Quotes to inspire and reflect

Praising what is lost Makes the remembrance dear.

All’s well that ends well: still the fine’s the crown; Whate’er the course, the end is the renown.

There’s place and means for every man alive.

Oft expectation fails, and most oft there Where most it promises.

A young man married is a man that’s marr’d.

My friends were poor, but honest. 41

The hind that would be mated by the lion Must die for love.

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 check’d for silence, But never tax’d for speech.

It were all one That I should love a bright particular star And think to wed it, he is so above me.

I hate ingratitude more in a man Than lying, vainness, babbling drunkenness, Or any taint of vice whose strong corruption Inhabits our frail blood.

When that I was and a little tiny boy, With hey, ho, the wind and the rain; A foolish thing was but a toy, For the rain it raineth every day. 40

Out of my lean and low ability I’ll lend you something.

Love sought is good, but giv’n unsought is better.

O! what a deal of scorn looks beautiful In the contempt and anger of his lip.

Then westward-ho!

Music from the spheres. 39

How apt the poor are to be proud.

This fellow’s wise enough to play the fool, And to do that well craves a kind of wit.

I may command where I adore.

I am all the daughters of my father’s house, And all the brothers too.

Duke: And what’s her history? Viola: A blank, my lord. She never told her love, But let concealment, like a worm i’ the bud, Feed on her damask cheek: she pin’d in thought, And with a green and yellow melancholy, She sat like Patience on a monument, Smiling at grief.

Come away, come away, death, And in sad cypress let me be laid; Fly away, fly away, breath; I am slain by a fair cruel maid.

The spinsters and the knitters in the sun, And the free maids that weave their thread with bones, Do use to chant it: it is silly sooth, And dallies with the innocence of love, Like the old age.

Then, let thy love be younger than thyself, Or thy affection cannot hold the bent; For women are as roses, whose fair flower Being once display’d, doth fall that very hour.

Let still the woman take An elder than herself, so wears she to him, So sways she level in her husband’s heart: For, boy, however we do praise ourselves, Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm, More longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn, Than women’s are.

If ever thou shalt love, In the sweet pangs of it remember me; For such as I am all true lovers are: Unstaid and skittish in all motions else Save in the constant image of the creature That is belov’d.

These most brisk and giddy-paced times.

Journeys end in lovers meeting, Every wise man’s son doth know.

What is love? ’tis not hereafter; Present mirth hath present laughter. What’s to come is still unsure: In delay there lies no plenty; Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty, Youth’s a stuff will not endure.

O mistress mine! where are you roaming?

Farewell, fair cruelty.

Holla your name to the reverberate hills, And make the babbling gossip of the air Cry out, “Olivia!”

Make me a willow cabin at your gate, And call upon my soul within the house.

When my tongue blabs, then let mine eyes not see.

’Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and white Nature’s own sweet and cunning hand laid on: Lady, you are the cruel’st she alive, If you will lead these graces to the grave And leave the world no copy.

O spirit of love! how quick and fresh art thou, That, notwithstanding thy capacity Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there, Of what validity and pitch soe’er, But falls into abatement and low price, Even in a minute: so full of shapes is fancy, That it alone is high fantastical.

If music be the food of love, 37 play on; Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die. That strain again! it had a dying fall: O! it came o’er my ear like the sweet sound That breathes upon a bank of violets, Stealing and giving odor!

Hector is dead; there is no more to say.

Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart.

The end crowns all, And that old common arbitrator, Time, Will one day end it.

What’s past and what’s to come is strew’d with husks And formless ruin of oblivion.

The kiss you take is better than you give.

Fie, fie upon her! There’s language in her eye, her cheek, her lip, Nay, her foot speaks; her wanton spirits look out At every joint and motive of her body.

And sometimes we are devils to ourselves When we will tempt the frailty of our powers, Presuming on their changeful potency.

You do as chapmen do, Dispraise the thing that you desire to buy.

My mind is troubled, like a fountain stirr’d; And I myself see not the bottom of it.

And give to dust that is a little gilt More laud than gilt o’er-dusted.

Beauty, wit, High birth, vigor of bone, desert in service, Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all To envious and calumniating time. One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.