Read books online
at our other site:
The Literature Page
|
Quotation Search
To search for quotations, enter a phrase to search for in the quotation, a whole or partial
author name, or both. Also specify the collections to search in below. See the
Search Instructions for details.
- Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel; but being in, Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee. Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice; Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment. Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy; For the apparel oft proclaims the man. - William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), "Hamlet", Act 1 scene 3
- Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible To feeling as to sight? or art thou but A dagger of the mind, a false creation, Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain? - William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), "Macbeth", Act 2 scene 1
- Cry "Havoc," and let slip the dogs of war.
- William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), "Julius Caesar", Act 3 scene 1
- Beware the ides of March.
- William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), "Julius Caesar", Act 1 scene 2
- Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York, And all the clouds that loured upon our house In the deep bosom of the ocean buried. Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths, Our bruised arms hung up for monuments, Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings, Our dreadful marches to delightful measures. Grim-visaged war hath smoothed his wrinkled front; And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds To fright the souls of fearful adversaries, He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber To the lascivious pleasing of a lute. But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks, Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass; I, that am rudely stamped, and want love's majesty To strut before a wanton ambling nymph; I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion, Cheated of feature by dissembling nature, Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time Into this breathing world, scarce half made up, And that so lamely and unfashionable That dogs bark at me as I halt by them,-- Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace, Have no delight to pass away the time, Unless to spy my shadow in the sun. - William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), "King Richard III", Act 1 scene 1
- Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,
Or close the wall up with our English dead! 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. - William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), "King Henry V", Act 3 scene 1
- This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise, This fortress built by Nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war, This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall Or as a moat defensive to a house, Against the envy of less happier lands,-- This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England. - William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), "King Richard II", Act 2 scene 1
- To 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,--'t is a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd. 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: there's the respect That makes calamity of so long life; For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, The insolence of office and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscover'd country from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprises of great pith and moment With this regard their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action. - William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), "Hamlet", Act 3 scene 1
- Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once. Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, It seems to me most strange that men should fear; Seeing that death, a necessary end, Will come when it will come. - William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), "Julius Caesar", Act 2 scene 2
- What seest thou else
In the dark backward and abysm of time? - William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), "The Tempest", Act 1 scene 2
|