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Advice: Quotations from Shakespearian Quotations

Fasten your ear to my advisings.— M. M. iii 1.

Obey thy parents; keep thy word justly; swear not; commit not with man's sworn spouse; set not thy sweet heart on proud array.— K. L. iii 4.

Take heed, be wary how you place your words.— H. VI. PT. 1. iii. 2.

Let go thy hold, when a great wheel runs down a hill, lest it break thy neck with following it; but the great one that goes up the hill, let him draw thee after. When a wise man gives thee better counsel, give me mine again.— K. L. ii. 4.

Pray be counsel'd: I have a heart as little apt as yours, But yet a brain, that leads my use of anger To better 'vantage.— C. iii. 2.

Love all, trust a few, Do wrong to none: be able for thine enemy Rather in power than use; and keep thy friend Under thy own life's key: be check'd for silence, But never tax'd for speech.— A. W. i. 1

Keep thy pen from lenders' books, and defy the foul defy fiend.— K. L. iii. 4.

Let not the creaking of shoes, nor the rustling of silks, betray thy poor heart to women.— K. L. iii. 4.

To A Young Woman

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;— H. i. 3

Youth to itself rebels, though none else near.

To A Young Man

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.— H. i. &

Farewell:-my blessing season this in thee!

To A Statesman

Mark but my fall, and that that ruin'd me. Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition; By that sin fell the angels; how can man then, The image of his Maker, hope to win by't? Love thyself last; cherish those hearts that hate thee: Corruption wins not more than honesty. Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace, To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not: Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's, Thy God's, and truth's; then if thou fall'st, O Cromwell, Thou fall'st a blessed martyr.— H. VIII. iii. 2

Adulation

You shout me forth In acclamations hyperbolical; As if I lov'd my little should be dieted In praises sauc'd with lies.