Quotes to inspire and reflect

So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.

Lord, what fools these mortals be!

Though she be but little, she is fierce.

Night and silence! who is here? Weeds of Athens he doth wear.

As a surfeit of the sweetest things The deepest loathing to the stomach brings.

The clamorous owl, that nightly hoots, and wonders At our quaint spirits.

You spotted snakes with double tongue, Thorny hedge-hogs, be not seen; Newts, and blind-worms, do no wrong; Come not near our fairy queen.

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: There sleeps Titania some time of the night, Lull’d in these flowers with dances and delight; And there the snake throws her enamell’d skin, Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in.

Some to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds, Some war with rere-mice for their leathern wings, To make my small elves coats.

For you in my respect are all the world: Then how can it be said I am alone, When all the world is here to look on me?

I’ll put a girdle round about the earth In forty minutes.

And the imperial votaress passed on, In maiden meditation, fancy-free. Yet mark’d I where the bolt of Cupid fell: It fell upon a little western flower, Before milk-white, now purple with love’s wound, And maidens call it, Love-in-idleness.

Since once I sat upon a promontory, And heard a mermaid on a dolphin’s back Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath, That the rude sea grew civil at her song, And certain stars shot madly from their spheres To hear the sea-maid’s music.

These are the forgeries of jealousy.

Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.

I am that merry wanderer of the night. I jest to Oberon, and make him smile When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile, Neighing in likeness of a filly foal: And sometimes lurk I in a gossip’s bowl, In very likeness of a roasted crab.

I must go seek some dew drops here, And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear.

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is wing’d Cupid painted blind. 9

Over hill, over dale, Thorough bush, thorough brier, Over park, over pale, Thorough flood, thorough fire.

Could ever hear by tale or history, The course of true love never did run smooth.

Swift as a shadow, short as any dream, Brief as the lightning in the collied night, That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth, And ere a man hath power to say, “Behold!” The jaws of darkness do devour it up: So quick bright things come to confusion.

To live a barren sister all your life, Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon.

Mount, mount, my soul! thy seat is up on high, Whilst my gross flesh sinks downward, here to die.

This music mads me: let it sound no more.

I wasted time, and now doth time waste me; For now hath time made me his numbering clock: My thoughts are minutes.

As in a theater, the eyes of men, After a well-grac’d actor leaves the stage, Are idly bent on him that enters next, Thinking his prattle to be tedious.

When time is broke and no proportion kept! So is it in the music of men’s lives.

A mockery king of snow.

Showing an outward pity.

You may my glories and my state depose, But not my griefs; still am I king of those.

Now is this golden crown like a deep well That owes two buckets filling one another; The emptier ever dancing in the air, The other down, unseen and full of water: That bucket down and full of tears am I, Drinking my griefs, whilst you mount up on high.

Peace shall go sleep with Turks and infidels.

So Judas did to Christ: but he, in twelve, Found truth in all but one; I, in twelve thousand, none. God save the king! Will no man say, amen?

And my large kingdom for a little grave, A little little grave, an obscure grave.

His body to that pleasant country’s earth, And his pure soul unto his captain Christ, Under whose colors he had fought so long.

I’ll give my jewels for a set of beads, My gorgeous palace for a hermitage, My gay apparel for an almsman’s gown.

As is my grief, or lesser than my name, Or that I could forget what I have been, Or not remember what I must be now.

Comes at the last, and with a little pin Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!

He is come to open The purple testament of bleeding war.

Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs; Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth; Let’s choose executors and talk of wills.

And nothing can we call our own but death, And that small model of the barren earth Which serves as paste and cover to our bones. For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground And tell sad stories of the death of kings: How some have been depos’d, some slain in war, Some haunted by the ghosts they have depos’d, Some poison’d by their wives, some sleeping kill’d; All murder’d: for within the hollow crown That rounds the mortal temples of a king Keeps Death his court.

O! call back yesterday, bid time return.

The worst is death, and death will have his day.

Eating the bitter bread of banishment.

Not all the water in the rough rude sea Can wash the balm from an anointed king.

Things past redress are now with me past care.

I see thy glory like a shooting star Fall to the base earth from the firmament.

Grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle.