All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players:

They have their exits, and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.

The infant, mewling and puking,

The whining school-boy, creeping like a snail to school;

The lover, sighing like a furnace;

The soldier seeking the bubble reputation;

The justice full of wise saws and modern instances;
The lean and slippered pantaloon.

Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness, and mere oblivion.

Your If is the only peacemaker.

That strain again-it had a dying fall:

Oh, it came o'er my ear like the sweet south,
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour!

She never told her love,

But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud,

As you like it, act ii. sc. 7.
Ib., act v. sc. 4.

Twelfth Night, act i. sc. I.

Feed on her damask cheek: she pin'd in thought;

And, with a green and yellow melancholy,

She sat like Patience on a monument,

Smiling at grief.

Ib., act ii. sc. 4.

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.

Spirits are not finely touched,

Ib., act iii. sc. 4

Ib., act ii. sc. 2.

Plays such fantastic tricks before high Heaven,
As make the angels weep.

Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once;
And He that might the vantage best have took,
Found out the remedy.

Ib., act ii. sc. 2

Claudio.

Death is a fearful thing.

Isabella. And shamed life a hateful.

Claudio. Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;

To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot; . .

The weariest and most loathed worldly life,
That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment

Can lay on nature, is a paradise

To what we fear of death. Measure for Measure, act iii. sc. 1.

Too early seen unknown, and known too late. Romeo and Juliet, act i. sc. 5.

He jests at scars, who never felt a wound.

Ib., act ii. sc. 2.

What's in a name? That which we call a rose,

I'll talk a word with this same learned Theban.

Ib., act iii. sc. 4.

Ib., act v. sc. 3

Make instruments to scourge us.

Her voice was ever soft,

Gentle, and low; an excellent thing in woman,
To be, or not to be-that is the question:
Whether 't is nobler in the mind, to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die, to sleep,—
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to,-'t is a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep ;-

To sleep! perchance, to dream ;-ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life;

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of dispriz'd love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? who would these fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,-
The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns,-puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprizes of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

Hamiet, act ni. sc. I ̧

(For other lines, see Handbook, par. 262.)

The very head and front of my offending

Hath this extent, no more. Rude am I in my speech,
Yet, by your gracious patience,

I will a round unvarnished tale deliver

Of my whole course of love.

Othello, act i. εc. 3.

Her father lov'd me; oft invited me;

Still question'd me the story of my life,
From year to year,-the battles, sieges, fortun
That I have pass'd.

I ran it through, even from my boyish days

To the very moment that he bade me tell it.
Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances;

Of moving accidents by flood and field;

Of hair-breadth 'scapes i' the imminent-deadly breach.
My story being done,

She gave me for my pains a world of sighs:

She swore,-In faith, 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange,

'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful:

She wish'd she had not heard it;-yet she wish'd
That Heav'n had made her such a man.-

-She thank'd me;

And bade me, if I had a friend that lov'd her,
I should but teach him how to tell my story,
And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake :-

She lov'd me for the dangers I had pass'd:

And I lov'd her, that she did pity them.

This only is the witchcraft I have us'd.

I do perceive here a divided duty.

O most lame and impotent conclusion!

Othello, act i. sc. 3.

Ib., act i. sc. 3. Ib., act ii. sc. I.

O that men should put an enemy into their mouths to steal away their

Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,

Is the immediate jewel of their souls:

Who steals my purse, steals trash; 'tis something-nothing;

'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;

But he that filches from me my good name,

Robs me of that which not enriches him,

And makes me poor indeed.

Trifles light as air,

Ib., act iii. sc. 3.

Are to the jealous confirmation strong

As proofs of holy writ.

Ib., act ii. sc. 3.

Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war.

Ib., act iii. sc. 3.

Ib., act iv. sc. 2.

Steep'd me in poverty to the very lips.

I have done the state some service, and they know it. Ib., act v. sc. 2.

Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,

Nor set down aught in malice. Then must you speak

Of one that lov'd not wisely, but too well.

Albeit unused to the melting mood.

The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,
And these are of them.

Ib., act v. sc. 2.

Ib., act v. sc. 2.

Macbeth, act i. sc. 3.

If it were done, when 't is done, then 't were well

It were done quickly: if the assassination

Could trammel up the consequence, and catch,
With his surcease, success; that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all here,
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,
We'd jump the life to come. But in these cases,
We still have judgment here; that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
To plague the inventor: this even-handed justice
Commends the ingredients of our poison'd chalice
To our own lips. He 's here in double trust:
First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,
Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,
Who should against his murderer shut the door,
Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongu'd, against
The deep damnation of his taking-off: