William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream
24 quotes
"Why should you think that I should woo in scorn?Scorn and derision never come in tears:Look, when I vow, I weep; and vows so born, In their nativity all truth appears.How can these things in me seem scorn to you,Bearing the badge of faith, to prove them true?"
"Four days will quickly steep themselves in nightsFour nights will quickly dream away the time."
"If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended,That you have but slumbered hereWhile these visions did appear.And this weak and idle theme,No more yielding but a dream,Gentles, do not reprehend:If you pardon, we will mend:And, as I am an honest Puck,If we have unearned luckNow to 'scape the serpent's tongue,We will make amends ere long;Else the Puck a liar call;So, good night unto you all.Give me your hands, if we be friends,And Robin shall restore amends."
"Shall we their fond pageant see?Lord, what fools these mortals be!"
"O hell! to choose love by another's eye."
"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."
"If there were a sympathy in choice,War, death, or sickness, did lay siege to it,Making it momentary as a sound,Swift as a shadow, short as any dream,Brief as the lightning in the collied nightThat, 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."
"Lovers and madmen have such seething brainsSuch shaping fantasies, that apprehendMore than cool reason ever comprehends."
"HIPPOLYTABut all the story of the night told over,And all their minds transfigured so together,More witnesseth than fancy’s imagesAnd grows to something of great constancy,But, howsoever, strange and admirable."
"Be as thou wast wont to be."
"Be as thou wast wont to be.See as thou wast wont to see."
"Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth.— Joy, gentle friends! joy and fresh days of love Accompany your hearts!"
"The course of true love never die run smooth"
"... and yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together now-a-days..."
"DEMETRIUSRelent, sweet Hermia: and, Lysander, yieldThy crazed title to my certain right.LYSANDERYou have her father's love, Demetrius;Let me have Hermia's: do you marry him."
"QUINCEFrancis Flute, the bellows-mender.FLUTEHere, Peter Quince.QUINCEFlute, you must take Thisby on you.FLUTEWhat is Thisby? a wandering knight?QUINCEIt is the lady that Pyramus must love.FLUTENay, faith, let me not play a woman; I have a beard coming."
"Are you sure/That we are awake? It seems to me/That yet we sleep, we dream"
"Yet but three come one more.Two of both kinds make up four.Ere she comes curst and sad.Cupid is a knavish lad.Thus to make poor females mad."
"Weaving spiders, come not here, Hence, you long legged spinners, hence! Beetles black, approach not here, worm nor snail, do no offense."
"Get you gone, you dwarf,You minimus of hindering knotgrass made,You bead, you acorn!"
"Weigh oath with oath, and you will nothing weigh,Your vows to her and me, put in two scales,Will even weigh, and both as light as tales."
"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."
"We will meet; and there we may rehearse mostobscenely and courageously.Shakespeare, Midsummer Night's Dream. Spoken by Bottom, Act I Sc. 2"
"Oh why rebuke you him that loves you so? / Lay breath so bitter on your bitter foe."