Shakespeare
- Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. (Macbeth)
- Oh, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth, that I am meek and gentle with these butchers! (Julius Caesar)
- Hamlet, Prince of Denmark: A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of a fish that hath fed of that worm.
Claudius - The King: What dost thou mean by this?
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark: Nothing. But to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar. (Hamlet) - Shylock: If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? (Merchant of Venice)
- Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings. (Sonnet 29) - We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day. (Henry V) - If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber’d here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend:
If you pardon we will mend.
Else the Puck a liar call.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends. (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) - We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep. (The Tempest) - What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. (Romeo & Juliet)
- Time, force and death,
Do to this body what extremity you can;
But the strong base and building of my love
Is as the very centre of the earth,
Drawing all things to it. (Troilus and Cressida) - Vengeance is in my heart, death in my hand, Blood and revenge are hammering in my head. (Titus Andronicus)
- The quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
'T is mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown:
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthronèd in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself; (The Merchant of Venice)