Over 40,000 Famous Quotes Sorted By Topic and Author

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet Are of imagination all compact: One sees more devils than vast hell can hold, That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic, Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt: The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven; And as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name. Such tricks hath strong imagination, That if it would but apprehend some joy, It comprehends some bringer of that joy; Or in the night, imagining some fear, How easy is a bush supposed a bear! -A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act v. Sc. 1.

For never anything can be amiss, When simpleness and duty tender it. -A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act v. Sc. 1.

The true beginning of our end. -A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act v. Sc. 1.

The best in this kind are but shadows. -A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act v. Sc. 1.

A very gentle beast, and of a good conscience. -A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act v. Sc. 1.

This passion, and the death of a dear friend, would go near to make a man look sad. -A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act v. Sc. 1.

The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve. -A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act v. Sc. 1.

My ventures are not in one bottom trusted, Nor to one place. -The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 1.

Now, by two-headed Janus, Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time. -The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 1.

Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable. -The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 1.

You have too much respect upon the world: They lose it that do buy it with much care. -The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 1.

I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano,— A stage, where every man must play a part; And mine a sad one. -The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 1.

Why should a man whose blood is warm within, Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster? -The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 1.

There are a sort of men whose visages Do cream and mantle like a standing pond. -The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 1.

I am Sir Oracle, And when I ope my lips, let no dog bark! -The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 1.

I do know of these That therefore only are reputed wise For saying nothing. -The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 1.

Fish not, with this melancholy bait, For this fool gudgeon, this opinion. -The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 1.

Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in all Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day ere you find them, and when you have them, they are not worth the search. -The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 1.

In my school-days, when I had lost one shaft, I shot his fellow of the selfsame flight The selfsame way, with more advised watch, To find the other forth; and by adventuring both, I oft found both. -The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 1.

They are as sick that surfeit with too much, as they that starve with nothing. -The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 2.