| 1 |
But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd
Than that which withering on the virgin thorn
Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness.
| Act i. Sc. 1.
|
| 2 |
For aught that I could ever read,
Could ever hear by tale or history,
The course of true love never did run smooth.
| Ibid.
|
| 3 |
O, hell! to choose love by another's eyes.
| Ibid.
|
| 4 |
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream;
Brief as the lightning in the collied night,
That in a spleen unfolds both heaven and earth,
And ere a man hath power to say, "Behold!"
The jaws of darkness do devour it up:
So quick bright things come to confusion.
| Ibid.
|
| 5 |
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.
| Ibid.
|
| 6 |
Masters, spread yourselves.
| Sc. 2.
|
| 7 |
This is Ercles' vein.
| Ibid.
|
| 8 |
I 'll speak in a monstrous little voice.
| Ibid.
|
| 9 |
I am slow of study.
| Ibid.
|
| 10 |
That would hang us, every mother's son.
| Ibid.
|
| 11 |
I will roar you as gently as any sucking dove; I will roar you, an 't were any nightingale.
| Ibid.
|
| 12 |
A proper man, as one shall see in a summer's day.
| Ibid.
|
| 13 |
The human mortals.
| Act ii. Sc. 1.
|
| 14 |
The rude sea grew civil at her song,
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres
To hear the sea-maid's music.
| Ibid.
|
| 15 |
And the imperial votaress passed on,
In maiden meditation, fancy-free.
Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell:
It fell upon a little western flower,
Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound,
And maidens call it love-in-idleness.
| Ibid.
|
| 16 |
I 'll put a girdle round about the earth
In forty minutes.
| Ibid.
|
| 17 |
My heart
Is true as steel.
| Ibid.
|
| 18 |
I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine.
| Ibid.
|
| 19 |
A lion among ladies is a most dreadful thing.
| Act iii. Sc. 1.
|
| 20 |
Bless thee, Bottom! bless thee! thou art translated.
| Ibid.
|
| 21 |
Lord, what fools these mortals be!
| Sc. 2.
|
| 22 |
So we grew together,
Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,
But yet an union in partition.
| Ibid.
|
| 23 |
Two lovely berries moulded on one stem.
| Ibid.
|
| 24 |
I have an exposition of sleep come upon me.
| Act iv. Sc. 1.
|
| 25 |
I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was.
| Ibid.
|
| 26 |
The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was.
| Ibid.
|
| 27 |
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!
| Act v. Sc. 1.
|
| 28 |
For never anything can be amiss,
When simpleness and duty tender it.
| Ibid.
|
| 29 |
The true beginning of our end.
| Ibid.
|
| 30 |
The best in this kind are but shadows.
| Ibid.
|
| 31 |
A very gentle beast, and of a good conscience.
| Ibid.
|
| 32 |
This passion, and the death of a dear friend, would go near to make a man look sad.
| Ibid.
|
| 33 |
The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve.
| Ibid.
|