William Shakespeare - King Lear (1608)

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Contending with the fretful elements;
Bids the wind blow the earth into the sea,
Or swell the curled waters 'bove the main,
That things might change or cease.

William Shakespeare
Rumble thy bellyful! Spit, fire! Spout, rain!
Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters:
I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness.

William Shakespeare
Edmund the base
Shall top th'legitimate – : I grow, I prosper;
Now, gods, stand up for bastards!

William Shakespeare
Is man no more than this? Consider him well. Thou owest the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume. Ha! here's three on 's are sophisticated; thou art the thing itself; unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art. Off, off, you lendings! Come; unbutton here.

William Shakespeare
Now, our joy,
Although our last, not least.

William Shakespeare
Child Roland to the dark tower came,
His word was still, Fie, foh, and fum,
I smell the blood of a British man.

William Shakespeare
I will do such things,—
What they are yet I know not,—but they shall be
The terrors of the earth.

William Shakespeare
I have seen better faces in my time
Than stands on any shoulder that I see
Before me at this instant.

William Shakespeare
Mine enemy's dog,
Though he had bit me, should have stood that night
Against my fire.

William Shakespeare
Ambition, the soldier's virtue, rather makes choice of loss, than gain which darkens him.

William Shakespeare
This act is an ancient tale new told;
And, in the last repeating, troublesome,
Being urged at a time unseasonable.

William Shakespeare
They say, the tongues of dying men
Enforce attention, like deep harmony;
Where words are scarce, they're seldom spent in vain;
For they breathe truth, that breathe their words in pain.

William Shakespeare
Obey thy parents, keep thy word justly; swear not; commit not with man's sworn spouse; set not thy sweet heart on proud array. * * * Keep thy foot out of brothels, thy pen from lenders' books.

William Shakespeare
Ingrateful man with liquorish draughts, and morsels unctuous, greases his pure mind that from it all consideration slips.

William Shakespeare
Every inordinate cup is unbless'd, and the ingredient is a devil.

William Shakespeare
This is some fellow,
Who having been prais'd for bluntness, doth affect
A saucy roughness and constrains the garb
Quite from his nature: he can't flatter, he!
An honest mind and plain,--he must speak truth!
And they will take it so; if not he's plain.
These kind of knaves I know, which in this plainness
Harbor more craft, and far corrupter ends,
Than twenty silly, ducking observants,
That stretch their duty nicely.

William Shakespeare
What wouldst thou do, old man?
Think'st thou that duty shall have dread to speak
When power to flattery bows?

William Shakespeare
Myself will straight aboard, and to the state
This heavy act with heavy heart relate.

William Shakespeare
No visor does become black villainy so well as soft and tender flattery.

William Shakespeare
Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit;
All with me's meet that I can fashion fit.

William Shakespeare
Direct not him whose way himself will choose;
'Tis breath not lack'st, and that breath wilt thou lose.

William Shakespeare
For naught so vile that on the earth doth live But to the earth some special good doth give...

William Shakespeare
Alack, the night comes on, and the bleak winds
Do sorely ruffle; for many miles about
There's scarce a bush.

William Shakespeare
Be stirring as the time; be fire with fire. Threaten the threat'ner, and outface the brow Of bragging horror. So shall inferior eyes, That borrow their behaviors from the great, Grow great by your example and put on The dauntless spirit of resolution.

William Shakespeare
We are not ourselves When nature, being oppressed, commands the mind To suffer with the body.

William Shakespeare