Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare by William Shakespeare (book recommendations .txt) 📖

It — II. 1.

 

That, Sir, which serves and seeks for gain, And follows but for form, Will pack, when it begins to rain, And leave thee in the storm.

King Lear — II. 4.

 

Ah! when the means are gone, that buy this praise, The breath is gone whereof this praise is made: Feast won—fast lost; one cloud of winter showers, These flies are couched.

Timon of Athens — II. 2.

 

ADVICE TO A SON LEAVING HOME.

Give thy thoughts no tongue, Nor any unproportioned 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 hooks of steel; But do not dull thy palm with entertainment Of each new-hatched, unfledged comrade. Beware Of entrance to a quarrel: but, being in, Bear it, that the opposer may beware of thee. Give every 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 expressed in fancy: rich, not gaudy: For the apparel oft proclaims the man; And they in France, of the best rank and station, Are most select and generous, chief in that. 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 ownself be true; And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Hamlet — I. 3.

 

AGE.

My May of life Is fallen into the sear, the yellow leaf: And that which should accompany old age, As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends, I must not look to have; but, in their stead, Curses not loud, but deep, mouth-honor, breath, Which the poor heart would feign deny, but dare not.

Macbeth — V. 3.

 

AMBITION.

Dreams, indeed, are ambition; for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream. And I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality, that it is but a shadow’s shadow.

Hamlet — II 2.

 

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.

King Henry VIII. — III. 2.

 

ANGER.

Anger is like A full-hot horse, who being allowed his way, Self-mettle tires him.

King Henry VIII. — I. 1.

 

ARROGANCE.

There are a sort of men, whose visages Do cream and mantle like a standing pond, And do a willful stillness entertain, With purpose to be dressed in an opinion Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit, As who should say, ” I am Sir Oracle, And when I ope my lips, let no dog bark!” O! my Antonio, I do know of these That therefore are reputed wise For saying nothing, when, I am sure, If they should speak, would almost dam those ears, Which, hearing them, would call their brothers fools.

The Merchant of Venice — I. 1.

 

AUTHORITY.

Thou hast seen a farmer’s dog bark at a beggar? And the creature run from the cur? There thou might’st behold the great image of authority a dog’s obeyed in office.

King Lear — IV. 6.

 

Could great men thunder As Jove himself does, Jove would ne’er be quiet, For every pelting, petty officer Would use his heaven for thunder: nothing but thunder— Merciful heaven! Thou rather, with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt, Splitt’st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak, Than the soft myrtle!—O, but man, proud man! Drest in a little brief authority — Most ignorant of what he’s most assured, His glassy essence,—like an angry ape, Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven, As make the angels weep.

Measure for Measure — II. 2.

 

BEAUTY.

The hand, that hath made you fair, hath made you good: the goodness, that is cheap in beauty, makes beauty brief in goodness; but grace, being the soul of your complexion, should keep the body of it ever fair.

Measure for Measure — III. 1.

 

BLESSINGS UNDERVALUED.

It so falls out That what we have we prize not to the worth, Whiles we enjoy it; but being lacked and lost, Why, then we rack the value; then we find The virtue, that possession would not show us Whiles it was ours.

Much Ado About Nothing — IV. 1.

 

BRAGGARTS.

It will come to pass, That every braggart shall be found an ass.

All’s Well that Ends Well — IV. 3.

 

They that have the voice of lions, and the act of bares, are they not monsters?

Troilus and Cressida — III. 2.

 

CALUMNY.

Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny.

Hamlet — III. 1.

 

No might nor greatness in mortality Can censure ‘scape; back-wounding calumny The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong, Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue?

Measure for Measure — III. 2.

 

CEREMONY.

Ceremony Was but devised at first, to set a gloss On faint deeds, hollow welcomes. Recanting goodness, sorry ere ‘tis shown; But where there is true friendship, there needs none.

Timon of Athens — I. 2.

 

COMFORT.

Men Can counsel, and speak comfort to that grief Which they themselves not feel; but tasting it, Their counsel turns to passion, which before Would give preceptial medicine to rage, Fetter strong madness in a silken thread, Charm ache with air, and agony with words: No, no; ‘tis all men’s office to speak patience To those that wring under the load of sorrow; But no man’s virtue, nor sufficiency, To be so moral, when he shall endure The like himself.

Much Ado About Nothing — V. 1.

 

Well, every one can master a grief, but he that has it.

Idem — II.

 

COMPARISON.

When the moon shone, we did not see the candle. So doth the greater glory dim the less; A substitute shines brightly as a king, Until a king be by; and then his state Empties itself, as does an inland brook Into the main of waters.

Merchant of Venice — V. 1.

 

CONSCIENCE.

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.

Hamlet — III. 1.

 

CONTENT.

My crown is in my heart, not on my head; Not decked with diamonds and Indian stones, Nor to be seen; my crown is called “content”; A crown it is, that seldom kings enjoy.

King Henry VI., Part 3d - III. 1.

 

CONTENTION.

How, in one house, Should many people, under two commands, Hold amity?

King Lear — II. 4.

 

When two authorities are set up, Neither supreme, how soon confusion May enter twixt the gap of both, and take The one by the other.

Coriolanus — III. 1.

 

CONTENTMENT.

‘Tis better to be lowly born, And range with humble livers in content, Than to be perked up in a glistering grief, And wear a golden sorrow.

King Henry VIII. — II. 3.

 

COWARDS.

Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once.

Julius Caesar — II. 2.

 

CUSTOM.

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: Refrain to-night: And that shall lend a kind of easiness To the next abstinence: the next more easy: For use almost can change the stamp of nature, And either curb the devil, or throw him out With wondrous potency.

Hamlet — III. 4.

 

A custom More honored in the breach, then the observance.

Idem — I. 4.

 

DEATH.

Kings, and mightiest potentates, must die; For that’s the end of human misery.

King Henry VI., Part 1st — III. 2.

 

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.

Julius Caesar — II. 2.

 

The dread of something after death, Makes us rather bear those ills we have, Than fly to others we know not of.

Hamlet — III. 1.

 

The sense of death is most in apprehension.

Measure for Measure — III. 1.

 

By medicine life may be prolonged, yet death Will seize the doctor too.

Cymbeline — V. 5.

 

DECEPTION.

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose. An evil soul, producing holy witness, Is like a villain with a smiling cheek; A goodly apple rotten at the heart; O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!

Merchant of Venice — I. 3.

 

DEEDS.

Foul deeds will rise, Though all the earth o’erwhelm them to men’s eyes.

Hamlet — I. 2.

 

How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds, Makes deeds ill done!

King John — IV. 2.

 

DELAY.

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 sigh, That hurts by easing.

Hamlet — IV. 7.

 

DELUSION.

For love of grace, Lay not that flattering unction to your soul; It will but skin and film the ulcerous place; Whiles rank corruption, mining all within, Infects unseen.

Hamlet — III. 4.

 

DISCRETION.

Let’s teach ourselves that honorable stop, Not to outsport discretion.

Othello — II. 3.

 

DOUBTS AND FEARS.

I am cabin’d, cribb’d, confined, bound in To saucy doubts and fears.

Macbeth — III. 4.

 

DRUNKENNESS.

Boundless intemperance. In nature is a tyranny; it hath been Th’ untimely emptying of the happy throne, And fall of many kings.

Measure for Measure — I. 3.

 

DUTY OWING TO OURSELVES AND OTHERS.

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 checked for silence, But never taxed for speech.

All’s Well that Ends Well — I. 1.

 

EQUIVOCATION.

But yet I do not like but yet, it does allay The good precedence; fye upon but yet: But yet is as a gailer to bring forth Some monstrous malefactor.

Antony and Cleopatra — II. 5.

 

EXCESS.

A surfeit of the sweetest things The deepest loathing to the stomach brings.

Midsummer Night’s Dream — II. 3.

 

Every inordinate cup is unblessed, and the ingredient is a devil.

Othello — II. 3.

 

FALSEHOOD.

Falsehood, cowardice, and poor descent, Three things that women hold in hate.

Two Gentlemen of Verona — III. 2.

 

FEAR.

Fear frames disorder, and disorder wounds Where it should guard.

King Henry VI., Part 2d — V. 2.

 

Fear, and be slain; no worse can come, to fight: And fight and die, is death destroying death; Where fearing dying, pays death servile breath.

King Richard II. — III. 2.

 

FEASTS.

Small cheer, and great welcome, makes a merry feast.

Comedy of Errors — III. 1.

 

FILIAL INGRATITUDE.

Ingratitude! Thou marble-hearted fiend, More hideous, when thou showest thee in a child, Than the sea-monster.

King Lear — I. 4.

 

How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is To have a thankless child

Idem — I. 4.

 

FORETHOUGHT.

Determine on some