The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (393 page)
Read The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Online
Authors: Elizabeth Knowles
Macbeth
(1606) act 5, sc. 5, l. 16
Macduff was from his mother's womb
Untimely ripped.
Macbeth
(1606) act 5, sc. 7, l. 44
Lay on, Macduff;
And damned be him that first cries, "Hold, enough!"
Macbeth
(1606) act 5, sc. 7, l. 62
423
And liberty plucks justice by the nose.
Measure for Measure
(1604) act 1, sc. 3, l. 29
A man whose blood
Is very snow-broth.
Measure for Measure
(1604) act 1, sc. 4, l. 57
O! it is excellent
To have a giant's strength, but it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant.
Measure for Measure
(1604) act 2, sc. 2, l. 107
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
(1604) act 2, sc. 2, l. 117
Be absolute for death; either death or life
Shall thereby be the sweeter.
Measure for Measure
(1604) act 3, sc. 1, l. 5
If I must die,
I will encounter darkness as a bride,
And hug it in mine arms.
Measure for Measure
(1604) act 3, sc. 1, l. 81
claudio
: Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;
To lie in cold obstruction and to rot.
Measure for Measure
(1604) act 3, sc. 1, l. 116
There, at the moated grange, resides this dejected Mariana.
Measure for Measure
(1604) act 3, sc. 1, l. [279].
431
God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man.
The Merchant of Venice
(1596–8) act 1, sc. 2, l. [59]
I will buy with you, sell with you, talk with you, walk with you, and so following; but I will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray with you. What news on the Rialto?
The Merchant of Venice
(1596–8) act 1, sc. 3, l. [36]
If I can catch him once upon the hip,
I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him.
The Merchant of Venice
(1596–8) act 1, sc. 3, l. [47]
The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
The Merchant of Venice
(1596–8) act 1, sc. 3, l. [99]
Still have I borne it with a patient shrug,
For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe.
The Merchant of Venice
(1596–8) act 1, sc. 3, l. [110]
You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog,
And spit upon my Jewish gabardine.
The Merchant of Venice
(1596–8) act 1, sc. 3, l. [112]
It is a wise father that knows his own child.
The Merchant of Venice
(1596–8) act 2, sc. 2, l. [83]
Truth will come to light; murder cannot be hid long.
The Merchant of Venice
(1596–8) act 2, sc. 2, l. [86]
My daughter! O my ducats! O my daughter!
The Merchant of Venice
(1596–8) act 2, sc. 8, l. 15
The portrait of a blinking idiot.
The Merchant of Venice
(1596–8) act 2, sc. 9, l. 54
Let him look to his bond.
The Merchant of Venice
(1596–8) act 3, sc. 1, l. [51]
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?
The Merchant of Venice
(1596–8) act 3, sc. 1, l. [69]
The villainy you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.
The Merchant of Venice
(1596–8) act 3, sc. 1, l. [76]
He makes a swan-like end,
Fading in music.
The Merchant of Venice
(1596–8) act 3, sc. 2, l. 44
Tell me where is fancy bred.
Or in the heart or in the head?
The Merchant of Venice
(1596–8) act 3, sc. 2, l. 63
…An unlessoned girl, unschooled, unpractised;
Happy in this, she is not yet so old
But she may learn; happier than this,
She is not bred so dull but she can learn.
The Merchant of Venice
(1596–8) act 3, sc. 2, l. 160
I am a tainted wether of the flock,
Meetest for death: the weakest kind of fruit
Drops earliest to the ground.
The Merchant of Venice
(1596–8) act 4, sc. 1, l. 114
I never knew so young a body with so old a head.
The Merchant of Venice
(1596–8) act 4, sc. 1, l. [163]
The quality of mercy is not strained,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath.
The Merchant of Venice
(1596–8) act 4, sc. 1, l. [182]
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That in the course of justice none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy,
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy.
The Merchant of Venice
(1596–8) act 4, sc. 1, l. [197]
Wrest once the law to your authority:
To do a great right, do a little wrong.
The Merchant of Venice
(1596–8) act 4, sc. 1, l. [215]
A Daniel come to judgement! yea, a Daniel!
The Merchant of Venice
(1596–8) act 4, sc. 1, l. [223]
The court awards it, and the law doth give it.
The Merchant of Venice
(1596–8) act 4, sc. 1, l. [301]
He is well paid that is well satisfied.
The Merchant of Venice
(1596–8) act 4, sc. 1, l. [416]
The moon shines bright: in such a night as this…
Troilus methinks mounted the Troyan walls,
And sighed his soul toward the Grecian tents,
Where Cressid lay that night.
The Merchant of Venice
(1596–8) act 5, sc. 1, l. 1
In such a night
Stood Dido with a willow in her hand
Upon the wild sea-banks, and waft her love
To come again to Carthage.
The Merchant of Venice
(1596–8) act 5, sc. 1, l. 9
How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears; soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony.
The Merchant of Venice
(1596–8) act 5, sc. 1, l. 54
Look, how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold.
The Merchant of Venice
(1596–8) act 5, sc. 1, l. 58
How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
The Merchant of Venice
(1596–8) act 5, sc. 1, l. 90
460
Why, then the world's mine oyster,
Which I with sword will open.
The Merry Wives of Windsor
(1597) act 2, sc. 2, l. 2
There is divinity in odd numbers, either in nativity, chance or death.
The Merry Wives of Windsor
(1597) act 5, sc. 1, l. 3
462
The course of true love never did run smooth.
A Midsummer Night's Dream
(1595–6) act 1, sc. 1, l. 134
So quick bright things come to confusion.
A Midsummer Night's Dream
(1595–6) act 1, sc. 1, l. 149
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.
A Midsummer Night's Dream
(1595–6) act 1, sc. 1, l. 234
I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat in, to make all split.
A Midsummer Night's Dream
(1595–6) act 1, sc. 2, l. [31]
I will roar you as gently as any sucking dove; I will roar you as 'twere any nightingale.
A Midsummer Night's Dream
(1595–6) act 1, sc. 2, l. [85]
Pyramus is a sweet-faced man; a proper man, as one shall see in a summer's day.
A Midsummer Night's Dream
(1595–6) act 1, sc. 2, l. [89]
Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire.
A Midsummer Night's Dream
(1595–6) act 2, sc. 1, l. 2
I must go seek some dew-drops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.
A Midsummer Night's Dream
(1595–6) act 2, sc. 1, l. 14
Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.
A Midsummer Night's Dream
(1595–6) act 2, sc. 1, l. 60
The nine men's morris is filled up with mud.
A Midsummer Night's Dream
(1595–6) act 2, sc. 1, l. 98
The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts
Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose.
A Midsummer Night's Dream
(1595–6) act 2, sc. 1, l. 107
I'll put a girdle round about the earth
In forty minutes.
A Midsummer Night's Dream
(1595–6) act 2, sc. 1, l. 175
I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine.
A Midsummer Night's Dream
(1595–6) act 2, sc. 1, l. 249
You spotted snakes with double tongue,
Thorny hedge-hogs, be not seen.
A Midsummer Night's Dream
(1595–6) act 2, sc. 2, l. 9
Weaving spiders come not here;
Hence you long-legged spinners, hence!
A Midsummer Night's Dream
(1595–6) act 2, sc. 2, l. 20
Look in the almanack; find out moonshine, find out moonshine.
A Midsummer Night's Dream
(1595–6) act 3, sc. 1, l. [55]
What hempen home-spuns have we swaggering here,
So near the cradle of the fairy queen?
A Midsummer Night's Dream
(1595–6) act 3, sc. 1, l. [82]
Lord, what fools these mortals be!
A Midsummer Night's Dream
(1595–6) act 3, sc. 2, l. 115
She was a vixen when she went to school:
And though she be but little, she is fierce.
A Midsummer Night's Dream
(1595–6) act 3, sc. 2, l. 324
Ghosts, wandering here and there,
Troop home to churchyards.
A Midsummer Night's Dream
(1595–6) act 3, sc. 2, l. 381
Let us have the tongs and the bones.
A Midsummer Night's Dream
(1595–6) act 4, sc. 1, l. [33]