Love: Quotations from Shakespearian Quotations
Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love, Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove. O no, it is an ever-fixed mark, That looks on tempests, and is never shaken It is the star to every wand'ring bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. 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. Poems To be wise, and love, exceeds man's might.— T. C. iii. 2.
Good shepherd, tell this youth what 'tis to love. It is to be all made of sighs and tears, It is to be all made of faith and service, It is to be all made of fantasy. All made of passion, and all made of wishes; All adoration, duty, and observance, All humbleness, all patience, and impatience, All purity, all trial, all observance.— A.Γ. v. 2
As love is full of unbefitting strains ; All wanton as a child, skipping, and vain; Form'd by the eye, and, therefore, like the eye, Full of strange shapes, of habits, and of forms, Varying in subjects as the eye doth roll To every varied object in his glance.— L. L. 7.2
But love, first learned in a lady's eyes, Lives not alone immured in the brain : But with the motion of all elements, Courses as swift as thought in every power; And gives to every power a double power, Above their functions and their offices. It adds a precious seeing to the eye; A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind; A lover's ear will hear the lowest sound, When the suspicious head of theft is stopp'd; Love's feeling is more soft, and sensible, Than are the tender horns of cockled snails; Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste : For valour, is not love a Hercules, Still climbing trees in the Hesperides? Subtle as Sphynx, as sweet and musical As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair; And, when love speaks, the voice of all the gods Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony. Never durst poet touch a pen to write, Until his ink were temper'd with love's sighs; ✔ then his lines would ravish savage ears, And plant in tyrants mild humility.— L. L. iv. 3
Love is a smoke rais'd with the fume of sighs; Being purg'd, a fire sparkling in a lover's eyes; Being vex'd, a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears : What is it else? a madness most discreet,— R. J. i. 1.
A choking gall, and a preserving swest Love like a shadow flies, when substance love pursues; Pursuing that that flies, and flying what pursues.— M. W. ii. 2.
Didst thou but know the inly touch of love, Thou would'st as soon go kindle fire with snow, As seek to quench the fire of love with words. T.G. ii. 7. Things base and vile, holding no quantity, Love can transpose to form and dignity. Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind: And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind; Nor hath love's mind of any judgment taste; Wings, and no eyes, figure unheedy haste; And therefore is love said to be a child, Because in choice he is so oft beguil'd.— M. N. i. 1.
Love is a familiar: love is a devil: there is no evil angel but love. Yet Sampson was so tempted; and he had an excellent strength: yet was Solomon so seduced; and he— L. I.. i 2
had a very good wit. Adieu, valour! rust, rapier! be still, drum.l for your— L. L. i. 2
manager is in love; yea, he loveth. O king, believe not this hard-hearted man; Love, loving not itself, none other can.— R. II. v. 3
O spirit of love, how quick and fresh art thou !— T. N. i. 1
Come hither, boy: If ever thou shalt love, In the sweet pangs of it, remember me; For, such as I am, all true lovers are; Unstaid and skittish in all motions else, Save in the constant image of the creature That is belov'd.— T. N. ii. 4.
It is as easy to count atomies, as to resolve the proposi tions of a lover.— A. Y. iii. 2
The strongest, love will instantly make weak: Strike the wise dumb; and teach the fool to speak. Poems Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul, But I do love thee! and when I love thee not, Chaos is come again.— 0. iii. 3
I know I love in vain, strive against hope; Yet in this captious and intenible sieve, I still pour in the waters of my love, And lack not to lose still: thus, Indian-like, Religious in mine error, I adore The sun, that looks upon his worshipper, But knows of him no more.— A. W. i. 3.
We, that are true lovers, run into strange capers; but as all is mortal in nature, so is all nature in love mortal in folly.— A. Y. ii. 4.
Love is merely a madness; and, I tell you, deserves as well a dark house and a whip, as madmen do: and the reason why they are not so punished and cured, is, that the lunacy is so ordinary, that the whippers are in love too.— A. Y. iii. 2.
O coz, coz, coz, my pretty little coz, that thou didst know how many fathom deep I am in love! But it cannot be sounded; my affection hath an unknown bottom, like the bay of Portugal.— A. Y. iv. 1.
Break an hour's promise in love!— A. Y. iv. 1.
By heaven, I do love; and it hath taught me to rhyme, and to be melancholy.— L. L. iv. 3.
If he be not in love with some woman, there is no be lieving old signs: he brushes his hat o' mornings; -what should that bode?— M. A. iii. 3.
The greatest note of it is his melancholy.— M. A. iii. 2
I found him under a tree, like a dropped acorn.— A. Y. iii. 2.
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.— H. ii. 1.
Cressid, I love thee in so strain'd a purity, That the bless'd gods-as angry with my fancy, More bright in zeal than the devotion which Cold lips blow to their deities.— T. C. iv. 4.
I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviour to love, will, after he hath laughed at such shallow follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn, by falling in love.— M. A. ii. 3
The more thou damm'st it up, the more it burns; The current, that with gentle murmur glides, Thou know'st, being stopp'd, impatiently doth rage But when his fair course is not hindered, He makes sweet music with th' enamel'd stones, Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge He overtaketh in his pilgrimage; And so, by many winding nooks, he strays,— T. G. ii. 7.
With willing sport, to the wild ocean. O, pardon me, my lord; it oft falls out. To have what we'd have, we speak not what we mean: I something do excuse the thing I hate, For his advantage that I dearly love.— M. M. ii. 4.
If I do not take pity of her, I'm a villain; if I do not love her, I am a Jew: I will go get her picture.— M. A. ii. 3.
Not only, Mistress Ford, in the simple office of love, but in all accoutrement, complement, and ceremony of it.— M. W. iv 2.
Tell her, my love, more noble than the world, Prizes not quantity of dirty lands; The parts that fortune hath bestow'd upon her, Tell her, I hold as giddily as fortune; But 'tis that miracle, and queen of gems, That nature pranks her in, attracts my soul.— T. N. ii. 4
As the most forward bud Is eaten by the canker ere it blow, Ev'n so by love the young and tender wit Is turn'd to folly; blasting in the bud, Losing his verdure even in the prime, And all the fair effects of future hopes.— T.G. i. 1
O, how this spring of love resembleth The uncertain glory of an April day; Which now shows all the beauty of the sun, And by-and-by a cloud takes all away.— T.G. i. 3
As in the sweetest bud The eating canker dwells, so eating love Inhabits in the finest wits of all.— T.G. i. 1.
Your brother and my sister no sooner met, but they looked; no sooner looked, but they loved; no sooner loved, but they sighed; no sooner sighed, but they asked one another the reason; no sooner knew the reason, but they sought the remedy: and in these degrees they have made a pair of stairs to marriage.— A.Y. v. 2.
Indeed, he was mad for her, and talk'd of Satan, and of limbo, and of furies.— A. W. v. 3.
But if thy love were ever like to mine, How many actions most ridiculous Hast thou been drawn to by thy fantasy!— A.Y. ii. 4.
He was wont to speak plain, and to the purpose, like an honest man, and a soldier; and now he has turn'd ortho grapher; his words are a very fantastical banquet, just so many strange dishes.— M. A. ii. 3
If thou remember'st not the slightest folly That ever love did make thee run into, Thou hast not lov'd.— A.Y. ii. 1
O!-And I, forsooth, in love! I, that have been love's whip; A. very beadle to a humorous sigh; A critic; nay, a night-watch constable; A domineering pedant o'er the boy, Than whom no mortal so magnificent! This wimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy; This senior-junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid; Regent of love-rhymes, lord of folded arms, The anointed sovereign of sighs and groans, Liege of all loiterers and malcontents: What? I! I love! I sue! I seek a wife! A woman, that is like a German clock, Still a repairing; ever out of frame; And never going aright, being a watch, But being watch'd that it may still go right! L. L. iii.— L. L. iii. 1.
For aught that ever I could read, Could ever hear by tale or history, The course of true love never did run smooth; But, either it was different in blood; O cross! too high to be enthrall'd to low ! Or else misgraffed, in respect of years; O spite! too old to be engag'd to young! Or else it stood upon the choice of friends: O hell! to choose love by another's eye! Or, if there were a sympathy in choice, War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it; Making it momentary as a sound, Swift as a shadow, short as any dream; Brief as the lightning in the collied night, That, in a spleen, unfold both heaven and earth, And ere a man hath power to say, -Behold! The jaws of darkness do devour it up: So quick bright things come to confusion.— M. N. i. 1
For know, Iago, But that I love the gentle Desdemona, I would not my unhoused free condition Put into circumspection and confine, For the sea's worth.— O. i. 2.
Love's reason's without reason.— Cym. iv. 2.
The gods themselves, Humbling their deities to love, have taken The shapes of beasts upon them: Jupiter Became a bull and bellow'd; the green Neptune A ram, and bleated; and the fire-rob'd god, Golden Apollo, a poor humble swain, As I seem now: Their transformations Were never for a piece of beauty, rarer; Nor in a way so chaste: since my desires Run not before mine honour.— W. T. iv. 3.
He says, he loves my daughter; I think so too; for never gaz'd the moon Upon the water, as he'll stand and read, As 'twere, my daughter's eyes: and, to be plain, I think, there is not half a kiss to choose, Who loves another best.— W. T. iv. 3
Still harping on my daughter:-yet he knew me not at first; he said, I was a fishmonger: He is far gone, far gone.— H. ii. 2.
Ever till now, When men were fond, I smil'd, and wonder'd how.— M. M. ii. 2.
All fancy-sick she is, and pale of cheer, With sighs of love.— M. N. iii. 2.
They are but beggars that can count their worth; But my true love is grown to such excess, I cannot sum up half my sum of wealth.— R. J. ii. 6.
Mine eyes Were not in fault, for she was beautiful; Mine ears, that heard her flattery; nor mine heart, That thought her like her seeming; it had been vicious To have mistrusted her.— Cym. V 5.
Soft, let us see ;- Write, "Lord have mercy upon us" on these three; They are infected, in the heart it lies; They have the plague, and caught it of your eyes.— L. L. v. 2.
A lean cheek,-a blue eye, and sunken, an unquestionable spirit, a beard neglected: -Then your hose should be ungartered, your bonnet unbanded, your sleeve unbuttoned, your shoe untied, and every thing about you demonstrating a careless desolation.— A. Y. iii. 2.
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.— H. ii. 2
O then, give pity To her, whose state is such, that cannot choose But lend and give, where she is sure to lose; That seeks not to find what her search implies, But, riddle-like, live sweetly where she dies.— A. W. i. 3.
He is far gone, far gone: and truly in my youth I suffered much extremity for love; very near this. H.ii.— H. ii. 2.
Here comes the lady.— O, so light a foot
Will ne'er wear out the everlasting flint. A lover may bestride the gossamere That idle in the wanton summer air, And yet not fall.— R. J. ii. 6.
She never told her love, But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud, Feed on her damask'd cheek: she pin'd in thought; And, with a green and yellow melancholy, She sat, like Patience on a monument, Smiling at grief.— T. N. ii. 4.
However we do praise ourselves. Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm, More longing, wavering, sooner lost and won, Than women's are.— T. N. 1.
We men may say more, swear more: but indeed, Our shows are more than will; for still we prove Much in our vows, but little in our love.— T. N. ii. 4
O, she that hath a heart of that fine frame, To pay this debt of love but to a brother, How will she love, when the rich golden shaft Hath kill'd the flock of all affections else That live in her! when liver, brain, and heart, These sovereign thrones, are all supplied and fill'd (Her sweet perfections,) with one self king!- Away before me to sweet beds of flowers; Love-thoughts lie rich, when canopied with bowers.— T. N. i. 1
In love, the heavens themselves do guide the state, Money buys lands, and wives are sold by fate. M. W. v. 5. I have done penance for contemning love; Whose high imperious thoughts have punish'd me With bitter fasts, with penitential groans, With nightly tears, and daily heart-sore sighs, For in revenge of my contempt of love, Love hath chas'd sleep from my enthralled eyes, And made them watchers of mine own heart's sorrow.— T. G. ii. 4.
I know no ways to mince it in love, but directly to say, I love you; then, if you urge me further than to say, Do you in faith? I wear out my suit. Give me your answer; i' faith do, and so clap hands, and a bargain.— H.V. v. 2.
She, sweet lady, dotes, Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry, Upon this spotted and inconstant man.— M. N. i. i
So loving to my mother, That he might not beteem the winds of heaven, Visit her face too roughly.— H. 1. 2.
Hang him, truant; there's no true drop of blood in him, to be truly touch'd with love: if he be sad, he wants money.— M. A iii. ?
Shakespearian Bictionary. Sweet love, I see, changing his property, Turas to the sourest and most deadly hate.— R. II. iii. 2
It is the show and seal of nature's truth, Where love's strong passion is impressed in youth.— A. W. i. 3.
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.— H. v. 1.
My love till death, my humble thanks, my prayers; That love, which virtue begs, and virtue grants.— H. VI. PT. III. iii. 2
Why, man, she is mine own; And I as rich in having such a jewel, As twenty seas, if all their sands were pearl, The water, nectar, and the rocks pure gold.— T.G. ii. 4.
What dangerous action, stood it next to death, Would I not undergo for one calm look? O, 'tis the curse in love, and still approv'd, When women cannot love where they're beloved. T.G. v. 4. Go to; it is a plague That Cupid will impose for my neglect Of his almighty dreadful little might. Well; I will love, write, sigh, pray, sue, and groan; Some men must love my lady, and some Joan. L. L. iii. Good Mistress Page, for that I love your daughter In such a righteous fashion as I do, Perforce, against all checks, rebukes, and manners, I must advance the colours of my love, And not retire.— M. W. iii. 4.
With adorations, and with fertile tears, With groans that thunder love, with sighs of fire. T. N. i. 5. How now? Even so quickly may one catch the plague? Methinks, I feel this youth's perfections, With an invisible and subtle stealth, To creep in at mine eyes.— T. N. i. 5.
A murd'rous guilt shows not itself more noon Than love that would seem hid; love's night is soon.— T. N. iii. 1.
Fie, Fie! how wayward is this foolish love, That, like a testy babe, will scratch the nurse, And presently, all humbled, kiss the rod!— T. G. i. 2
What? do I love her, That I desire to hear her speak again, And feast upon her eyes?— M.M. ii. 2
There's beggary in the love that can be reckon'd.— A. Ci. 1
Drawn in the flattering table of her eye! Hang'd in the frowning wrinkle of her brow! And quarter'd in her heart!— K. J. . 2
They are in the very wrath of love, and they will to they will to gether; clubs cannot part them.— A.Y. V. 2
Alas, that love, so gentle in his view, r Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof!— R. J. i. 1.
Love will suspect where is no cause of fear; And there not fear where it should most distrust. Poems. Alas, that love, whose view is muffled still, Should, without eyes, see path-ways to his will! R. J. i. 1. Were I crown'd the most imperial monarch, 'Thereof most worthy; were I the fairest youth That ever made eye swerve; had force and knowledge, More than was ever man's, -I would not prize them, Without her love: for her, employ them all; Commend them, and condemn them, to her service, Or to their own perdition.— W. T. iv. 3.
If thou be'st valiant, as (they say) base men, being in love, have then a nobility in their natures, more than is native to them, -listen to me.— 0. ii. 1.
I saw Othello's visage in his mind; And to his honours and his valiant parts, Did I my soul and fortunes consecrate.— O. i. 3.
Madam, you have bereft me of all words, Only my blood speaks to you in my veins.— M. V. iii. 2.
Thou art most rich, being poor; Most choice, forsaken; and most lov'd, despis'd. Thee and thy virtues here I seize upon.— K. L. i. 1.
In truth, fair Montague, I am too fond; And therefore thou may'st think of my 'haviour light: But trust me, gentlemen, I'll prove more true Than those that have more cunning to be strange.— R. J. ii. 2.
Ah me! how sweet is love itself possess'd, When but love's shadows are so rich in joy?— R. J. v. 1.
Love's invisible soul.— T.C. iii 1
Her virtues, graced with external gifts, Do breed love's settled passions in my heart. heart. VI. P— H. VI. PT. 1. 1. 5.
His love was an eternal plant; Whereof the root was fix'd in virtue's ground, The leaves and fruit maintain'd with beauty's sun. H. VI. PT. fit, fli. 3 First you have learn'd like Sir Proteus, to wreath your arms, like a malecontent; to relish a love-song, like a robinred-breast; to walk alone, like one that had the pestilence; to sigh, like a school-boy that had lost his ABC; to weep, like a young wench that had buried her grandam; to fast, like one that takes diet; to watch, like one that fears robbing; to speak puling, like a beggar at Hallowmas.— T. G. ii. 1
Holy St. Francis, what a change is here ! Is Rosaline, whom thou didst love so dear, So soon forsaken? Young men's love then lies Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes. Jesu Maria! what a deal of brine Hath wash'd thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline! How much salt water thrown away in waste, To season love, that of it doth not taste! The sun not yet thy sighs from heaven clears, Thy old groans ring yet in my antient ears; Lo, here upon thy cheek the stain doth sit Of an old tear that is not wash'd off yet: If e'er thou wast thyself, and these woes thine, Thou and these woes were all for Rosaline ;-— R. J. ii. 3
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,— H. iv. 7
Dies in its own too-much. O, gentle Romeo, If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully Or if thou think'st I am too quickly won, I'll frown, and be perverse, and say thee nay,— R. J. iii. 2.
So thou wilt woo: but, else, not for the world See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand! O, that I were a glove upon that hand,— R. J. ii. 2.
That I might touch that cheek! She lov'd me for the dangers I had pass'd;— 0. i. 3
And I lov'd her that she did pity them. Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love.— A. Y. iv. 1.
Ay, but hearken, Sir; though the cameleon love can feed on the air, I am one that am nourished by my victuals, and would fain have meat.— T. G. ii. 1.
Love is your master, for he masters you: And he that is so yoked by a fool Should'st not, methinks, be chronicled for wise. T. Gi.1. If it prove so, then loving goes by haps; Some Cupids kill with arrows, some with traps.— M. A. iii. 1.
For now my love is thaw'd; Which, like a waxen image 'gainst a fire, Bears no impression of the thing it was.— T. G. ii. 4.
With love's light wings did I o'er-perch these walls; For stony limits cannot hold love out.— R. J. ii. 2.
Tut, man! one fire burns out another's burning, One pain is lessen'd by another's anguish; Turn giddy, and be holp by backward turning; One desperate grief cures with another's languish : Take thou some new infection to thy eye, And the rank poison of the old will die.— R J. i. 3.
How silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night, Like softest music to attending ears !— R. J. ii. 2
O, ten times faster Venus' pigeons fly To seal love's bonds new made, than they are wont To keep obliged faith unforfeited.— M. V. ii. 6.
Time goes on crutches till love have all his rites.— M. A. ii. 1.
The wound's invisible That love's keen arrows make.— A. Y. iii. 5.
Love is not love when it is mingled with regards that stand aloof from the entire point.— K. L. i. 1.
Dove-drawn Venus.— T. iv. 1.
One woman is fair; yet I am well: another is wise; yet I am well: another is virtuous; yet I am well: but till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come into my grace. Rich she shall be, that's certain; wise, or I'll none; virtuous, or I'll never cheapen her; fair, or I'll never look on her; mild, or come not near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good discourse, an excellent musi ciar, and her hair shall be of what colour it please God.— M. A. ii. 3.
Love, Eternity Of
So that eternal love in love's fresh case, Weighs not the dust and injuries of age, Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place, But makes antiquities for aye his page: Finding the first conceit of love there bred, Where time and outward forms would show it dead. Poems
Letter
- As much love in rhyme, As would be cramm'd up in a sheet of paper, Writ on both sides the leaf, margent and all; That he was fain to seal in Cupid's name.— L. L. v. 2.
She makes it strange; but she would be best pleas'd To be so anger'd with another letter.— T. G. i. 2
'S MESSENGERS. Love's heralds should be thoughts, Which ten times faster glide than the sun's beams, Driving back shadows over low'ring hills.— R. J. ii. 5
Lovers' Poetry
Speak but one rhyme and I am satisfied; Cry but,-Ah me! couple but love and dove.— R. J. ii. 1
Woo in rhyme, like a blind harper's song. But are you so much in love as your rhymes speak?— A. Y. iii. 2
Tokens
Wear this from me; one out of suits with fortune, That could give more, but that her hand lacks means.— A. Y. i. 2.
But she so loves the token, (For he conjur'd her she would ever keep it,) That she reserves it evermore about her, To kiss and talk to.— O. iii. 3.
Sooth, when I was young, And handed love, as you do, I was wont To load my she with knacks; I would have ransack'd The pedlar's silken treasury, and have pour'd it— W. T. iv. 3
To her acceptance. Take these again; for, to the noble mind, Rich gifts wax poor, when givers prove unkind. H. iii. 1 --'s Vows (See also OATHS). Ay, springes to catch wood-cocks. I do know, When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul Lends the tongue vows: these blazes, daughter,