Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare

 
If to do were as easy as to know what were good
to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men’s
cottages princes’ palaces. It is a good divine that
follows his own instructions: I can easier teach
twenty what were good to be done, than be one of
twenty to follow mine own teaching. The brain may
devise laws for the blood; but a hot temper leaps
o’er a cold decree: such a bare is madness, the
youth, to skip o’er the meshes of good counsel, the cripple.
 

The Merchant of Venice – I. 2

PRINCES AND TITLES.

 
Princes have but their titles for their glories,
An outward honor for an inward toil;
And, for unfelt imaginations,
They often feel a world of restless cares:
So that, between their titles, and low name,
There’s nothing differs but the outward fame.
 

King Richard III. – I. 4

QUARRELS.

 
In a false quarrel these is no true valor.
 

Much Ado About Nothing – V. 1

 
Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just;
And he but naked, though locked up in steel,
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.
 

King Henry VI., Part 2d – III. 2

RAGE.

 
Men in rage strike those that wish them best.
 

Othello – II. 3

REPENTANCE.

 
Men shall deal unadvisedly sometimes,
Which after-hours give leisure to repent.
 

King Richard III. – IV. 4

REPUTATION.

 
The purest treasure mortal times afford,
Is-spotless reputation; that away,
Men are but gilded loam, or painted clay.
A jewel in a ten-times-barred-up chest
I- a bold spirit in a loyal breast.
 

King Richard II. – I. 1

RETRIBUTION.

 
The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices
Make instruments to scourge us.
 

King Lear – V. S

 
If these men have defeated the law,
and outrun native punishment,
though they can outstrip men,
they have no wings to fly from God.
 

King Henry V. – IV. 1

SCARS.

 
A sear nobly got, or a noble scar,
is a good livery of honor.
 

All’s Well that Ends Well – IV. 6

 
To such as boasting show their scars,
A mock is due.
 

Troilus and Cressida – IV. 5

SELF-CONQUEST.

 
Better conquest never can’st thou make,
Than arm thy constant and thy nobler parts
Against those giddy loose suggestions.
 

King John – III. 1

SELF-EXERTION.

 
Men at some time are masters of their fates;
The fault is not in our stars,
But in ourselves.
 

Julius Caesar – I. 2

SELF-RELIANCE.

 
Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,
Which we ascribe to heaven: the fated sky
Gives us free scope; only, doth backward pull
Our slow designs, when we ourselves are dull.
 

All’s Well that Ends Well – I. 1

SILENCE.

 
Out of this silence, yet I picked a welcome;
And in the modesty of fearful duty
I read as much, as from the rattling tongue
Of saucy and audacious eloquence.
 

Midsummer Night’s Dream – V. 1

 
The silence often of pure innocence
Persuades, when speaking fails.
 

Winter’s Tale – II. 2

 
Silence is the perfectest herald of joy:
I were but little happy, if I could say how much.
 

Much Ado About Nothing – II. 1

SLANDER.

 
Slander,
Whose edge is sharper than the sword; whose tongue
Outvenoms all the worms of Nile; whose breath
Rides on the posting winds, and doth belie
All corners of the world; kings, queens, and states,
Maids, matrons, nay, the secrets of the grave,
This viperous slander enters.
 

Cymbeline – III. 4

SLEEP.

 
The innocent sleep;
Sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of care,
The death of each day’s life, sore labor’s bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,
Chief nourisher in life’s feast.
 

Macbeth – II. 2

SUICIDE.

 
Against self-slaughter
There is a prohibition so divine,
That cravens my weak hand.
 

Cymbeline – III. 4

TEMPERANCE.

 
Though I look old, yet am I strong and lusty:
For in my youth I never did apply
Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood;
Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo
The means of weakness and debility:
Therefore my age is as a lusty winter,
Frosty, but kindly.
 

As You Like It – II. 3

THEORY AND PRACTICE.

 
There was never yet philosopher,
That could endure the tooth-ache patiently;
However, they have writ the style of the gods,
And made a pish at chance and sufferance.
 

Much Ado About Nothing – V. 1

TREACHERY.

 
Though those, that are betrayed,
Do feel the treason sharply, yet the traitor
Stands in worse case of woe.
 

Cymbeline – III. 4

VALOR.

 
The better part of valor is-discretion.
 

King Henry IV., Part 1st – V. 4

 
When Valor preys on reason,
It eats the sword it fights with.
 

Antony and Cleopatra – III. 2

 
What valor were it, when a cur doth grin
For one to thrust his band between his teeth,
When he might spurn him with his foot away?
 

King Henry VI., Part 1st – I. 4

WAR.

 
Take care
How you awake the sleeping sword of war:
We charge you in the name of God, take heed.
 

King Henry IV., Part 1st – I. 2

WELCOME.

 
Welcome ever smiles,
And farewell goes out sighing.
Troilus and Cressida – III. 3.
 

WINE.

 
Good wine is a good familiar creature,
if it be well used.
 

Othello – II. 3

 
O thou invisible spirit of wine,
if thou hast no name to be known by,
let us call thee – devil!.. O, that
men should put an enemy in their mouths,
to steal away their brains!
that we should with joy, revel,
pleasure, and applause,
transform ourselves into beasts!
 

Othello – II. 3

WOMAN.

 
A woman impudent and mannish grown
Is not more loathed than an effeminate man.
 

Troilus and Cressida – III. 3

WORDS.

 
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.
 

Hamlet – III. 3

 
Few words shall fit the trespass best,
Where no excuse can give the fault amending.
 

Troilus and Cressida – III. 2

WORLDLY CARE.

 
You have too much respect upon the world:
They lose it, that do buy it with much care.
 

Merchant of Venice – I. 1

WORLDLY HONORS.

 
Not a man, for being simply man,
Hath any honor; but honor for those honors
That are without him, as place, riches, favor,
Prizes of accident as oftas merit;
Which when they fall, as being slippery standers,
The love that leaned on them, as slippery too,
Do one pluck down another, and together
Die in the fall. But ‘tis not so with me.
 

Troilus and Cressida – III. 3