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Tragedy (play)115 quotes
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. — William Shakespeare · 1616To be or not to be—that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And, by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep—
No more—and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to—’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep—
To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there’s the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. — William Shakespeare · 1616My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep. The more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite. — William Shakespeare · 1597What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, 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-And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? — William Shakespeare · 1616Come what come may,
Time and the hour runs through the roughest day. — William Shakespeare · 1616Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy. — William Shakespeare · 1616All 115 quotes →Comedy (play)100 quotes
Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever,
One foot in sea and one on shore,
To one thing constant never. — William Shakespeare · 1600Eat no onions nor garlic, for we are to utter sweet breath. — William Shakespeare · 1599Good counselors lack no clients. — William Shakespeare · 1616The whirligig of time brings in his revenges. — William Shakespeare · 1602Kindness in women, not their beauteous looks,
Shall win my love. — William Shakespeare · 1594Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps. — William Shakespeare · 1600All 100 quotes →History (play)91 quotes
See what a ready tongue suspicion hath! — William Shakespeare · 1597Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once. — William Shakespeare · 1599I am not in the roll of common men. — William Shakespeare · 1597There lives not three good men unhanged in England, and one of them is fat and grows old. — William Shakespeare · 1597There 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 in shallows and in miseries. — William Shakespeare · 1599Men at some time are masters of their fates.
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings. — William Shakespeare · 1599All 91 quotes →Political literature31 quotes
God is not willing to do everything, and thus take away our free will and that share of glory which belongs to us. — Niccolo Machiavelli · 1532Whoever desires to found a state and give it laws, must start with assuming that all men are bad and ever ready to display their vicious nature, whenever they may find occasions for it. — Niccolo Machiavelli · 1531A prince being thus obliged to know well how to act as a beast must imitate the fox and the lion, for the lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves. — Niccolo Machiavelli · 1532I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat. — John Milton · 1644They wonder much to hear that gold, which in itself is so useless a thing, should be everywhere so much esteemed, that even men for whom it was made, and by whom it has its value, should yet be thought of less value than it is. — Thomas More · 1516The chief foundations of all states, new as well as old or composite, are good laws and good arms; and as there cannot be good laws where the state is not well armed, it follows that where they are well armed they have good laws. — Niccolo Machiavelli · 1532All 31 quotes →Philosophical literature29 quotes
God is not willing to do everything, and thus take away our free will and that share of glory which belongs to us. — Niccolo Machiavelli · 1532Ancient times were the youth of the world. — Francis Bacon · 1605Whoever desires to found a state and give it laws, must start with assuming that all men are bad and ever ready to display their vicious nature, whenever they may find occasions for it. — Niccolo Machiavelli · 1531A prince being thus obliged to know well how to act as a beast must imitate the fox and the lion, for the lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves. — Niccolo Machiavelli · 1532The chief foundations of all states, new as well as old or composite, are good laws and good arms; and as there cannot be good laws where the state is not well armed, it follows that where they are well armed they have good laws. — Niccolo Machiavelli · 1532Among other evils which being unarmed brings you, it causes you to be despised. — Niccolo Machiavelli · 1532All 29 quotes →Epic poem25 quotes
Long is the way
And hard, that out of Hell leads up to Light. — John Milton · 1667O fairest of Creation, last and best
Of all God's works. — John Milton · 1667Her rash hand in evil hour
Forth reaching to the fruit, she plucked, she ate:
Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat
Sighing through all her works gave signs of woe
That all was lost. — John Milton · 1667Of Man's First Disobedience, and the fruit
Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste
Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat,
Sing, Heav'nly Muse. — John Milton · 1667What in me is dark
Illumine, what is low raise and support;
That to the height of this great Argument
I may assert Eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to men. — John Milton · 1667Who overcomes
By force hath overcome but half his foe. — John Milton · 1667All 25 quotes →Religious literature25 quotes
Long is the way
And hard, that out of Hell leads up to Light. — John Milton · 1667O fairest of Creation, last and best
Of all God's works. — John Milton · 1667Her rash hand in evil hour
Forth reaching to the fruit, she plucked, she ate:
Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat
Sighing through all her works gave signs of woe
That all was lost. — John Milton · 1667Of Man's First Disobedience, and the fruit
Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste
Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat,
Sing, Heav'nly Muse. — John Milton · 1667What in me is dark
Illumine, what is low raise and support;
That to the height of this great Argument
I may assert Eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to men. — John Milton · 1667Who overcomes
By force hath overcome but half his foe. — John Milton · 1667All 25 quotes →Romantic comedy (play)12 quotes
The whirligig of time brings in his revenges. — William Shakespeare · 1602But be not afraid of greatness.
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ‘em. — William Shakespeare · 1602If music be the food of love, play on.
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken and so die. — William Shakespeare · 1602How apt the poor are to be proud! — William Shakespeare · 1602Then 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. — William Shakespeare · 1602What 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. — William Shakespeare · 1602All 12 quotes →Narrative poem9 quotes
Love comforteth like sunshine after rain. — William Shakespeare · 1593Extreme fear can neither fight nor fly. — William Shakespeare · 1594Vows were ever brokers to defiling. — William Shakespeare · 1609It easeth some, though none it ever cur'd,
To think their dolour others have endur'd. — William Shakespeare · 1594Love surfeits not, Lust like a glutton dies.
Love is all truth, Lust full of forgèd lies. — William Shakespeare · 1593Though men can cover crimes with bold stern looks,
Poor women's faces are their own faults' books. — William Shakespeare · 1594All 9 quotes →Satire8 quotes
Speak the truth and shame the Devil. — Francois Rabelais · 1564They wonder much to hear that gold, which in itself is so useless a thing, should be everywhere so much esteemed, that even men for whom it was made, and by whom it has its value, should yet be thought of less value than it is. — Thomas More · 1516To laugh is proper to man. — Francois Rabelais · 1534They have no lawyers among them, for they consider them as a sort of people whose profession it is to disguise matters. — Thomas More · 1516True happinesse
Consists not in the multitude of friends,
But in the worth, and choice. — Ben Jonson · 1600Appetite comes with eating. — Francois Rabelais · 1534All 8 quotes →Tragedy5 quotes
Boast not of what thou would'st have done, but do
What then thou would'st. — John Milton · 1671Love-quarrels oft in pleasing concord end;
Not wedlock-treachery. — John Milton · 1671Give me a spirit that on this life's rough sea
Loves t' have his sails filled with a lusty wind,
Even till his sail-yards tremble, his masts crack,
And his rapt ship run on her side so low
That she drinks water, and her keel plows air. — George Chapman · 1608Apt words have power to suage
The tumours of a troubled mind. — John Milton · 1671Yet beauty, though injurious, hath strange power,
After offence returning, to regain
Love once possessed. — John Milton · 1671Problem play4 quotes
Words pay no debts. — William Shakespeare · 1603I am giddy; expectation whirls me round.
Th' imaginary relish is so sweet
That it enchants my sense. — William Shakespeare · 1603Things won are done; joy's soul lies in the doing. — William Shakespeare · 1603Men prize the thing ungained more than it is. — William Shakespeare · 1603Satirical fiction2 quotes
Speak the truth and shame the Devil. — Francois Rabelais · 1564To laugh is proper to man. — Francois Rabelais · 1534Scientific literature2 quotes
Finally we shall place the Sun himself at the center of the Universe. All this is suggested by the systematic procession of events and the harmony of the whole Universe, if we only face the facts, as they say, "with both eyes open." — Nicolaus Copernicus · 1543In the discovery of secret things and in the investigation of hidden causes, stronger reasons are obtained from sure experiments and demonstrated arguments than from probable conjectures and the opinions of philosophical speculators of the common sort. — William Gilbert · 1600Travel writing2 quotes
When a traveller returneth home, let him not leave the countries where he hath travelled altogether behind him. — Francis Bacon · 1625Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience. He that travelleth into a country before he hath some entrance into the language, goeth to school, and not to travel. — Francis Bacon · 1625Biography1 quote
Men of genius sometimes accomplish most when they work the least. — Leonardo da Vinci · 1568Comedy1 quote
There shall be no love lost. — Ben Jonson · 1599Legal writing1 quote
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 — Edward Coke · 1603Masque (play)1 quote
Yet where an equal poise of hope and fear
Does arbitrate the event, my nature is
That I incline to hope rather than fear,
And gladly banish squint suspicion. — John Milton · 1634Political speech1 quote
I will govern according to the common weal, but not according to the common will. — James I · 1621