Aphorisms from Shakespeare

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Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1812 - 456 pages
 

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Page 191 - 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...
Page 229 - Past reason hunted, and no sooner had, Past reason hated, as a swallow'd bait On purpose laid to make the taker mad; Mad in pursuit, and in possession so; Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme; A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe; Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream. All this the world well knows; yet none knows well To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell. CXXX My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips...
Page 49 - All murder'd: for within the hollow crown That rounds the mortal temples of a king Keeps Death his court; and there the antic sits, Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp...
Page 187 - To kings, that fear their subjects' treachery ? O, yes it doth ; a thousand-fold it doth. And to conclude, — the shepherd's homely curds, His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle, His wonted sleep under a fresh tree's shade, All which secure and sweetly he enjoys, Is far beyond a prince's delicates, His viands sparkling in a golden cup, • His body couched in a curious bed, When care, mistrust, and treason wait on him.
Page 162 - tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus. Our bodies are our gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners ; so that if we will plant nettles or sow lettuce, set hyssop and weed up thyme, supply it with one gender of herbs or distract it with many, either to have it sterile with idleness or manured with industry, why, the power and corrigible authority of this lies in our wills.
Page xxxii - Soul of the age! The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage! My Shakespeare, rise! I will not lodge thee by Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie A little further, to make thee a room: Thou are a monument without a tomb, And art alive still while thy book doth live And we have wits to read and praise to give.
Page 224 - 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: O, no ! it is an ever-fixed mark, That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Page 108 - tis a common proof, That lowliness is young ambition's ladder, Whereto the climber-upward turns his face; But when he once attains the upmost round, He then unto the ladder turns his back, Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees By which he did ascend.
Page 220 - O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem By that sweet ornament which truth doth give! The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem For that sweet odour which doth in it live. The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye As the perfumed tincture of the roses, Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly When summer's breath their masked buds discloses; But, for their virtue only is their show, They live unwoo'd and unrespected fade, Die to themselves.
Page xxxi - Tis true, and all men's suffrage. But these ways Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise ; For silliest ignorance on these may light, Which, when it sounds at best, but echoes right...

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