Shakespeare Quotations

But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd
Than that which withering on the virgin thorn
    A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Scene 1.

For aught that I could ever read,
    A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Scene 1.

O, hell! to choose love by another's eyes.
    A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Scene 1.

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.
    A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Scene 1.

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.
    A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Scene 1.

Masters, spread yourselves.
    A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Scene 2.

This is Ercles' vein.
    A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Scene 2.

I 'll speak in a monstrous little voice.
    A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Scene 2.

I am slow of study.
    A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Scene 2.

That would hang us, every mother's son.
    A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Scene 2.

I will roar you as gently as any sucking dove;
I will roar you, an 't were any nightingale.
    A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Scene 2.

A proper man, as one shall see in a summer's day.
    A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Scene 2.

The human mortals.
    A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act ii. Scene 1.

The rude sea grew civil at her song,
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres
To hear the sea-maid's music.
    A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act ii. Scene 1.

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.
    A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act ii. Scene 1.

I 'll put a girdle round about the earth
In forty minutes.
    A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act ii. Scene 1.

My heart
Is true as steel.
    A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act ii. Scene 1.

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.
    A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act ii. Scene 1.

A lion among ladies is a most dreadful thing.
    A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act iii. Scene 1.

Bless thee, Bottom! bless thee! thou art translated.
    A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act iii. Scene 1.

Lord, what fools these mortals be!
    A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act iii. Scene 2.

So we grew together,
Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,
But yet an union in partition.
    A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act iii. Scene 2.

Two lovely berries moulded on one stem.
    A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act iii. Scene 2.

I have an exposition of sleep come upon me.
    A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act iv. Scene 1.

I have had a dream, past the wit of man
to say what dream it was.
    A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act iv. Scene 1.

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.     A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act iv. Scene 1.

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. Scene 1.

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

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

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

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

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