1600s

Shakespeare's Sonnets · 1609

★ 8.6

Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more, Men were deceivers ever, One foot in sea and one on shore, To one thing constant never.

Much Ado About Nothing · 1600

★ 7.8

But thy eternal summer shall not fade Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st, Nor shall Death brag thou wand’rest in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st. So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Shakespeare's Sonnets · 1609

★ 7.2

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips' red... I love to hear her speak, yet well I know That music hath a far more pleasing sound.

Ancient times were the youth of the world.

Shakespeare's Sonnets · 1609

★ 7.1

Philosophical literature

Francis Bacon

1605

★ 7.0

I was so free with him as not to mince the matter.

Don Quixote · 1605

★ 6.5

Can we ever have too much of a good thing?

Don Quixote · 1605

★ 6.5

The whirligig of time brings in his revenges.

Twelfth Night · 1602

★ 6.4

You are a king by your own fireside, as much as any monarch in his throne.

Don Quixote · 1605

★ 6.4

How poor are they that have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees?

Othello · 1604

★ 6.2

Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.

Much Ado About Nothing · 1600

★ 5.7

My salad days, When I was green in judgment.

Antony and Cleopatra · 1607

★ 5.7

But be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ‘em.

Twelfth Night · 1602

★ 5.5

If music be the food of love, play on. Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken and so die.

Twelfth Night · 1602

★ 5.5

That's the nature of women... Not to love when we love them, and to love when we love them not.

Don Quixote · 1605

★ 5.5

How apt the poor are to be proud!

Twelfth Night, Or What You Will · 1602

★ 5.5

Time’s the king of men. He’s both their parent, and he is their grave, And gives them what he will, not what they crave.

The house of everyone is to him as his castle and fortress, as well for his defence against injury and violence, as for his repose

Pericles, Prince of Tyre · 1608

★ 5.5

Legal opinion · Legal writing

Edward Coke

Semayne's Case · 1603

★ 5.2

Letter

I am much occupied with the investigation of physical causes. My aim in this is to show that the celestial machine is not similar to a divine animated being, but similar to a clock.

Johannes Kepler

1605

★ 5.2

I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright, Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.

Shakespeare's Sonnets · 1609

★ 5.2

Play · Problem play

Words pay no debts.

Troilus and Cressida · 1603

★ 4.8

Weigh’st thy words before thou giv’st them breath.

Othello · 1604

★ 4.8

Reputation is an idle and most false imposition, oft got without merit and lost without deserving.

Othello · 1604

★ 4.7

Fortune, that arrant whore, Ne’er turns the key to th’ poor.

King Lear · 1606

★ 4.6

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.

Night hath a thousand eyes.

Shakespeare's Sonnets · 1609

★ 4.6

Play

John Lyly

1600

★ 4.5

The nature of bad news infects the teller.

Antony and Cleopatra · 1607

★ 4.5

Ask me no reason why I love you, for though Love use Reason for his precisian, he admits him not for his counselor.

The Merry Wives of Windsor · 1602

★ 3.9

There's not the least thing can be said or done, but people will talk and find fault.

Don Quixote · 1605

★ 3.9

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale Her infinite variety.

Antony and Cleopatra · 1607

★ 3.9

Is it sin to rush into the secret house of death Ere death dare come to us?

Antony and Cleopatra · 1607

★ 3.9

If there be no great love in the beginning, yet heaven may decrease it upon better acquaintance, when we are married and have more occasion to know one another...upon familiarity will grow more content.

The Merry Wives of Windsor · 1602

★ 3.8

Then let thy love be younger than thyself, Or thy affection cannot hold the bent. For women are as roses, whose fair flower, Being once displayed, doth fall that very hour.

Twelfth Night, Or What You Will · 1602

★ 3.8

What is love? ’Tis not hereafter. Present mirth hath present laughter. What’s to come is still unsure. In delay there lies no plenty, Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty. Youth’s a stuff will not endure.

Twelfth Night, Or What You Will · 1602

★ 3.8

Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.

I am giddy; expectation whirls me round. Th' imaginary relish is so sweet That it enchants my sense.

Twelfth Night, Or What You Will · 1602

★ 3.8

Play · Problem play

Troilus and Cressida · 1603

★ 3.8

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

Shakespeare's Sonnets · 1609

★ 3.8

Sweets grown common lose their dear delight.

Sonnet 102 · 1609

★ 3.8

Twas only fear first in the world made gods.

Ben Jonson

1603

★ 3.7

Play · Problem play

Things won are done; joy's soul lies in the doing.