Claire > Claire's Quotes

“I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw.”
― William Shakespeare, Illustrated Shakespeare (RHUK) Editions: Hamlet

“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;”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be.”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will.”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“A little more than kin, a little less than kind.”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“Not a whit, we defy augury: there's a special
providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now,
'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be
now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the
readiness is all.”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep; To sleep, perchance to dream—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”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“death,
The undiscovere'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns,”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“What a piece of work is a man! How noble in Reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an Angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! and yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me; no, nor Woman neither; though by your smiling you seem to say so.”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“Our wills and fates do so contrary run, that our devices still are overthrown; our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world; now could I drink hot blood,
And do such bitter business as the day
Would quake to look on.”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes like stars start from their spheres,
Thy knotted and combined locks to part,
And each particular hair to stand on end
Like quills upon the fretful porpentine.
But this eternal blazon must not be
To ears of flesh and blood.
List, list, O list!”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love.”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“Though this be madness, yet there is method in't.”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“One may smile, and smile, and be a villain; at least I'm sure it may be so in Denmark.”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“When sorrows come, they come not single spies. But in battalions!”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“I loved Ophelia: forty thousand brothers
Could not, with all their quantity of love,
Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?...

'Swounds, show me what thou'lt do:
Woo't weep? woo't fight? woo't fast? woo't tear thyself?
Woo't drink up eisel? eat a crocodile?
I'll do't. Dost thou come here to whine?
To outface me with leaping in her grave?
Be buried quick with her, and so will I:
And, if thou prate of mountains, let them throw
Millions of acres on us, till our ground,
Singeing his pate against the burning zone,
Make Ossa like a wart! Nay, an thou'lt mouth,
I'll rant as well as thou.”
― William Shakespeare

“Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting
That would not let me sleep.”
― Shakespeare, Hamlet

“O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams."

Which dreams, indeed, are ambition; for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight! For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.”
― William Shakespeare, Romeo & Juliet

“Love is not love which alters it when alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove: O no! It is an ever fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken; it is the star to every wandering bark whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks within his bending sickle's compass come: Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but bears it out, even to the edge of doom.”
― William Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Sonnets

“To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis 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, 'tis 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 despised 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 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 enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.--Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd!”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“Fairy tales make rivers run with wine only to make us remember, for one wild moment, that they run with water. a”
― G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

“Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.”
― William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

“This goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest.”
― William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

“Hwæt! Wē Gār-Dena in geār-dagum
þēod-cyninga þrym gefrūnon,
hū þā æðelingas ellen fremedon.
Oft Scyld Scēfing sceaðena þrēatum,
monegum mǣgðum meodo-setla oftēah.
Egsode eorlas, syððan ǣrest wearð
fēasceaft funden: hē þæs frōfre gebād,
wēox under wolcnum, weorð-myndum ðāh,
oð þæt him ǣghwylc þāra ymb-sittendra
ofer hron-rāde hȳran scolde,
gomban gyldan. Þæt wæs gōd cyning!”
― Anonymous, Beowulf