Quotes to inspire and reflect

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

O sleep! O gentle sleep! 21 Nature’s soft nurse, how have I frighted thee, That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down And steep my senses in forgetfulness?

With all appliances and means to boot.

He was indeed the glass Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves.

And let the welkin roar.

A habitation giddy and unsure Hath he that buildeth on the vulgar heart.

Past and to come seem best; things present worst.

Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news Hath but a losing office, and his tongue Sounds ever after as a sullen bell, Remember’d knolling a departing friend.

Who lin’d himself with hope, Eating the air on promise of supply.

Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless, So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone, Drew Priam’s curtain in the dead of night, And would have told him half his Troy was burn’d.

Rumor is a pipe Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures, And of so easy and so plain a stop That the blunt monster with uncounted heads, The still-discordant wavering multitude, Can play upon it.

Why, then the world’s mine oyster, Which I with sword will open.

O, what a world of vile ill-favor’d faults Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year!

A light wife doth make a heavy husband.

These blessed candles of the night.

How many things by season season’d are To their right praise and true perfection!

This night methinks is but the daylight sick.

How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not mov’d with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; The motions of his spirit are dull as night, And his affections dark as Erebus: Let no such man be trusted.

I am never merry when I hear sweet music.

He is well paid that is well satisfied.

You take my house when you do take the prop That doth sustain my house; you take my life When you do take the means whereby I live.

A Daniel, still say I; a second Daniel! I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word.

An upright judge, a learned judge!

Now, infidel, I have thee on the hip.

For herein Fortune shows herself more kind Than is her custom: it is still her use To let the wretched man outlive his wealth, To view with hollow eye and wrinkled brow An age of poverty.

I have a daughter; Would any of the stock of Barabbas Had been her husband rather than a Christian!

’Tis not in the bond.

Is it so nominated in the bond?

How much more elder art thou than thy looks!

A Daniel come to judgment! yea, a Daniel!

To hold opinion with Pythagoras, That souls of animals infuse themselves Into the trunks of men. 18

To do a great right, do a little wrong.

The weakest kind of fruit Drops earliest to the ground.

What! wouldst thou have a serpent sting thee twice?

A harmless necessary cat.

Bassanio: Do all men kill the things they do not love? Shylock: Hates any man the thing he would not kill?

Some men there are love not a gaping pig; Some, that are mad if they behold a cat.

Thou call’dst me dog before thou hadst a cause, But, since I am a dog, beware my fangs.

An unlesson’d girl, unschool’d, unpractic’d; Happy in this, she is not yet so old But she may learn.

Here are a few of the unpleasant’st words That ever blotted paper.

How all the other passions fleet to air, As doubtful thoughts, and rash-embrac’d despair, And shuddering fear, and green-ey’d jealousy.

The seeming truth which cunning times put on To entrap the wisest.

There is no vice so simple but assumes Some mark of virtue on his outward parts.

In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt But, being season’d with a gracious voice, Obscures the show of evil?

Tell me where is fancy bred, Or in the heart or in the head? How begot, how nourished? Reply, reply.

Makes a swanlike end, Fading in music.

There’s something tells me, but it is not love, I would not lose you; and you know yourself, Hate counsels not in such a quality.