"The world was very guilty of such a ballad some three ages since; but I think now 't is not to be found."

Love's Labour's Lost. Act i. Sc. 2.

"The rational hind Costard."

Love's Labour's Lost. Act i. Sc. 2.

"Devise, wit; write, pen; for I am for whole volumes in folio."

Love's Labour's Lost. Act i. Sc. 2.

"A man of sovereign parts he is esteem'd; Well fitted in arts, glorious in arms: Nothing becomes him ill that he would well."

Love's Labour's Lost. Act ii. Sc. 1.

"A merrier man, Within the limit of becoming mirth, I never spent an hour's talk withal."

Love's Labour's Lost. Act ii. Sc. 1.

"Delivers in such apt and gracious words That aged ears play truant at his tales, And younger hearings are quite ravished; So sweet and voluble is his discourse."

Love's Labour's Lost. Act ii. Sc. 1.

"By my penny of observation."

Love's Labour's Lost. Act iii. Sc. 1.

"The boy hath sold him a bargain,--a goose."

Love's Labour's Lost. Act iii. Sc. 1.

"To sell a bargain well is as cunning as fast and loose."

Love's Labour's Lost. Act iii. Sc. 1.

"A very beadle to a humorous sigh."

Love's Labour's Lost. Act iii. Sc. 1.

"This senior-junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid; Regent of love-rhymes, lord of folded arms, The anointed sovereign of sighs and groans, Liege of all loiterers and malcontents."

Love's Labour's Lost. Act iii. Sc. 1.

"A buck of the first head."

Love's Labour's Lost. Act iv. Sc. 2.

"He hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in a book; he hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink."

Love's Labour's Lost. Act iv. Sc. 2.

"Many can brook the weather that love not the wind."

Love's Labour's Lost. Act iv. Sc. 2.

"You two are book-men."

Love's Labour's Lost. Act iv. Sc. 2.

"Dictynna, goodman Dull."

Love's Labour's Lost. Act iv. Sc. 2.

"These are begot in the ventricle of memory, nourished in the womb of pia mater, and delivered upon the mellowing of occasion."

Love's Labour's Lost. Act iv. Sc. 2.

"For where is any author in the world Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye? Learning is but an adjunct to ourself."

Love's Labour's Lost. Act iv. Sc. 3.

"It adds a precious seeing to the eye."

Love's Labour's Lost. Act iv. Sc. 3.

"As sweet and musical As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair; And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony."

Love's Labour's Lost. Act iv. Sc. 3.

"From women's eyes this doctrine I derive: They sparkle still the right Promethean fire; They are the books, the arts, the academes, That show, contain, and nourish all the world."

Love's Labour's Lost. Act iv. Sc. 3.

"He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument."

Love's Labour's Lost. Act v. Sc. 1.

"Priscian! a little scratched, 't will serve."

Love's Labour's Lost. Act v. Sc. 1.

"They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps."

Love's Labour's Lost. Act v. Sc. 1.

"In the posteriors of this day, which the rude multitude call the afternoon."

Love's Labour's Lost. Act v. Sc. 1.

"They have measured many a mile To tread a measure with you on this grass."

Love's Labour's Lost. Act v. Sc. 2.

"Let me take you a button-hole lower."

Love's Labour's Lost. Act v. Sc. 2.

"I have seen the day of wrong through the little hole of discretion."

Love's Labour's Lost. Act v. Sc. 2.

"A jest's prosperity lies in the ear Of him that hears it, never in the tongue Of him that makes it."

Love's Labour's Lost. Act v. Sc. 2.

"When daisies pied and violets blue, And lady-smocks all silver-white, And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue Do paint the meadows with delight, The cuckoo then, on every tree, Mocks married men."

Love's Labour's Lost. Act v. Sc. 2.

"The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo."

Love's Labour's Lost. Act v. Sc. 2.

"But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd Than that which withering on the virgin thorn Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness."

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

"For aught that I could ever read, Could ever hear by tale or history, The course of true love never did run smooth."

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

"O, hell! to choose love by another's eyes."

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

"Masters, spread yourselves."

A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Sc. 2.

"This is Ercles' vein."

A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Sc. 2.

"I'll speak in a monstrous little voice."

A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Sc. 2.

"I am slow of study."

A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Sc. 2.

"That would hang us, every mother's son."

A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Sc. 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. Sc. 2.

"A proper man, as one shall see in a summer's day."

A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Sc. 2.

"The human mortals."

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

"I 'll put a girdle round about the earth In forty minutes."

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

"My heart Is true as steel."

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

"A lion among ladies is a most dreadful thing."

A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act iii. Sc. 1.