredom » “For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth, action nor utterance, nor the power of speech, to stir men’s blood. I only speak right on. I tell you that which you yourselves do know.”

» Brevity » “Brevity is the soul of wit, and tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes.”

» Business » “To business that we love we rise bedtime, and go to’t with delight.”

» Caution » “To fear the worst oft cures the worse.”

» Caution » “It is the bright day that brings forth the adder, and that craves wary walking.”

» Censorship » “Art made tongue-tied by authority.”

» Ceremony » “Ceremony was but devised at first to set a gloss on faint deeds, hollow welcomes, recanting goodness, sorry ere ‘Tis shown; but where there is true friendship, there needs none.”

» Character » “The empty vessel makes the loudest sound.”

» Character » “Life every man holds dear; but the dear man holds honor far more precious dear than life.”

» Charm » “I am bewitched with the rogue’s company. If the rascal have not given me medicines to make me love him, I’ll be hanged.”

» Chastity » “Your old virginity is like one of our French withered pears: it looks ill, it eats dryly.”

» Cheating » “For nothing can seem foul to those that win.”

» Cheerfulness » “The voluntary path to cheerfulness, if our spontaneous be lost, is to sit up cheerfully, and act and speak as if cheerfulness wee already there. To feel brave, act as if we were brave, use all our will to that end, and courage will very likely replace fear. If we act as if from some better feeling, the bad feeling soon folds its tent like an Arab and silently steals away”

» Children » “Children wish fathers looked but with their eyes; fathers that children with their judgment looked; and either may be wrong.”

» Children » “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child.”

» Comedy and Comedians » “And I did laugh sans intermission an hour by his dial. O noble fool, a worthy fool — motley’s the only wear.”

» Comedy and Comedians » “Though it make the unskillful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve.”

» Company » “Company, villainous company, hath been the spoil of me.”

» Compassion » “Mercy but murders, pardoning those that kill.”

» Competition » “Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.”

» Competition » “When you fear a foe, fear crushes your strength; and this weakness gives strength to your opponents.”

» Conceit » “Conceit in weakest bodies works the strongest.”

» Conceit » “Conceit, more rich in matter than in words, brags of his substance: they are but beggars who can count their worth.”

» Conscience » “Conscience does make cowards of us all.”

» Conscience » “My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, and every tongue brings in a several tale, and every tale condemns me for a villain.”

» Contentment » “He that is well paid is well satisfied.”

» Contentment » “My crown is in my heart, not on my head, Nor decked with diamonds and Indian stones, Nor to be seen: My crown is called content: A crown it is, that seldom kings enjoy.”

» Conversation » “Conversation should be pleasant without scurrility, witty without affection, free without indecency, learned without conceitedness, novel without falsehood.”

» Cooking » “‘Tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers.”

» Cooperation » “Now join your hands, and with your hands your hearts.”

» Corruption » “When rich villains have need of poor ones, poor ones may make what price they will.”

» Cosmetics » “God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another.”

» Cost » “Why so large a cost, having so short a lease, does thou upon your fading mansion spend?”

» Courage » “But screw your courage to the sticking-place and we’ll not fail.”

» Courage » “I dare to do all that may become a man: who dares do more is none.”

» Courage » “That’s a valiant flea that dares eat his breakfast on the lip of a lion.”

» Coward and Cowardice » “Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once.”

» Coward and Cowardice » “Cowards die a thousand deaths. The valiant taste of death but once.”

» Cries and Crying » “I have full cause of weeping, but this heart shall break into a hundred thousand flaws or ere I’ll weep.”

» Crime and Criminals » “He that is robbed, not wanting what is stolen, him not know t, and he’s not robbed at all.”

» Crisis » “The time is out of joint. O cursed spite that ever I was born to set it right!”

» Danger » “Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.”

» Danger » “Send danger from the east unto the west, so honor cross it from the north to south.”

» Danger » “Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look; He thinks too much; such men are dangerous. [Julius Caesar]“

» Death and Dying » “After life’s fitful fever he sleeps well. Treason has done his worst. Nor steel nor poison, malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing can touch him further.”

» Death and Dying » “All that live must die, passing through nature to eternity.”

» Death and Dying » “But I will be a bridegroom in my death, and run into a lover’s bed.”

» Death and Dying » “I care not, a man can die but once; we owe God and death.”

» Death and Dying » “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.”

» Death and Dying » “Men must endure, their going hence even as their coming hither. Ripeness is all.”

» Death and Dying » “The undiscovered country form whose born no traveler returns. [Hamlet]“

» Death and Dying » “Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it.”

» Death and Dying » “I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.”

» Death and Dying » “Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, which we ascribe to heaven.”

» Debt » “I can get no remedy against this consumption of the purse: borrowing only lingers and lingers it out, but the disease is incurable.”

» Debt » “Words pay no debts.”

» Debt » “He that dies pays all his debts.”

» Decay » “‘Tis but an hour ago since it was nine, and after one hour more twill be eleven. 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.”

» Deception » “For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright, who art as black as hell, as dark as night.”

» Delinquency » “Now, neighbor confines, purge you of your scum! Have you a ruffian that will swear, drink, dance, revel the night, rob, murder, and commit the oldest sins the newest kind of ways?”

» Despair » “O God, O God, how weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world!”

» Despair » “Now, God be praised, that to believing souls gives light in darkness, comfort in despair.”

» Destiny » “Such as we are made of, such we be.”

» Devil » “The devil can site scripture for his own purpose! An evil soul producing holy witness is like a villain with a smiling cheek. [Merchant Of Venice]“

» Devil » “The devil has the power to assume a pleasing shape.”

» Diligence » “That which ordinary men are fit for, I am qualified in. and the best of me is diligence.”

» Doubt » “Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise.”

» Doubt » “Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we might win, by fearing to attempt.[Measure For Measure]“

» Dreams » “Thought are but dreams till their effects are tried.”

» Dreams » “That, if then I had waked after a long sleep, will make me sleep again; and then, in dreaming, the clouds me thought would open and show riches ready to drop upon me; that, when I waked I cried to dream again.”

» Dreams » “I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream past the wit of man to say what dream it was. Man is but an ass if he go about to expound this dream.”

» Dreams » “We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life, is rounded with a sleep. [The Tempest]“

» Dress » “Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, but not expressed in fancy; rich not gaudy; for the apparel oft proclaims the man.”

» Dress » “The apparel oft proclaims the man.”

» Effort » “Nothing can come of nothing.”

» Endurance » “Many can brook the weather that love not the wind.”

» Engagement » “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; and in these degrees have they made a pair of stairs to marriage, which they will climb incontinent, or else be incontinent before marriage.”

» Engineering » “For ‘Tis the sport to have the engineer hoisted with his own petard.”

» Excellence » “Then to Silvia let us sing that Silvia is excelling. She excels each mortal thing upon the dull earth dwelling.”

» Excellence » “When workmen strive to do better than well, they do confound their skill in covetousness.”

» Excuses » “And oftentimes excusing of a fault doth make the fault the worse by the excuse.”

» Experts » “Good counselors lack no clients.”

» Explanations » “There is occasions and causes why and wherefore in all things.”

» Faces » “Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn.”

» Faces » “The tartness of his face sours ripe grapes.”

» Faces » “God had given you one face, and you make yourself another. [Hamlet]“

» Fame » “Celebrity is never more admired than by the negligent.”

» Fame » “Death makes no conquest of this conqueror: For now he lives in fame, though not in life.”

» Fame » “Glory is like a circle in the water, which never ceaseth to enlarge itself, till, by broad spreading, it disperse to naught.”

» Fame » “Time hath a wallet at his back, wherein he puts. Alms for oblivion, a great-sized monster of ingratitudes.”

» Family » “The voice of parents is the voice of gods, for to their children they are heaven’s lieutenants.”

» Farewells » “Come, let’s have one other gaudy night. Call to me. All my sad captains. Fill our bowls once more. Let’s mock the midnight bell.”

» Fashion » “Fashion wears out more clothes than the man.”

» Fate » “It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves; we are underlings.”

» Fate » “There is tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries; on such a full sea we are now afloat; and we must take the current the clouds folding and unfolding beyond the horizon. when it serves, or lose our ventures.”

» Fate » “Men at sometime are the masters of their fate.”

» Fathers » “It is a wise father that knows his own child.”

» Faults » “They say men are molded out of faults, and for the most, become much more the better; for being a little bad. [Measure For Measure]“

» Faults » “Love to faults is always blind, always is to joy inclined. Lawless, winged, and unconfined, and breaks all chains from every mind.”

» Faults » “Men’s faults to themselves seldom appear.”

» Favors » “O how wretched is that poor man that hangs on princes favors! 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.”

» Fear » “In time we hate that which we often fear.”

» Fear » “Of all base passions, fear is the most accursed.”

» Fear » “The best safety lies in fear.”

» Fear » “Things done well and with a care, exempt themselves from fear.”

» Flattery » “He that loves to be flattered is worthy of the flatterer.”

» Flattery » “I will praise any man that will praise me.”

» Fools and Foolishness » “He uses his folly like a stalking-horse, and under the presentation of that he shoots his wit.”

» Fools and Foolishness » “Lord, what fools these mortals be.”

» Fools and Foolishness » “The dullness of the fool is the whetstone of the wits.”

» Fools and Foolishness » “The fool thinks himself to be wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool. [Measure For Measure]“

» Fortune » “There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound by shallows and in misery. [Julius Caesar]“

» Free Will » “We defy augury. There’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ‘Tis not to come. If it be not to come, it will be now. If it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all.”

» Futility » “A walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more.”

» Future » “We know what we are, but know not what we may be.”

» Gifts » “Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.”

» Glory » “I have touched the highest point of all my greatness, and from that full meridian of my glory I haste now to my setting.”

» Good and Evil » “The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together.”

» Goodness » “How far that little candle throws its beams! So shines a good dead in a naughty world.”

» Gratitude » “He receives comfort like cold porridge.”

» Gratitude » “I hate ingratitude more in a person; than lying, vainness, babbling, drunkenness, or, any taint of vice whose strong corruption inhabits our frail blood. [Twelfth Night]“

» Greatness » “Th abuse of greatness is when it disjoins remorse from power.”

» Greatness » “Be not afraid of greatness; some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them.”

» Greatness » “He is not great who is not greatly good.”

» Greatness » “In my stars I am above thee, but be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness ;thrust upon em.”

» Greatness » “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them. [Twelfth Night]“

» Greed » “Let me tell you, Cassius, you yourself are much condemned to have an itching palm.”

» Grief » “Grief fills the room up of my absent child, lies in his bed, walks up and down with me, puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words.”

» Grief » “Patch grief with proverbs.”

» Guilt » “Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind; the thief doth fear each bush an officer.”

» Habit » “How use doth breed a habit in man!”

» Happiness » “But O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes.”

» Happiness » “I had rather have a fool make me merry, than experience make me sad.”

» Hatred » “Oppose not rage while rage is in its force, but give it way a while and let it waste.”

» Hatred » “Wisely, and slow. They stumble that run fast.”

» Heart » “What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted. [Henry Iv]“

» Heroes and Heroism » “If we are marked to die, we are enough to do our country loss; and if to live, the fewer men, the greater share of honor.”

» History and Historians » “There is a history in all men’s lives.”

» Home » “People usually are the happiest at home.”

» Honesty » “Honesty is the best policy. If I lose mine honor, I lose myself.”

» Honesty » “Though I am not naturally honest, I am so sometimes by chance.”

» Honor » “Why should honor outlive honestly? [Orthello]“

» Hope » “The miserable have no other medicine but only hope.”

» Hospitality » “We’ll teach you to drink deep ere you depart.”

» Human Nature » “My nature is subdued to what it works in, like the dyer’s hand.”

» Humankind » “What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god — the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals!”

» Idols » “‘Tis mad idolatry To make the service greater than the god.”

» Ignorance » “There is no darkness, but ignorance.”

» Immortality » “But thy eternal summer shall not fade.”

» Infatuation » “I stalk about her door like a strange soul upon the Stygian banks staying for wattage.”

» Inheritance » “No legacy is so rich as honestly.”

» Insanity » “Though this be madness, yet there is method in it. [Hamlet]“

» Insomnia » “O sleep, O gentle sleep, nature’s soft nurse, how have I frightened thee, that thou no more wilt weigh my eye-lids down and steep my senses in forgetfulness?”

» Intelligence and Intellectuals » “It is the mind that makes the body rich; and as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds, so honor peereth in the meanest habit.””

» Jealousy » “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.”

» Jokes and Jokers » “He jests at scars that never felt a wound.”

» Jokes and Jokers » “Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. Where be your jibes now, your gambols, your songs, your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar?”

» Judgment and Judges » “My salad days, when I was green in judgment.”

» Judgment and Judges » “Speak of me as I am. Nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice.”

» Juries » “The jury, passing on the prisoner’s life, may have in the sworn twelve a thief or two guiltier than him they try.”

» Justice » “Time is the justice that examines all offenders. [As You Like It]“

» Kisses and Kissing » “He took the bride about the neck and kissed her lips with such a clamorous smack that at the parting all the church did echo.”

» Knowledge » “Own more than thou showest, speak less than thou knowest.”

» Language » “It was Greek to me.”

» Laughter » “Present mirth hath present laughter. What’s to come is still unsure.”

» Libraries » “My library was dukedom large enough.”

» Life and Death » “As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; They kill us for their sport.”

» Life and Living » “Simply the thing I am shall make me live.”

» Life and Living » “Life… It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury; signifying nothing.”

» Listening » “Give every man your ear, but few thy voice. Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment. [Hamlet]“

» Losers and Losing » “Wise men never sit and wail their loss, but cheerily seek how to redress their harms.”

» Love » “Love is too young to know what conscience is.”

» Love » “But love is blind, and lovers cannot see What petty follies they themselves commit”

» Love » “Love bears it out even to the edge of doom.”

» Love » “Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs. Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers eyes. Being vexed, a sea nourished with lovers tears. What is it else? A madness most discreet, a choking gall and a preserving sweet.”

» Love » “Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.”

» Love » “They do not love that do not show their love. The course of true love never did run smooth. Love is a familiar. Love is a devil. There is no evil angel but Love.”

» Love » “To say the truth, reason and love keep little company together now-a-days.”

» Love » “When love begins to sicken and decay it uses an enforced ceremony. [Julius Caesar]“

» Love » “Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love.”

» Love Ended » “She’s gone. I am abused, and my relief must be to loathe her.”

» Lovers » “We that are true lovers run into strange capers.”

» Lovers » “Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety. Other women cloy the appetites they feed, but she makes hungry where most she satisfies.”

» Loyalty » “Had I but served my God with half the zeal I served my King, He would not in mine age have left me naked to mine enemies.”

» Lust » “This is the monstrosity in love, lady, that the will is infinite and the execution confined; that the desire is boundless, and the act a slave to limit.”

» Madness » “O, let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven! Keep me in temper. I would not be mad.”

» Manners » “Manhood is melted into courtesies, valor into compliment, and men are only turned into tongue, and trim ones, too.”

» Marriage » “The world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.”

» Maturity » “Your lordship, though not clean past your youth, have yet some smack of age in you, some relish of the saltiness of time.”

» Media » “Report me and my cause aright.”

» Medicine » “By medicine life may be prolonged, yet death will seize the doctor too.”

» Memory » “When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste. Then can I drown an eye (unused to flow) For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night, and weep afresh love’s long since cancelled woe, and moan the expense of many a vanished sight. Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, and heavily from woe to woe tell over the sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, Which I new pay as if not paid before. But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, all losses are restored and sorrows end.”

» Men and Women » “He is half of a blessed man. Left to be finished by such as she; and she a fair divided excellence, whose fullness of perfection lies in him.”

» Mind » “‘Tis the mind that makes the body rich.”

» Mind » “Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments. Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove.”

» Misers and Misery » “Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.”

» Misfortunes » “To mourn a mischief that is past and gone is the next way to draw new mischief on.”

» Misfortunes » “Affliction is enamoured of thy parts, and thou art wedded to calamity.”

» Modern and Modernism » “For we which now behold these present days have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.”

» Modesty » “We wound our modesty and make foul the clearness of our deservings, when of ourselves we publish them.”

» Modesty » “Lord Bacon told Sir Edward Coke when he was boasting, The less you speak of your greatness, the more shall I think of it.”

» Money » “A miser grows rich by seeming poor. An extravagant man grows poor by seeming rich.”

» Moralists » “Dost thou think because thou art virtuous there shall be no more cakes and ale?”

» Murder » “Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?”

» Music » “The man that hath no music in himself, nor is not moved 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.”

» Music » “Is it not strange that sheep’s guts should hale souls out of men’s bodies?”

» Music » “If music be the food of love; play on.”

» Names » “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

» Necessity » “Nature must obey necessity. [Julius Caesar]“

» Negotiation » “We were not born to sue, but to command.”

» Night » “O comfort-killing night, image of hell, dim register and notary of shame, black stage for tragedies and murders fell, vast sin-concealing chaos, nurse of blame!”

» Nostalgia » “Remembrance of things past.”

» Obedience » “Every good servant does not all commands.”

» Obesity » “Thou seest I have more flesh than another man, and therefore more frailty.”

» Obesity » “Let me have men about me that are fat, sleek-headed men and such as sleep a-nights. Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look. He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous.”

» Opportunity » “How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds makes deeds ill done!”

» Pain » “Pain pays the income of each precious thing.”

» Pain » “One pain is lessened by another’s anguish.”

» Past » “What is past is prologue.”

» Past » “Things without remedy, should be without regard; what is done, is done.”

» Past » “We have seen better days.”

» Patience » “That which in mean men we entitle patience is pale cold cowardice in noble breasts.”

» Patience » “Though patience be a tired mare, yet she will plod.”

» Patience » “How poor are they that have not patience. What wound did ever heal but by degrees?”

» Patience » “Who can be patient in extremes? [Henry Vi]“

» Peace » “A peace above all earthly dignities, a still and quiet conscience.”

» Perfection » “Striving to better, oft we mar what’s well.”

» Perseverance » “I am a kind of burr; I shall stick.”

» Philosophers and Philosophy » “There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophies.”

» Philosophers and Philosophy » “For there was never yet philosopher that could endure the toothache patiently.”

» Pity » “Soft pity enters an iron gate.”

» Plays » “If all the year were playing holidays, to sport would be as tedious as to work.”

» Police » “You are thought here to be the most senseless and fit man for the constable of the watch, therefore bear you the lantern.”

» Politicians and Politics » “A politician is one that would circumvent God.”

» Politicians and Politics » “Get thee glass eyes, and like a scurvy politician, seem to see the things thou dost not.”

» Politicians and Politics » “There have been many great men that have flattered the people who never loved them.”

» Pollution » “I durst not laugh for fear of opening my lips and receiving the bad air.”

» Possibilities » “My bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep. The more I give thee, the more I have, For both are infinite”

» Potential » “For he was likely, had he been put on, to have proved most royally.”

» Potential » “Lord we may know what we are, but know not what we may be.”

» Poverty and The Poor » “O world, how apt the poor are to be proud!”

» Power » “Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.”

» Praise » “There’s not one wise man among twenty will praise himself.”

» Prayer » “Bow, stubborn knees!”

» Pride » “Man, proud man, drest in a little brief authority, most ignorant of what he’s most assur d, glassy essence, like an angry ape, plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven, as make the angels weep.”

» Procrastination » “Defer no time, delays have dangerous ends.”

» Procrastination » “In delay there lies no plenty.”

» Procreation » “He plough’d her, and she cropp’d.”

» Prophecy » “Beware of the ides of March.”

» Proverbs » “The proverb is something musty.”

» Psychiatry » “Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, raze out the written troubles of the brain, and with some sweet oblivious antidote cleanse the fraught bosom of that perilous stuff which weighs upon the heart?”

» Publicity » “I have bought golden opinions from all sorts of people.”

» Punctuality » “Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.”

» Punishment » “And where the offence is, let the great axe fall.”

» Purpose » “Every why has a wherefore.”

» Purpose » “What we determine we often break. Purpose is but the slave to memory.”

» Quarrels » “The course of true love never did run smooth.”

» Questions » “To be or not to be that is the question. Whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer the stings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or take up arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing them, end them. [Hamlet]“

» Reason » “Strong reasons make strong actions.”

» Reason » “Sure, he, that made us with such large discourse, looking before and after, gave us not that capability and god-like reason, to fast in us unused.”

» Regret » “Let’s not burden our remembrance with a heaviness that’s gone.”

» Reputation » “Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I ha lost my reputation, I ha lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial!”

» Resolution » “For I am full of spirit and resolve to meet all perils very constantly.”

» Resolution » “Who is so firm that can’t be seduced?”

» Results » “Nothing will come of nothing.”

» Retirement » “Fear no more the heat o the sun, nor the furious winter’s rages. Thou thy worldly task hast done, home art gone and taken thy wages.”

» Retirement » “Our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.”

» Revenge » “Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot that it do singe yourself.”

» Revenge » “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?”

» Riches » “O, what a world of vile ill-favored faults, looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year!”

» Risk » “Virtue is bold and goodness never fearful.”

» Risk » “The path is smooth that leadeth on to danger.”

» Royalty » “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.”

» Security » “Security is the chief enemy of mortals.”

» Seduction » “She’s beautiful, and therefore to be wooed; She is a woman, therefore to be won.”

» Self-control » “O, it is excellent to have a giant’s strength, but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant.”

» Self-love » “Self-love, is not so vile a sin as self-neglecting.”

» Self-respect » “This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.”

» Self-talk » “A gentleman that loves to hear himself talk, will speak more in a minute than he will stand to in a month.”

» Silence » “Silence is the perfectos herald of joy. I were but little happy if I could say how much.”

» Sin » “Few love to hear the sins they love to act.”

» Sin » “I am a man more sinned against than sinning.”

» Sin » “Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.”

» Slander » “Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny.”

» Smells » “The rankest compound of villainous smell that ever offended nostril.”

» Smile » “One may smile, and smile, and be a villain. [Hamlet]“

» Smile » “A smile cures the wounding of a frown.”

» Sorrow » “When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.”

» Spring » “Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May.”

» Strangers » “I do desire we may be better strangers.”

» Strength » “How excellent it is to have a giant’s strength, but it is tyrannous to use like a giant.”

» Style » “I do not much dislike the matter, but the manner of his speech.”

» Success » “To climb steep hills requires slow pace at first.”

» Suicide » “Then is it sin to rush into the secret house of death. Ere death dare come to us?”

» Swearing » “A whoreson jackanapes must take me up for swearing; as if I borrowed mine oaths of him and might not spend them at my pleasure. When a gentleman is disposed to swear, it is not for any standers-by to curtail his oaths, ha?”

» Swearing » “It comes to pass oft that a terrible oath, with a swaggering accent sharply twanged off, gives manhood more approbation than ever proof itself would have earned him.”

» Tact and Tactfulness » “Give thy thoughts no tongue, nor any unproportioned thought his act. Be thou familiar but by no means vulgar.”

» Talkativeness » “A good old man, sir. He will be talking. As they say, when the age is in, the wit is out.”

» Temptation » “O mischief, thou art swift to enter in the thoughts of desperate men!”

» Temptation » “Most dangerous is that temptation that doth good us on to sin to loving virtue.”

» Thoughts and Thinking » “There is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

» Thoughts and Thinking » “Thought is free.”

» Thoughts and Thinking » “Make not your thoughts you prisons.”

» Time and Time Management » “And thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges.”

» Time and Time Management » “O, call back yesterday, bid time return.”

» Travel and Tourism » “Journeys end in lovers meeting.”

» Trust » “Don’t trust the person who has broken faith once.”

» Trust » “Love all, but trust a few.”

» Truth » “While you live tell the truth and shame the devil.”

» Unemployment » “You take my life when you do take the means whereby I live.”

» Valor » “When valor preys on reason, it eats the sword it fights with.”

» Vanity » “There was never yet fair woman but she made mouths in a glass.”

» Virtue » “Assume a virtue if you have it not.”

» Virtue » “Men’s evil manners live in brass, their virtues we write in water.”

» Visualization » “Nimble thought can jump both sea and land.”

» Vow » “Men’s vows are women’s traitors!”

» Vow » “‘Tis not the many oaths that make the truth; But the plain single vow, that is vow’d true.”

» Vow » “It is the purpose that makes strong the vow; But vows to every purpose must not hold.”

» War » “Cry ”havoc!” and let loose the dogs of war, that this foul deed shall smell above the earth with carrion men, groaning for burial.”

» War » “We go to gain a little patch of ground that hath in it no profit but the name.”

» Waste » “We waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day.”

» Welfare » “‘Tis not enough to help the feeble up, but to support him after.”

» Will and Will Power » “The will is deaf and hears no heedful friends.”

» Will and Will Power » “Our bodies are our gardens… our wills are our gardeners.”

» Winners and Winning » “Nothing can seem foul to those who win.”

» Wisdom » “So wise so young, they say, do never live long.”

» Wisdom » “To be wise and love exceeds man’s might.”

» Wit » “He’s winding up the watch of his wit. By and by it will strike.”

» Wives » “To suckle fools, and chronicle small beer.”

» Words » “It is a kind of good deed to say well; and yet words are not deeds.”

» World » “All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players.”

» Worry » “Present fears are less than horrible imaginings.”

» Youth » “Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth, that are written down old with all the characters of age?”

» Youth » “A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age.”