I do desire we may be better strangers
As You Like It, III, II
Well, ’tis no matter; honour pricks
me on. Yea, but how if honour prick me off when I
come on? how then? Can honour set to a leg? no: or
an arm? no: or take away the grief of a wound? no.
Honour hath no skill in surgery, then? no. What is
honour? a word. What is in that word honour? what
is that honour? air. A trim reckoning! Who hath it?
he that died o’ Wednesday. Doth he feel it? no.
Doth he hear it? no. ‘Tis insensible, then. Yea,
to the dead. But will it not live with the living?
no. Why? detraction will not suffer it. Therefore
I’ll none of it. Honour is a mere scutcheon: and so
ends my catechism.
Henry IV, Part I, V, I
My dear, dear Lord, The purest treasure mortal times afford Is spotless reputation; that away Men are but gilded loan or painted clay… Mine honor is my life; both grow in one; Take honor from me, and my life is done.
Richard II, I, i
Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
And all the clouds that lour’d upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;
Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
Grim-visaged war hath smooth’d his wrinkled front;
And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,
He capers nimbly in a lady’s chamber
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.
Richard III, I, i
Re-enter HORTENSIO, with his head broke
BAPTISTA
How now, my friend! why dost thou look so pale?
HORTENSIO
For fear, I promise you, if I look pale.
BAPTISTA
What, will my daughter prove a good musician?
HORTENSIO
I think she’ll sooner prove a soldier
Iron may hold with her, but never lutes.
BAPTISTA
Why, then thou canst not break her to the lute?
HORTENSIO
Why, no; for she hath broke the lute to me.
I did but tell her she mistook her frets,
And bow’d her hand to teach her fingering;
When, with a most impatient devilish spirit,
‘Frets, call you these?’ quoth she; ‘I’ll fume with them:’
And, with that word, she struck me on the head,
And through the instrument my pate made way;
And there I stood amazed for a while,
As on a pillory, looking through the lute;
While she did call me rascal fiddler
And twangling Jack; with twenty such vile terms,
As had she studied to misuse me so.
— The Taming of the Shrew, II, i
Do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me.
Hamlet, III, ii
Some men there are love not a gaping pig,
Some that are mad if they behold a cat,
And others, when the bagpipe sings i’ th’ nose,
Cannot contain their urine.
— The Merchant of Venice, IV, i.
(This passage was clearly part of Shakespeare’s dramatic strategy to make Shylock as unsympathetic as possible.)
The quality of mercy is not strained.
The Merchant of Venice, IV, i.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven.
— The Merchant of Venice , IV, i.
When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
Macbeth; I,i.
The clock struck nine when I did send the nurse;
Romeo & Juliet, II, 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:
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to 'scape the serpent’s tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call;
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, V, i
Prior to the above
I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was: man is but an ass, if he go about to expound this dream.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream , IV, i
It’s been a long dream, no, year. We can agree on that, right?
To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause:
Hamlet, III, i
Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou could’st!
— The Scots Play, II, ii
“For which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?”
Much Ado About Nothing, V, ii
"Zounds! What mounds!
From The Taming of the Shrew episode of Moonlighting.
You lie, in faith, for you are called plain Kate,
And bonny Kate and sometimes Kate the curst,
But Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom,
Kate of Kate Hall, my super-dainty Kate.
The Taming of the Shrew, II, i.
…see how she leans her cheek upon her hand! O that i were a glove upon that hand, that i might touch that cheek!
Romeo and Juliet, II, ii.
Yes, py’r lady; if he has a quarter of your coat,
there is but three skirts for yourself, in my
simple conjectures: but that is all one. If Sir
John Falstaff have committed disparagements unto
you, I am of the church, and will be glad to do my
benevolence to make atonements and compromises
between you.
The Merry Wives of Windsor, I, i