Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare

Hamlet -- III. 4. DISCRETION. Let's teach ourselves that honorable stop, Not to outsport discretion. Othello -- II. 3. DOUBTS AND FEARS. I am cabin'd, cribb'd, confined, bound in To saucy doubts and fears. Macbeth -- III. 4. DRUNKENNESS. Boundless intemperance. In nature is a tyranny; it hath been Th' untimely emptying of the happy throne, And fall of many kings. Measure for Measure -- I. 3. DUTY OWING TO OURSELVES AND OTHERS. Love all, trust a few, Do wrong to none; be able for thine enemy Rather in power, than use; and keep thy friend Under thy own life's key; be checked for silence, But never taxed for speech. All's Well that Ends Well -- I. 1. EQUIVOCATION. But yet I do not like but yet, it does allay The good precedence; fye upon but yet: But yet is as a gailer to bring forth Some monstrous malefactor. Antony and Cleopatra -- II. 5. EXCESS. A surfeit of the sweetest things The deepest loathing to the stomach brings. Midsummer Night's Dream -- II. 3. Every inordinate cup is unblessed, and the ingredient is a devil. Othello -- II. 3. FALSEHOOD. Falsehood, cowardice, and poor descent, Three things that women hold in hate. Two Gentlemen of Verona -- III. 2. FEAR. Fear frames disorder, and disorder wounds Where it should guard. King Henry VI., Part 2d -- V. 2. Fear, and be slain; no worse can come, to fight: And fight and die, is death destroying death; Where fearing dying, pays death servile breath. King Richard II. -- III. 2. FEASTS. Small cheer, and great welcome, makes a merry feast. Comedy of Errors -- III. 1. FILIAL INGRATITUDE. Ingratitude! Thou marble-hearted fiend, More hideous, when thou showest thee in a child, Than the sea-monster. King Lear -- I. 4. How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is To have a thankless child Idem -- I. 4. FORETHOUGHT. Determine on some course, More than a wild exposure to each cause That starts i' the way before thee. Coriolanus -- IV. 1. FORTITUDE. Yield not thy neck To fortune's yoke, but let thy dauntless mind Still ride in triumph over all mischance. King Henry VI., Part 3d -- III. 3. FORTUNE. When fortune means to men most good, She looks upon them with a threatening eye. King John -- III. 4. GREATNESS. Farewell, a long farewell, to all my greatness! This is the state of man: To-day he puts forth The tender leaves of hope, to-morrow blossoms, And bears his blushing honors thick upon him; The third day, comes a frost, a killing frost; And,--when he thinks, good easy man, full surely His greatness is ripening,--nips his root, And then he falls, as I do. King Henry VIII. -- III. 2. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. Twelfth Night -- II. 5. HAPPINESS. O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes. As You Like It -- V. 2. HONESTY. An honest man is able to speak for himself, when a knave is not. King Henry VI., Part 2d -- V. 1. To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand. Hamlet -- II. 2. HYPOCRISY. Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of light. Love's Labor Lost -- IV. 3. One may smile, and smile, and be a villain. Hamlet -- I. 5. INNOCENCE. The trust I have is in mine innocence, And therefore am I bold and resolute. Troilus and Cressida -- IV. 4. INSINUATIONS. The shrug, the hum, or ha; these petty brands, That calumny doth use;-- For calumny will sear Virtue itself:--these shrugs, these bums, and ha's, When you have said, she's goodly, come between, Ere you can say she's honest. Winter's Tale -- II. 1. JEALOUSY. Trifles, light as air, Are, to the jealous, confirmations strong As proofs of holy writ. Othello -- III. 3. O beware of jealousy: It is the green-eyed monster, which does mock The meat it feeds on. Idem. JESTS. A jest's prosperity lies in the ear of him that hears it. Love's Labor Lost -- V. 2. He jests at scars, that never felt a wound. Romeo and Juliet -- II. 2. JUDGMENT. Heaven is above all; there sits a Judge, That no king can corrupt. King Henry VIII, -- III. 1. LIFE. Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. Macbeth -- V. 5. We are such stuff As dreams are made of, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep. The Tempest -- IV. 1. LOVE. A murd'rous, guilt shows not itself more soon, Than love that would seem bid: love's night is noon. Twelfth Night -- III. 2. Sweet love, changing his property, Turns to the sourest and most deadly hate. King Richard II. -- III. 2. When love begins to sicken and decay, It useth an enforced ceremony. Julius Caesar -- II. 2. The course of true-love never did run smooth. Midsummer Night's Dream -- I. 1. Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind. Idem. She never told her love,-- But let concealment, like a worm i' th' bud, Feed on her damask check: she pined in thought And, with a green and yellow melancholy, She sat like Patience on a monument, Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed? Twelfth Night -- II. 4. But love is blind, and lovers cannot see The pretty follies that themselves commit. The Merchant of Venice -- II. 6. MAN. What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculties! in form, and moving, how express and admirable! in action, how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! Hamlet -- II. 2. MERCY. The quality of mercy is not strained: it droppeth, as the gentle rain from heaven, Upon the place beneath: it is twice bless'd; It blesses him that gives, and him that takes: 'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes The throned monarch better than his crown: His scepter shows the force of temporal power, The attribute to awe and majesty, Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings; But mercy is above this sceptered sway; It is enthroned in the hearts of kings; It is an attribute to God himself; And earthly power doth then show likest God's, When mercy seasons justice. Consider this,-- That, in the course of justice, none of us Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy; And that same prayer doth teach us all to render The deeds of mercy. Merchant of Venice -- IV. 1. MERIT. Who shall go about To cozen fortune, and be honorable Without the stamp of merit! Let none presume To wear an undeserved dignity. Merchant of Venice -- II. 9. MODESTY. It is the witness still of excellency, To put a strange face on his own perfection. Much Ado About Nothing -- II. 3. MORAL CONQUEST. Brave conquerors! for so you are, That war against your own affections, And the huge army of the world's desires. Love's Labor's Lost -- I. 1. MURDER. The great King of kings Hath in the table of his law commanded, That thou shalt do no murder. Take heed; for he holds vengeance in his band, To hurl upon their heads thatbreak his law. King Richard III. -- I. 4. Blood, like sacrificing Abel's, cries, Even from the tongueless caverns of the earth. King Richard II. -- I. 1. MUSIC. The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; The motions of his spirit are dull as night, And his affections dark as Erebus: Let no such man be trusted. Merchant of Venice -- V. 1. NAMES. What's in a name? that, which we call a rose, By any other name would smell as sweet. Romeo and Juliet -- II. 2. Good name, in man, and woman, Is the immediate jewel of their souls: Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing. 'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands: But he, that filches from me my good name, Robs me of that, which not enriches him, And makes me poor indeed. Othello -- III. 3. NATURE. One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. Troilus and Cressida -- III. 3. NEWS, GOOD AND BAD. Though it be honest, it is never good To bring bad news. Give to a gracious message An host of tongues; but let ill tidings tell Themselves, when they be felt. Antony and Cleopatra -- II. 5. OFFICE. 'Tis the curse of service; Preferment goes by letter, and affection, Not by the old gradation, where each second Stood heir to the first. Othello -- I. 1. OPPORTUNITY. Who seeks, and will not take when offered, Shall never find it more. Antony and Cleopatra -- II. 7. There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows, and in miseries: And we must take the current when it serves, Or lose our ventures. Julius Caesar -- IV. 3. OPPRESSION. Press not a falling man too far; 'tis virtue: His faults lie open to the laws; let them, Not you, correct them. King Henry VIII. -- III. 2. PAST AND FUTURE. O thoughts of men accurst! Past, and to come, seem best; things present, worst. King Henry IV., Part 2d -- I. 3. PATIENCE. How poor are they, that have not patience!-- What wound did ever heal, but by degrees? Othello -- II. 3. PEACE. A peace is of the nature of a conquest; For then both parties nobly are subdued, And neither party loser. King Henry IV., Part 2d -- IV. 2. I will use the olive with my sword: Make war breed peace; make peace stint war; make each Prescribe to other, as each other's leech. Timon of Athens -- V. 5. I know myself now; and I feel within me A peace above all earthly dignities, A still and quiet conscience. King Henry VIII. -- III. 2. PENITENCE. Who by repentance is not satisfied, Is nor of heaven, nor earth; for these are pleased; By penitence the Eternal's wrath appeased. Two Gentlemen of Verona -- V. 4. PLAYERS. All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances;