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Shakespeare Quotes from Hamlet

202 passages from Dictionary of Shakespearian Quotations (1892), each filed under the passion it answers.

Let your own discretion be your tutor: suit the action to word, and the word to the action; with this special the word, and the word to the action; with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature: for any thing so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first, and now, was, and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure: *** O, there be players, that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly,-not to speak it profanely, that, neither having the accent of Christians, nor the gait of Christian, Pagan, nor man, have so strutted, and bellowed, that I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abomi nably.— filed under Action, Dramatic

Fear it, my dear sister; And keep you in the rear of your affection, Out of the shot and danger of desire. The chariest maid is prodigal enough, If she unmask her beauty to the moon; Virtue itself 'scapes not calumnious strokes : The canker galls the infants of the spring, Too oft before their buttons be disclos'd; And in the morn and liquid dew of youth Contagious blastments are most imminent. Be wary then; best safety lies in fear;— filed under Advice

Give thy thoughts no tongue, Nor any unproportion'd thought his act. Be thou familiar but by no means vulgar. The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel: But do not dull thy palm with entertainment Of each unhatch'd, unfledged comrade. Beware Of entrance to a quarrel: but, being in, Bear it that the opposer may beware of thee. Give ev'ry man thine 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:-- Neither a borrower nor a lender be: For loan oft loses both itself and friend; And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. 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.— filed under Advice

Youth no less becomes The light and careless livery that it wears, Than settled age his sables, and his weeds, Importing health and graveness.— filed under Age

Tha tedious old fools!— filed under Age

The very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.— filed under Ambition

I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality, that it is but a shadow's shadow.— filed under Ambition

Lend thy serious hearing to what I shall unfold. H. i. 5 Season your admiration for a while With an attent ear; till I may deliver, Upon the witness of these gentlemen, This marvel to you.— filed under Attention

Chapless, and knock'd about the mazzard with a sexton's spade: Here's a fine revolution, an' we had the trick to see't!— filed under Bones, Human

Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief.— filed under Brevity

Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou Shalt not escape calumny.— filed under Calumny

But, beshrew my jealousy ! It seems, it is as proper to our age To cast beyond ourselves in our opinions, As it is common for the younger sort To lack discretion.— filed under Caviller

Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold Yourself.— filed under Challenge

I have heard, The cock, that is the trumpet of the morn, Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat Awake the god of day; and, at his warning, Whether in sea, or fire, in earth, or air, The extravagant and erring spirit hies— filed under Cock, Crowing

A seal'd compact, Well ratified by law and heraldry.— filed under Compact

Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works.— filed under Conceit

Truly to speak, Sir, and with no addition, We go to gain a little patch of ground, That hath in it ne profit but the name.— filed under Conquest

A still and quiet conscience. You shall see, anon; 'tis a knavish piece of work; but what of that? Your majesty, and we that have free souls, it touches us not: Let the gall'd jade wince, our withers— filed under Conscience

are unwrung. Why, let the stricken deer go weep, The hart ungalled play; For some must watch, while some must sleep; Thus runs the world away.— filed under Conscience

I'll observe his looks; I'll tent him to the quick; if he do blench, I know my course.— filed under Conscience

How smart A lash that speech doth give my conscience !— filed under Conscience, Guilty

Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul; And there I see such black and grained spots As will not leave their tinct.— filed under Conscience, Guilty

Put on him what forgeries you please; marry, none so rank As may dishonour him.— filed under Contemptible

I pr'ythee take thy fingers from my throat; For though I am not splenetive and rash, Yet have I in me something dangerous, Which let thy wisdom fear.— filed under Content

Believe me, an osolute gentleman, full of most excellent differences, of very soft society, and great showing: indeed, to speak feelingly of him, he is the card or calendar of gentry, for you shall find in him the continent of what part a gentleman would see.— filed under Coward

O most profane coxcomb! Thus has he and many more of the same breed, that, I know, the drossy age dotes on, only got the tune of the time, and outward habit of encounter; a kind of yeasty collection, which carries them through and through the most fond and winnowed opinions; and do but blow them to their trial, the bubbles are out.— filed under Coxcomb

Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness.— filed under Custom

Assume a virtue if you have it not, That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat— filed under Custom

I will speak daggers to her, but use none.— filed under Daggers

I'll cross it though it blast me.— filed under Daring

But, look, the dawn, in russet mantle clad, Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill.— filed under Dawn

The glow-worm shows the matin to be near, And 'gins to pale his ineffectual fire.— filed under Dawn

Thou know'st 'tis common; all that live must lie, Passing through nature to eternity.— filed under Death

Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin, Unhousel'd, disappointed, unanel'd; No reckoning made, but sent to my account With all my imperfections on my head.— filed under Death

I will fight with him upon this theme, Until my eye-lids will no longer wag.— filed under Defiance

Should be infused with so foul a spirit!— filed under Degeneracy

Against a falling fabric. For in the fatness of these pursy times,— filed under Degeneracy

The hand of little employment hath the daintier sense.— filed under Delicacy Of Idleness

This is the very coinage of your brain; This bodiless creation extacy Is very cunning in.— filed under Delusion

Alas, how is't with you? That you do bend your eyes on vacancy,— filed under Delusion

And with the incorporal air do hold discourse ? H. iii. 4 It will but skin and film the ulcerous place; Whiles rank corruption, mining all within, Infects unseen.— filed under Delusion

Use every man according to his desert, and who shall escape whipping? use them after your own honour and dignity: the less they deserve, the more merit is in your— filed under Desert

Now could I drink hot blood, And do such business as the bitter day Would quake to look on.— filed under Desperation

O all you host of heaven! O earth!-what else? And shall I couple hell?-O fie!-Hold, hold, my heart; And you, my sinews, grow not instant old, But bear me stiffly up.— filed under Desperation

O, that this too, too solid flesh would meit, Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew! Or, that the everlasting had not fix'd His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God! How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable, Seem to me all the uses of this world! Fie on't! fie on't! 'tis an unweeded garden, That grows to seed; things rank, and gross in nature, Possess it merely.— filed under Despondency

I'll speak to it, though hell itself should gape,— filed under Determination

You shall see, anon; 'tis a knavish piece of work.— filed under Disclosure

Indeed, indeed, Sirs, but this troubles me.— filed under Disquiet

We are oft to blame in this ;- 'Tis too much prov'd, -that with devotion's visage, And pious action, we do sugar o'er The devil himself.— filed under Dissimulation

You vow, and swear, and super-praise my parts, When I am sure you hate me in your hearts. M. N. iii. 2 As I, perchance, hereafter shall think meet To put an antic disposition on.— filed under Dissimulation

Cudgel your brains no more about it; for your dull ass— filed under Dulness

How absolute the knave is! we must speak by the card,— filed under Fond

Peace; sit you down, And let me wring your heart; for so I shall, If it be made of penetrable stuff; If damned custom have not braz'd it so, That it be proof and bulwark against sense.— filed under Examination

You go not, till I set you up a glass,— filed under Examination

It shall go hard, But I will delve one yard below their mines, And blow them to the moon.— filed under Explosion

An eye like Mars, to threaten and command.— filed under Eye

As false as dicers' oaths.— filed under Falsehood

But, orderly to end where I begun, Our wills and fates do so contrary run, That our devices still are overthrown; Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.— filed under Fate

Why, what should be the fear? I do not set my life at a pin's fee; And, for my soul, what can it do to that, Being a thing immortal?— filed under Fear

What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, That he should weep for her?— filed under Fictions

That drop of blood that's calm proclaims me bastard.— filed under Filial Ingratitude

I must prevent thee, Cimber. These couchings, and these lowly courtesies, Might fire the blood of ordinary men, And turn pre-ordinance, and first decree, Into the law of children. Be not fond, To think that Cæsar bears such rebel blood, That will be thaw'd from the true quality, With that which melteth fools; I mean, sweet words, Low-crooked Low-crooked curt'sies, and base spaniel fawning. J.C. iii. 1. For the love of grace, Lay not that flattering unction to your soul.— filed under Fiattery

Nay, do not think I flatter: For what advancement may I hope from thee, That no revenue hast, but thy good spirits, To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be flatter'd? No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp, And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee Where thrift may follow fawning.— filed under Fiattery

Let the doors be shut upon him; that he may play the fool nowhere but in his own house.— filed under Fool

T.C.v.2. I do not like this fooling.— filed under Fool

In what particular thought to work, I know not; But, in the gross and scope of mine opinion, This bodes some strange eruption to our state.— filed under Foreboding

Then I'll look up; My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer Can serve my turn? Forgive me my foul murder !-- That cannot be; since I am still possess'd Of those effects for which I did the murder, - My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen. May one be pardon'd, and retain the offence ?— filed under Forgiveness

Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice, And could of men distinguish her election, She had seal'd thee for herself: for thou hast been As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing; A man, that fortune's buffets and rewards Hast ta'en with equal thanks; and bless'd are those Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled, That they are not a pipe for Fortune's finger To sound what stop she please: Give me that man That is not passion's slave, and I will wear hiin In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,— filed under Friend

Who, in want, a hollow friend doth try,— filed under Friend

The great man down, you mark his favourite flies, The poor advanc'd makes friends of enemies. And hitherto doth love on fortune tend; For who not needs, shall never lack a friend; And who in want a hollow friend doth try, Directly seasons him an enemy.— filed under Friend

But yet It is our trick; nature her custom holds,— filed under Funeral Rites

For it is, as the air, invulnerable,— filed under Ghost

And our vain blows malicious mockery. Angels, and ministers of grace, defend us! Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damn'd, Bring with thee airs from heaven, or blasts from hell, Be thy intents wicked or charitable, Thou com'st in such a questionable shape, That I will speak to thee.— filed under Ghost

But, soft: behold! lo where it comes again! I'll cross it, though it blast me. Stay, illusion! If thou hast any sound, or use a voice,— filed under Ghost

Speak to me. What may this mean, That thou, dead corse, again, in complete steel, Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon, Making night hideous; and we, fools of nature, So horridly to shake our disposition, With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls? Say, why is this?— filed under Ghost

My hour is almost come, When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames Must render up myself.— filed under Ghost

O, answer me: Let me not burst in ignorance! but tell, Why thy canoniz'd bones, hears'd in death, Have burst their cerements! why the sepulchre, Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn'd. Hath op'd his ponderous and marble jaws, To cast thee up again.— filed under Ghost

Rightly to be great, Is, not to stir without great argument; But greatly to find quarrel in a straw, When honour's at the stake.— filed under Greatness

Had he the motive and the cue for passion, That I have, he would drown the stage with tears, And cleave the general ear with horrid speech; Make mad the guilty, and appal the free, Confound the ignorant, and amaze, indeed, The very faculties of eyes and ears.— filed under Grief

The violence of either grief or joy, Their own enactures with themselves destroy: Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament; Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident.— filed under Grief

We must be patient: but I cannot choose but weep, to— filed under Rief

What is he whose grief Bears such an emphasis? whose phrase of sorrow Conjures the wand'ring stars, and makes them stand— filed under Rief

So full of artless jealousy is guilt, It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.— filed under Guilt

Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in it?— filed under Guilt

And then it started like a guilty thing Upon a fearful summons.— filed under Guilt

My words fly up, my thoughts remain below Words without thoughts never to heaven go.— filed under Guilt

For use almost can change the stamp of nature And either curb the devil, or throw him out— filed under Habit

Now, whether it be Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple Of thinking too precisely on the event, - A thought, which, quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom, And, ever, three parts coward, I do not know— filed under Hesitation

A hit, a very palpable hit.— filed under Hit

Ay, Sir; to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.— filed under Honesty

I am myself indifferent honest: but yet I could accuse me of such things, that it were better my mother had not borne me: I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious; with more offences at my beck, than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in: What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves all; believe none of us.— filed under Honesty

But that I am forbid To tell the secrets of my prison-house, I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word Would harrow up thy soul; freeze thy young blood; Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their sphere; Thy knotted and combined locks to part, And each particular hair to stand on end, Like quills upon the fretful porcupine.— filed under Horror

He waxes desperate with imagination.— filed under Imagination

The ocean, overpeering of his list, Eats not the flats with more impetuous haste.— filed under Impetuosity

Such an act, That blurs the grace and blush of modesty: Calls virtue hypocrite: takes off the rose From the fair forehead of an innocent love, And sets a blister there: makes marriage vows As false as dicers' oaths; O, such a deed, As from the body of contraction plucks The very soul; and sweet religion makes— filed under Incontinence

O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious hell, If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones To flaming youth let virtue be as wax, And melt in her own fire: proclaim no shame, When the com pulsive ardour gives the charge; Since frost itself as actively doth burn, And reason panders will.— filed under Incontinence

That we would do, We should do when we would; for this would changes, And hath abatements and delays as many, As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents; And then this should is like a spendthrift's sigh, That hurts by easing.— filed under Joy

And where the offence is, let the great axe fall.— filed under Judgment, Justice

Robes and furr'd gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold, And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks: Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw doth pierce it. K. L. iv. 6 In the corrupted currents of this world, Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice; And oft 'tis seen, the wicked prize itself Buys out the law: But 'tis not so above: There is no shuffling, there the action lies In his true nature; and we ourselves compell'd, Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults, To give in evidence.— filed under Judgment, Justice

He may not, as unvalu'd persons do, Carve for himself; for on his choice depends The safety and the health of the whole state; And therefore must his choice be circumscrib'd Unto the voice and yielding of that body, Whereof he is the head.— filed under Kings

There's such divinity doth hedge a king, That treason can but peep to what it would,— filed under Kings

In shadow of such greatness! DEATH OF Δ. The cease of majesty Dies not alone; but, like a gulf, doth draw What's near it with it: it is a massy wheel, Fix'd on the summit of the highest mount, To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things Are mortis'd and adjoin'd; which, when it falls, Each small annexment, petty consequence, Attends the boisterous ruin.— filed under King's Absence And Return, Typified

Windy attorneys to their client woes, Airy succeeders to intestate joys, Poor breathing orators of miseries! Let them have scope: though what they do impart, Help nothing else, yet do they ease the heart. R.III. iv. 1. Alas, poor Yorick !— filed under Lamentations

But love is blind, and lovers cannot see The pretty follies that themselves commit; For, if they could, Cupid himself would blush. M. V. ii. 6. This is the very ecstacy of love: Whose violent property foredoes itself, And leads the will to desperate undertakings, As oft as any passion under heaven, That does afflict our natures.— filed under Love

Still harping on my daughter:-yet he knew me not at first; he said, I was a fishmonger: He is far gone, far gone.— filed under Love

If he love her not, And be not from his reason fall'n thereon, Let me be no assistant for a state, But keep a farm and carters.— filed under Love

He is far gone, far gone: and truly in my youth I suffered much extremity for love; very near this. H.ii.— filed under Love

To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit. Poems I lov'd Ophelia; forty thousand brothers Could not, with all their quantity of love, Make up my sum.— filed under Love

And art thou chang'd? There lives within the very flame of love A kind of wick, or snuff, that will abate it: And nothing is at a like goodness still; For goodness, growing to a pleurisy,— filed under Love

Giving more light than heat, -extinct in both, Even in their promise, as it is a making,-- You must not take for fire.— filed under Lover's Vows

Doubt thou the stars are fire; Doubt that the sun doth move: Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love.— filed under Lover's Vows

That suck'd the honey of his music vows.— filed under Lover's Vows

Your noble son is mad: Mad, call I it: for, to define true madness, What is't, but to be nothing else but mad?— filed under Madness

And he repulsed, (a short tale to make,) Fell into a sadness, then into a fast; Thence to a watch; thence into a weakness; Thence to a lightness: and, by this declension, Into the madness wherein now he raves.— filed under Madness

O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown! The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's eye, tongue, sword. The expectancy and rose of the fair state, The glass of fashion, and the mould of form, The observ'd of all observers; quite, quite down. And I, of ladies most deject and wretched, That suck'd the honey of his music vows, Now see that sovereign and most noble reason, Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh; That unmatch'd form and feature of blown youth, Blasted with ecstacy: O, woe is me! To have seen what I have seen, see what I see! ! H. iii.— filed under Madness

This is mere madness: And thus awhile the fit will work on him; Anon, as patient as the female dove, When that her golden couplets are disclos'd, His silence will sit drooping.— filed under Madness

She speaks much of her father; says, she hears, There's tricks i' the world; and hems, and beats her heart, Spurns enviously at straws; speaks things in doubt, That carry but half sense: her speech is nothing, Yet the unshaped use of it, doth move The hearers to collection.— filed under Madness

How pregnant sometimes his replies are! a happiness that often madness hits on, which reason and sanity could not so prosperously be delivered of!— filed under Madness

That he is mad, 'tis true; 'tis true, 'tis pity; And pity 'tis, 'tis true.— filed under Madness

It is not madness, That I have utter'd: bring me to the test, And I the matter will re-word; which madness Would gambol from.— filed under Madness

What a piece of work is 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 para gon of animals !— filed under Man

Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be.— filed under Man

He was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again.— filed under Man

Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool; farewell! I took thee for thy better; take thy fortune:— filed under Meddler

I have of late (but wherefore I know not) lost all my mirth, foregone all custom of exercises: and, indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition, that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excel. lent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me, than a foul and pesti-— filed under Melancholy

O, such a deed As from the body of contraction plucks The very soul; and sweet religion makes A rhapsody of words.— filed under Mockery

'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet, To give these mourning duties to your father: But, you must know, your father lost a father; That father lost his; and the survivor bound In filial obligation, for some term Tc do obsequious sorrow: But to persévere In obstinate condolement, is a course Of impious stubbornness: 'tis unmanly grief: It shows a will most incorrect to heaven: A heart unfortified, a mind impatient; An understanding simple and unschool'd: For what we know, must be, and is as common As any the most vulgar thing to sense, Why should we, in our peevish opposition, Take it to heart? Fie! 'tis a fault to heaven, A fault against the dead, a fault to nature, To reason most absurd; whose common theme Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried. From the first corse, till he that died to-day, "This must be so."— filed under Mourning

Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother Nor customary suits of solemn black, Nor windy suspiration of fore'd breath, No, nor the fruitful river in the eye, Nor the dejected 'haviour of the visage, Together with all forms, modes, shows of grief, That can denote me truly: These, indeed, seem. For they are actions that a man might play: But I have that within, which passeth show; These, but the trappings and the suit of woe.— filed under Mourning

No place, indeed, should murder sanctuarize.— filed under Murder

For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak With most miraculous organ.— filed under Murder

Murder most foul, as in the best it is; But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.— filed under Murder

With its sweet air. 'Tis good tho' music oft hath such a charm, To make bad good; and good provoke to harm. M. M. iv.— filed under Music

find it stopping a bung-hole ? Imperious Cæsar, dead, and turn'd to clay, Might stop a hole, to keep the wind away: O, that the earth, which kept the world in awe, Should patch a wall to expel the winter's flaw!— filed under Mutability

And all things change them to the contrary. This world is not for aye; nor 'tis not strange, That even our love should with our fortunes change; For 'tis a question left us yet to prove, Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love. H. iii.— filed under Mutability

Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we what we may be!— filed under Mutability

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,— filed under Mysteries

Let me speak, to the yet unknowing world, How these things came about; so shall you hear Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts; Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters; Of deaths put on by cunning, and forc'd cause: And, in this upshot, purposes mistook Fall'n on the inventor's heads; all this can I Truly deliver.— filed under News

There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave, To teil us this.— filed under News

Pitchy night. 'Tis now the very witching time of night, When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out— filed under Night

Do not believe his vows; for they are brokers, Not of that die which their investments show, But mere implorators of unholy suits, Breathing like sanctified and pious bonds, The better to beguile.— filed under Jaths

7 A mote it is, to trouble the mind's eye.— filed under Object

There's nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so.— filed under Opinion

And I, hence fleeting, here remain with thee. And so, without more circumstance at all, I hold it fit, that we shake hands and part; You, as your business, and desire, shall point you :- For every man hath business, and desire, Such as it is, and for mine own poor part,— filed under Parting

O, gentle son, Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper,— filed under Patience

This is the very coinage of your brain: This bodiless creation ecstacy Is very cunning in.— filed under Phantasy

Blest are those, Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled, That they are not a pipe for Fortune's finger, To sound what stop she please.— filed under Phantasy

Govern these ventages with your fingers and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most excellent music.— filed under Piping

Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me. You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass: and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ; yet cannot you make it speak. 'Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played upon than a pipe?— filed under Piping

The play's the thing, Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.— filed under Plays

Good, my lord, will you see the players well bestow'd? Do you hear, let them be well used; for they are the abstract, and brief chronicles, of the time: After your death, you were better have a bad epitaph, than their ill report while you live.— filed under Plays

No cataplasm so rare, Collected from all simples that have virtue Under the moon, can save the thing from death, That is but scratch'd withal.— filed under Poison

He's lov'd of the distracted multitude, Who like not in their judgment, but their eyes; And, where 'tis so, the offender's scourge is weigh'd But never the offence.— filed under Popularity

bountifully to the desirers. The rabble call him lord: And, as the world were now but to begin, Antiquity forgot, custom not known, The ratifiers and props of every word,— filed under Popularity

See, what a grace was seated on this brow: Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself; An eye like Mars to threaten and command; A station, like the herald Mercury, New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill A combination, and a form, indeed, Where every god did seem to set his seal, To give the world assurance of a man.— filed under Portrait

What, if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord, Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff, That beetles o'er his base into the sea? And there assume some other horrible form, Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason, And draw you into madness? think of it: The very place puts toys of desperation, Without more motive, into every brain, That looks so many fathoms to the sea, And hears it roar beneath.— filed under Precipice

The observ'd of all observers.— filed under Pre-Eminence

Oft it chances, in particular men, That, for some vicious mole of nature in them, As, in their birth, (wherein they are not guilty, Since nature cannot choose its origin,) By the o'ergrowth of some complexion, Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason; Or by some habit, which too much o'er-leavens The form of plausive manners; - that these men,- Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect; Being nature's livery, or fortune's star, - Their virtues else, (be they as pure as grace, As infinite as man can undergo,) Shall in the general censure take corruption From that particular fault: the dram of base Doth all the noble substance often dout,— filed under Prejudice

In the most high and palmy state of Rome, A little ere the mightiest Julius fell, The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead— filed under Prodigies

Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets. Stars with trains of fire, and dews of blood, Disasters in the sun; and the moist star, Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands, Was sick almost to doomsday, with eclipse.— filed under Prodigies

Doom'd for a certain time to walk the night, And, for the day, confin'd to fast in fires, Till the foul crimes, done in my days of nature Are burnt and purg'd away.— filed under Purgatory

Why, what an ass am I!-This is most brave; That I, the son of a dear father, murder'd, Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell, Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words, And fall a cursing, like a very drab, A scullion!— filed under Railing

What is a man, If his chief good, and market of his time, Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more. Sure, He, that made us with such large discourse, Looking before, and after, gave us not That capability and god-like reason, Γo rust in us unus'd.— filed under Reason

'Fore God, my lord, well spoken; with good accent, and good discretion.— filed under Recitation

We'll have a speech straight: Come, give us a taste of your quality; come, a passionate speech.— filed under Recitation

By the lord, Horatio, these three years I have taken notice of it; the age is grown so picked, that the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, that he galls his kibe.— filed under Refinement

This gentle and unforc'd accord of Hamlet Sits smiling to my heart; in grace whereof, No jocound health, that Denmark drinks to-day, But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell; And the king's rouse the heaven shall bruit again, Respeaking earthly thunder.— filed under Regal Ceremonies

As he drains his draughts of Rhenish down, The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out, The triumph of his pledge.— filed under Regal Ceremonies

The king shall drink to Hamlet's better breath; And in the cup an union shall he throw Richer than that which four successive kings In Denmark's crown have worn;-Give me the cups And let the kettle to the trumpet speak The trumpet to the cannoneer without Shakesprarian Dictionary. The cannons to the heavens, the heavens to earth, Now the king drinks to Hamlet.— filed under Regal Ceremonies

A little more than kin, and less than kind.— filed under Relation

Remember thee? Yea, from the table of my memory I'll wipe away all trivial fond records, All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past, That youth and observation copied there ; And thy commandment all alone shall live Within the book and volume of my brain, Unmix'd with baser matter: yes, by heaven.— filed under Remembrance

Haste me to know it; that I, with wings as swift As meditation, or the thoughts of love, May sweep to my revenge.— filed under Revenge

Up, sword; and know thou a more horrid bent, When he is drunk, asleep, or in his rage; Or in the incestuous pleasures of his bed; At gaming, swearing; or about some act That has no relish of salvation in't: Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven, And that his soul may be as damn'd, and black As hell, whereto it goes.— filed under Revenge

Thou art a scholar, speak to it, Horatio.— filed under Scholar

Give it an understanding, but no tongue.— filed under Secrecy

'Tis in my memory lock'd, And you yourself shall keep the key of it.— filed under Secrecy

Be thou assur'd, if words be made of breath, And breath of life, I have no life to breathe What thou hast said to me.— filed under Secrecy

But that I am forbid To tell the secrets of my prison-house, I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word Would harrow up thy soul.— filed under Secrecy

Then if he says he loves you; It fits your wisdom so far to believe it, As he, in his particular act and place, May give his saying deed; which is no further, Than the main voice of Denmark goes withal. Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain, If with too credent ear you list his songs; Or lose your heart; or your chaste treasure open To his unmaster'd importunity.— filed under Seduction

O shame! where is thy blush?— filed under Shame

Heaven's face doth glow; Yea, this solidity and compound mass, With tristful visage, as against the doom, Is thought-sick at the act.— filed under Shame

See you now: Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth; And thus do we of wisdom and of reach, With windlaces, and with assays of bias, By indirections find directions out.— filed under Sifting

As it did seem to shatter all his bulk, And end his being.— filed under Sigiis

The whitest virtue strikes. For haply, slander, Whose whisper o'er the earth's diameter, As level as the cannon to his blank, Transports his poison'd shot, may miss our name, And hit the woundless air,— filed under Slander

When sorrows come, they come, not single spies, But in battalions.— filed under Sorrow

before. St Forth at your eyes, your spirits wildly peep.— filed under Spirits

To be, or not to be, that is the question :- Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to suffer The stings 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 sleep, to say we end The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to, -'tis 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 despis'd 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 groan and sweat under a weary life; But that the dread of something after death,- That 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,— filed under Suicide

It is a damned ghost that we have seen; And my imaginations are as foul— filed under Suspicion

ΓAINT. The dram of base Doth all the noble substance often dout To his own scandal.— filed under Tailor

Alas! how is't with you? That you do bend your eye on vacancy, And with the incorporal air do hold discourse? Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep, And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm, Your bedded hair, like life in excrements, Starts up, and stands on end.— filed under Terror

Thrice he walk'd By their oppress'd and fear suprised eyes, Within his truncheon's length; whilst they, distill'd Almost to jelly with the act of fear, Stand dumb, and speak not to him,— filed under Terror

That roars so loud and thunders in the index.— filed under Threat

Begin, murderer; - leave thy damnable faces, and begin.— filed under Tragedian

Hence, thou suborn'd informer! a true soul, When most impeacht, stands least in thy controul. Poems If circumstances lead me, I will find Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed— filed under Ruth

But virtue, as it never will be mov'd, Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven; So lust, though to a radiant angel link'd, Will sate itself in a celestial bed, And prey on garbage.— filed under Virtue

Assume a virtue, if you have it not. That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat Of habit's devil, is angel yet in this; That to the use of actions fair and good He likewise gives a frock, or livery, That aptly is put on.— filed under Virtue

Such an act, That blurs the grace and blush of modesty; Calls virtue, hypocrite; takes off the rose From the fair forehead of an innocent love, And sets a blister there; makes marriage vows As false as dicers' oaths.— filed under Vows

Upon a dwarfish thief. A vice of kings; A cut-purse of the empire and the rule; That from a shelf the precious diadem stole— filed under Vows

Two thousand souls, and twenty thousand ducats, Will not debate the question of this straw: This is the imposthume of much wealth and peace; That inward breaks, and shows no cause without, Why the man dies.— filed under War

A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. H. V.— filed under Wit

chap-fallen? Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come; make her laugh at that.— filed under Wit, Reflections On The Scull Of A

Your worm is your only emperor for diet: we fat all creatures else to fat us; and we fat ourselves for maggots: your fat king, and your lean beggar, is but variable service; two dishes, but to one table; that's the end.— filed under Worms

A man may fish with a worm that eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.— filed under Worms