Elizabethan Quotes

“Lord, what fools these mortals be!”
― William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

“What, you egg? / [He stabs him.]”
― William Shakespeare, Macbeth

“A voice that to Dominica's fancy seemed to hold all the sunshine and the salt wind of fine days at sea smote her ears.”
― Georgette Heyer, Beauvallet

“The great ages did not perhaps produce much more talent than ours,' [T.S.] Eliot wrote. 'But less talent was wasted.”
― Jonah Lehrer, Imagine: How Creativity Works

“Sixteenth-century litigation combined the qualities of tedium, hardship, brutality, and injustice that tested character and endurance, with the element of pure chance that appealed to the gambler, the fear of defeat and ruin, and the hope of victory and humiliation of the enemy. It had everything that war can offer except the delights of shedding blood.”
― Lawrence Stone, The Crisis of the Aristocracy 1558 - 1641

“His body was as straight as Circe's wand;
Jove might have spit out nectar from his hand.
Even as delicious meat is to taste,
So was his neck in touching, and surpast
The white of Pelop's shoulder: I could tell ye,
How smooth his breast was, and how white his belly,
And whose immortal fingers did imprint
That heavenly path with many a curious dint,
That runs along his back; but my rude pen
Can hardly blazen forth the loves of men,
Much less of powerful Gods: let it suffice
That my slack muse sings of Leander's eyes,
Those Orient cheeks and lips, exceeding his
That lept into the water for a kiss
Of his own shadow, and despising many,
Died ere he could enjoy the love of any.”
― Christopher Marlowe, Hero and Leander

“...language always occurs in a context - you can speak Elizabethan words, but to speak the language you have to put on the mindset...”
― John Geddes, A Familiar Rain

“Then it cleared: farther down the hallway, a door had opened on a flourish of sunlight. Into the light stepped a youth, white and gold, a celestial apparition—the Earl of Southampton. His face was beardless still, the eyes pale blue and with the lashless look of redheads. His auburn tresses, artfully curled, fell almost to his elbows. He was six feet tall and lovely as a waterfall, as pretty as a flowering tree. White silk, white velvet, cloth of gold. A gold filigree earring in one ear. Emilia knew him from her days of attendance on the Queen: an uncanny, androgynous youth with the despotic pout of the beautiful, who can never be sufficiently loved.”
― Sandra Newman, The Heavens

“If 't be true mine own w'rds w're gold, then thy ears wouldst beest smelting pots and thy mind a mis'r. Or if 't be true thee hath found mine own w'rds base, then an alchemist beest.”
― Stewart Stafford

“Dagglebelt almost snatched the held-out pumpkin in his eagerness. His big chance had come.
"Now just watch me a minute,"he pleaded.
He planted his feet in an open fourth. He threw up one pumpkin. He threw up another. He threw up the third.
"Juggler, "explained the Master of the Revels.
Breathing heavily Dagglebelt caught the first pumpkin. He clutched at the second. He missed the third.
"A bad juggler," said Burghley disappointed.
"It was an accident," said Dagglebelt. He picked up the pumpkins. He tried again.
"Dolt," cried a raw voice from an upper storey. "Run away and practice while you still have hands to do it with."
Dagglebelt gave one glance. He abandoned his pumpkins. He ran.
Elizabeth of England withdrew from the window. She was smiling.”
― Caryl Brahms, No Bed for Bacon

“Cling to me, love, and dare not let me go;
Kiss me as thought it were our time to die,
And all our comradeship had drifted by.
Who knows what face tomorrow's dawn may show?
All the night opens round us, dear, and lo,
Mysterious deeps wherefrom the unseen eye
Of formless dread is gazing sleeplessly!
Over our love what shelter can I throw?

How long have we been seeking, and how far,
With time and space bewtixt us, till at last
Our instant life makes glory of my pain?
The awful Night is round us. Star on star
Calls us to wander, when our moment's past,
-Perchance upon that desolate quest again.”
― John Le Gay Brereton

“...And reveals, that in Elizabethan politics, the pen was mightier than the sword.”
― Anna Beer, Sir Walter Ralegh and his Readers in the Seventeenth Century

“Behold Good!" is the cry of Hemetes the Heremyte; but not everyone is able to see good. People tend to be blind or to look for other things!”
― Peter Dawkins, The Great Vision: The Judaic-Christian Mysteries / The Vision and Birth of the New Rosicrucianism

“Sonnet 73: That time of year thou mayst in me behold

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.”
― William Shakespeare, Love Poems and Sonnets