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Quotes by Dramatist

"When we are happy, we are always good, but when we are good, we are not always happy."

"What a man believes may be ascertained, not from his creed, but from the assumptions on which he habitually acts."

"Thus weary of the world, away she hies,And yokes her silver doves; by whose swift aidTheir mistress mounted through the empty skiesIn her light chariot quickly is convey'd;Holding their course to Paphos, where their queenMeans to immure herself and not be seen."

"Come on then, I will swear to study soTo know the thing I am forbid to know- Berowne."

"A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell."

"Utility is the great idol of the age, to which all powers must do service and all talents swear allegiance."

"Mistrust of good success hath done this deed.O hateful error, Melancholy's child,Why dost thou show to the apt thoughts of menThe things that are not? O Error, soon concieved,Thou never com'st unto a happy birth,But kill'st the mother that engendered thee."

"Crying is for plain women. Pretty women go shopping."

"I never asked to be a king: it was pushed on me. So if you are going to say 'Son of St Louis: gird on the sword of your ancestors, and lead us to victory' you may spare your breath to cool your porridge; for I cannot do it. I am not built that way; and there is an end of it."

"MRS PEARCE. Mr Higgins: youre tempting the girl. It's not right. She should think of the future.HIGGINS. At her age! Nonsense! Time enough to think of the future when you havnt any future to think of."

"Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes."

"What win I, if I gain the thing I seek?A dream, a breath, a froth of fleeting joy.Who buys a minute's mirth to wail a week?Or sells eternity to get a toy?For one sweet grape who will the vine destroy?Or what fond beggar, but to touch the crown,Would with the sceptre straight be strucken down?"

"This is true joy of life-being used for a purpose that is recognized by yourself as a mighty one ... instead of being a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy."

"But hear thee, Gratiano:Thou art too wild, too rude, and bold of voice - Parts that become thee happily enough,And in such eyes as ours appear no faults,But where thou art not known, why, there they show Something too liberal."

"Spontaneity is a meticulously prepared art."

"You can always tell an old soldier by the inside of his holsters and cartridge boxes. The young ones carry pistols and cartridges; the old ones, grub."
Old,

"To die, is to be banish'd from myself; And Silvia is myself: banish'd from her, Is self from self: a deadly banishment! What light is light, if Silvia be not seen? What joy is joy, if Silvia be not by? Unless it be to think that she is by, And feed upon the shadow of perfection.Except I be by Silvia in the night, There is no music in the nightingale; Unless I look on Silvia in the day, There is no day for me to look upon; She is my essence, and I leave to be, If I be not by her fair influence Foster'd, illumin'd, cherish'd, kept alive."

"For each man kills the thing he loves yet each man does not diehe does not die a death of shame on a day of dark disgracenor have a noose about his neck, nor a cloth upon his facenor drop feet foremost through the floor into an empty spaceHe does not sit with silent men who watch him night and dayWho watch him when he tries to weep and when he tries to prayWho watch him lest himself should rob the prison of its prey."

"Wooing, wedding, and repenting is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinque-pace: the first suit is hot and hasty like a Scotch jig--and full as fantastical; the wedding, mannerly modest, as a measure, full of state and ancientry; and then comes repentance and with his bad legs falls into the cinque-pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave."

"Experience is by industry achiev'd,And perfected by the swift course of time."

"He eats nothing but doves, love, and that breeds hot blood, and hot blood beget hot thoughts, and hot thoughts beget hot deeds, and hot deeds is love."

"Fondling,' she saith, 'since I have hemm'd thee here Within the circuit of this ivory pale, I'll be a park, and thou shalt be my deer; Feed where thou wilt, on mountain or in dale: Graze on my lips, and if those hills be dry, Stray lower, where the pleasant fountains lie."

"And to the little Squirrel who lived in the fir-tree, and was lonely, he said, 'Where is my mother?' And the Squirrel answered, 'Thou hast slain mine. Dost thou seek to slay thine also?"

"Political necessities sometime turn out to be political mistakes."
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