Over 40,000 Famous Quotes Sorted By Topic and Author

The cankers of a calm world and a long peace. -King Henry IV. Part I. Act iv. Sc. 2.

A mad fellow met me on the way and told me I had unloaded all the gibbets and pressed the dead bodies. No eye hath seen such scarecrows. I 'll not march through Coventry with them, that 's flat: nay, and the villains march wide betwixt the legs, as if they had gyves on; for indeed I had the most of them out of prison. There 's but a shirt and a half in all my company; and the half-shirt is two napkins tacked together and thrown over the shoulders like an herald's coat without sleeves. -King Henry IV. Part I. Act iv. Sc. 2.

Food for powder, food for powder; they 'll fill a pit as well as better. -King Henry IV. Part I. Act iv. Sc. 2.

To the latter end of a fray and the beginning of a feast Fits a dull fighter and a keen guest. -King Henry IV. Part I. Act iv. Sc. 2.

I would 't were bedtime, Hal, and all well. -King Henry IV. Part I. Act v. Sc. 1.

Honour pricks me on. Yea, but how if honour prick me off when I come on,—how then? Can honour set to a leg? no: or an arm? no: or take away the grief of a wound? no. Honour hath no skill in surgery, then? no. What is honour? a word. What is in that word honour; what is that honour? air. A trim reckoning! Who hath it? he that died o' Wednesday. Doth he feel it? no. Doth he hear it? no. 'T is insensible, then? yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? no. Why? detraction will not suffer it. Therefore I 'll none of it. Honour is a mere scutcheon. And so ends my catechism. -King Henry IV. Part I. Act v. Sc. 1.

Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere. -King Henry IV. Part I. Act v. Sc. 4.

This earth that bears thee dead Bears not alive so stout a gentleman. -King Henry IV. Part I. Act v. Sc. 4.

Thy ignominy sleep with thee in the grave, But not remember'd in thy epitaph! -King Henry IV. Part I. Act v. Sc. 4.

I could have better spared a better man. -King Henry IV. Part I. Act v. Sc. 4.

The better part of valour is discretion. -King Henry IV. Part I. Act v. Sc. 4.

Full bravely hast thou fleshed Thy maiden sword. -King Henry IV. Part I. Act v. Sc. 4.

Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying! I grant you I was down and out of breath; and so was he. But we rose both at an instant, and fought a long hour by Shrewsbury clock. -King Henry IV. Part I. Act v. Sc. 4.

I 'll purge, and leave sack, and live cleanly. -King Henry IV. Part I. Act v. Sc. 4.

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 burnt. -King Henry IV. Part II. Act i. Sc. 1.

Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news Hath but a losing office, and his tongue Sounds ever after as a sullen bell, Remember'd tolling a departing friend. -King Henry IV. Part II. Act i. Sc. 1.

I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men. -King Henry IV. Part II. Act i. Sc. 2.

A rascally yea-forsooth knave. -King Henry IV. Part II. Act i. Sc. 2.

Some smack of age in you, some relish of the saltness of time. -King Henry IV. Part II. Act i. Sc. 2.

We that are in the vaward of our youth. -King Henry IV. Part II. Act i. Sc. 2.