The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (388 page)

Coriolanus
(1608) act 4, sc. 1, l. 1

62
O! a kiss
Long as my exile, sweet as my revenge!

Coriolanus
(1608) act 5, sc. 3, l. 44

63
Chaste as the icicle
That's curdied by the frost from purest snow,
And hangs on Dian's temple.

Coriolanus
(1608) act 5, sc. 3, l. 65

64
If you have writ your annals true, 'tis there,
That, like an eagle in a dove-cote, I
Fluttered your Volscians in Corioli:
Alone I did it.

Coriolanus
(1608) act 5, sc. 5, l. 114

Cymbeline
65
Boldness be my friend!
Arm me, audacity.

Cymbeline
(1609–10) act 1, sc. 6, l. 18

66
Hark! hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings.

Cymbeline
(1609–10) act 2, sc. 3, l. [22]

67
Fear no more the heat o' the sun,
Nor the furious winter's rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone and ta'en thy wages:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

Cymbeline
(1609–10) act 4, sc. 2, l. 258

68
Hang there like fruit, my soul,
Till the tree die.

Cymbeline
(1609–10) act 5, sc. 5, l. 263

Hamlet
69
You come most carefully upon your hour.

Hamlet
(1601) act 1, sc. 1, l. 6

70
For this relief much thanks.

Hamlet
(1601) act 1, sc. 1, l. 8

71
The graves stood tenantless and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets.

Hamlet
(1601) act 1, sc. 1, l. 115

72
And then it started like a guilty thing
Upon a fearful summons.

Hamlet
(1601) act 1, sc. 1, l. 148

73
Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long;
And then, they say, no spirit can walk abroad.

Hamlet
(1601) act 1, sc. 1, l. 158

74
But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,
Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill.

Hamlet
(1601) act 1, sc. 1, l. 166

75
A little more than kin, and less than kind.

Hamlet
(1601) act 1, sc. 2, l. 65

76
Not so, my lord; I am too much i' the sun.

Hamlet
(1601) act 1, sc. 2, l. 67

77
O! that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew.

Hamlet
(1601) act 1, sc. 2, l. 129

78
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world.

Hamlet
(1601) act 1, sc. 2, l. 133

79
So excellent a king; that was, to this,
Hyperion to a satyr.

Hamlet
(1601) act 1, sc. 2, l. 139

80
Frailty, thy name is woman!
A little month; or ere those shoes were old
With which she followed my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears; why she, even she,—
O God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,
Would have mourned longer.

Hamlet
(1601) act 1, sc. 2, l. 146

81
No more like my father
Than I to Hercules.

Hamlet
(1601) act 1, sc. 2, l. 152

82
It is not, nor it cannot come to good;
But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue!

Hamlet
(1601) act 1, sc. 2, l. 158

83
Thrift, thrift, Horatio! the funeral baked meats
Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.

Hamlet
(1601) act 1, sc. 2, l. 180

84
He was a man, take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again.

Hamlet
(1601) act 1, sc. 2, l. 187

85
But answer made it none.

Hamlet
(1601) act 1, sc. 2, l. 215

86
A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.

Hamlet
(1601) act 1, sc. 2, l. 231

87
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
And recks not his own rede.

Hamlet
(1601) act 1, sc. 3, l. 50

88
For the apparel oft proclaims the man.

Hamlet
(1601) act 1, sc. 3, l. 72

89
Neither a borrower, nor a lender be.

Hamlet
(1601) act 1, sc. 3, l. 75

90
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Hamlet
(1601) act 1, sc. 3, l. 78.

91
Ay, springes to catch woodcocks.

Hamlet
(1601) act 1, sc. 3, l. 115

92
It is a nipping and an eager air.

Hamlet
(1601) act 1, sc. 4, l. 2

93
But to my mind,—though I am native here,
And to the manner born,—it is a custom
More honoured in the breach than the observance.

Hamlet
(1601) act 1, sc. 4, l. 14

94
Angels and ministers of grace defend us!

Hamlet
(1601) act 1, sc. 4, l. 39

95
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

Hamlet
(1601) act 1, sc. 4, l. 90

96
List, list, O, list!

Hamlet
(1601) act 1, sc. 5, l. 13

97
I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,
Thy knotted and combinèd locks to part,
And each particular hair to stand on end,
Like quills upon the fretful porpentine.

Hamlet
(1601) act 1, sc. 5, l. 15

98
Murder most foul, as in the best it is;
But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.

Hamlet
(1601) act 1, sc. 5, l. 27

99
O my prophetic soul!
My uncle!

Hamlet
(1601) act 1, sc. 5, l. 40

100
O, horrible! O, horrible! most horrible!

Hamlet
(1601) act 1, sc. 5, l. 80

101
O villain, villain, smiling, damnèd villain!
My tables,—meet it is I set it down,
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain.

Hamlet
(1601) act 1, sc. 5, l. 106

102
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Hamlet
(1601) act 1, sc. 5, l. 166.

103
To put an antic disposition on.

Hamlet
(1601) act 1, sc. 5, l. 172

104
Rest, rest, perturbèd spirit.

Hamlet
(1601) act 1, sc. 5, l. 182

105
The time is out of joint; O cursèd spite,
That ever I was born to set it right!

Hamlet
(1601) act 1, sc. 5, l. 188

106
Brevity is the soul of wit.

Hamlet
(1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. 90

107
More matter with less art.

Hamlet
(1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. 95

108
polonius
: What do you read, my lord?
hamlet
: Words, words, words.

Hamlet
(1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. [195]

109
Though this be madness, yet there is method in't.

Hamlet
(1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. [211]

110
There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

Hamlet
(1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. [259]

111
O God! I could be bounded in a nut-shell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.

Hamlet
(1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. [263]

112
What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form, in moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not me; no, nor woman neither, though, by your smiling, you seem to say so.

Hamlet
(1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. [323]

113
I am but mad north-north-west; when the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw.

Hamlet
(1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. [405]

114
The play, I remember, pleased not the million; 'twas caviare to the general.

Hamlet
(1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. [465]

115
Use every man after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping?

Hamlet
(1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. [561]

116
O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I.

Hamlet
(1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. [584]

117
For Hecuba!
What's Hecuba to him or he to Hecuba
That he should weep for her?

Hamlet
(1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. [592]

118
The play's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.

Hamlet
(1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. [641]

119
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and, by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. 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
(1601) act 3, sc. 1, l. 56

120
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of disprized love, the law's delay…
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin?

Hamlet
(1601) act 3, sc. 1, l. 70

121
Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remembered.

Hamlet
(1601) act 3, sc. 1, l. 89

122
Get thee to a nunnery.

Hamlet
(1601) act 3, sc. 1, l. [124]

123
Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery, go; farewell.

Hamlet
(1601) act 3, sc. 1, l. [142]

124
I say, we will have no more marriages.

Hamlet
(1601) act 3, sc. 1, l. [156]

125
O! what a noble mind is here o'erthrown:
The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword;
The expectancy and rose of the fair state,
The glass of fashion, and the mould of form,
The observèd of all observers, quite, quite, down!

Hamlet
(1601) act 3, sc. 1, l. [159]