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Quotes by Dramatist

"Our reasons are not prophets When oft our fancies are."

"I do believe you think what now you speak,But what we do determine oft we break.Purpose is but the slave to memory,Of violent birth, but poor validity,Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree,But fall, unshaken, when they mellow be.Most necessary 'tis that we forgetTo pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt.What to ourselves in passion we propose,The passion ending, doth the purpose lose."

"From too much liberty, my Lucio, libertyAs surfeit is the father of much fast,So every scope of the immoderate useTurns to restraint. Our natures do pursue, -Like rats that ravin down their proper bane, - A thirsty evil; and when we drink we die."

"Is it not strange that desire should so many years outlive performance?"

"What is virtue but the Trade Unionism of the married?"

"Go to you bosom: Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know."

"Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove. O no, it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wand'ring barque, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved."

"BOYETA mark! O, mark but that mark! A mark, says my lady!Let the mark have a prick in't, to mete at, if it may be.MARIAWide o' the bow hand! i' faith, your hand is out.COSTARDIndeed, a' must shoot nearer, or he'll ne'er hit the clout.BOYETAn if my hand be out, then belike your hand is in.COSTARDThen will she get the upshoot by cleaving the pin.MARIACome, come, you talk greasily; your lips grow foul.COSTARDShe's too hard for you at pricks, sir: challenge her to bowl.BOYETI fear too much rubbing. Good night, my good owl.Exeunt BOYET and MARIA."

"When there is no peril in the fight there is no glory in the triumph."

"My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;Coral is far more red than her lips' red;If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,But no such roses see I in her cheeks;And in some perfumes is there more delightThan in the breath that from my mistress reeks.I love to hear her speak, yet well I knowThat music hath a far more pleasing sound;I grant I never saw a goddess go;My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground: And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare."

"To hold as 't were the mirror up to nature."
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