Venus and Adonis Quotes

“Fondling,' she saith, 'since I have hemm'd thee here
Within the circuit of this ivory pale,
I'll be a park, and thou shalt be my deer;
Feed where thou wilt, on mountain or in dale:
Graze on my lips, and if those hills be dry,
Stray lower, where the pleasant fountains lie.”
― -William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis

“Had I no eyes but ears, my ears would love. That inward beauty and invisible;
Or were I deaf, thy outward parts would move each part in me that were but sensible: Though neither eyes nor ears, to hear nor see, yet should I be in love by touching thee.

'Say, that the sense of feeling were bereft me, and that I could not see, nor hear, nor touch, and nothing but the very smell were left me, yet would my love to thee be still as much; for from the stillitory of thy face excelling comes breath perfum'd that breedeth love by smelling.”
― William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis

“Ten kisses short as one, one long as twenty.”
― William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis

“She’s Love, she loves, and yet she is not lov’d.”
― William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis

“Dismiss your vows, your feigned tears, your flattery, for where a heart is hard they make no battery.”
― William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis

“Thus weary of the world, away she hies,
And yokes her silver doves; by whose swift aid
Their mistress mounted through the empty skies
In her light chariot quickly is convey'd;
Holding their course to Paphos, where their queen
Means to immure herself and not be seen.”
― William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis

“Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear”
― William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis

“O, learn to love, the lesson is but plain,
And once made perfect, never lost again.”
― William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis

“The tender spring upon thy tempting lip
Shows thee unripe; yet mayst thou well be tasted:
Make use of time, let not advantage slip;
Beauty within itself should not be wasted:
Fair flowers that are not gather'd in their prime
Rot and consume themselves in little time.”
― William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis

“Wonder of time,' quoth she, 'this is my spite,
That, thou being dead, the day should yet be light.

'Since thou art dead, lo, here I prophesy:
Sorrow on love hereafter shall attend:
It shall be waited on with jealousy,
Find sweet beginning, but unsavoury end,
Ne'er settled equally, but high or low,
That all love's pleasure shall not match his woe.

'It shall be fickle, false and full of fraud,
Bud and be blasted in a breathing-while;
The bottom poison, and the top o'erstraw'd
With sweets that shall the truest sight beguile:
The strongest body shall it make most weak,
Strike the wise dumb and teach the fool to speak.

'It shall be sparing and too full of riot,
Teaching decrepit age to tread the measures;
The staring ruffian shall it keep in quiet,
Pluck down the rich, enrich the poor with treasures;
It shall be raging-mad and silly-mild,
Make the young old, the old become a child.

'It shall suspect where is no cause of fear;
It shall not fear where it should most mistrust;
It shall be merciful and too severe,
And most deceiving when it seems most just;
Perverse it shall be where it shows most toward,
Put fear to valour, courage to the coward.

'It shall be cause of war and dire events,
And set dissension 'twixt the son and sire;
Subject and servile to all discontents,
As dry combustious matter is to fire:
Sith in his prime Death doth my love destroy,
They that love best their loves shall not enjoy.”
― William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis

“My love to love is love but to disgrace it,
For I have heard it is a life in death,
That laughs and weeps, and all but with a breath.”
― William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis

“Things growing to themselves are growth's abuse:
Seeds spring from seeds and beauty breedeth beauty;”
― William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis

“Graze on my lips, and if those hills be dry,
Stray lower, where the pleasant fountains lie.”
― William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis

“EVEN as the sun with purple-colour'd face
Had ta'en his last leave of the weeping morn,
Rose-cheek'd Adonis tried him to the chase;
Hunting he lov'd, but love he laugh'd to scorn;”
― William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis

“Affection is a coal that must be cool’d,
Else suffer’d it will set the heart on fire.”
― William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis

“Love is a spirit all compact of fire,
Not gross to sink, but light, and will aspire.”
― William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis

“What is thy body but a swallowing grave,
Seeming to bury that posterity
Which, by the rights of time, thou needs must have
If thou destroy them not in dark obscurity?
If so, the world will hold thee in disdain,
Sith in thy pride so fair a hope is slain.”
― William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis

“Before I know myself, seek not to know me”
― William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis

“What though the rose have prickles, yet 'tis pluck'd.”
― William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis

“Here come and sit, where never serpent hisses;
And being set, I ’ll smother thee with kisses;

"And yet not cloy thy lips with loath’d satiety,
But rather famish them amid their plenty,
Making them red and pale with fresh variety --
Ten kisses short as one, one long as twenty:
A summer’s day will seem an hour but short,
Being wasted in such time-beguiling sport.”
― William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis

“I know not love' quoth he, 'nor will not know it,
Unless it be a boar, and then I chase it.
'Tis much to borrow, and I will not owe it.
My love to love is love but to disgrace it;
For I have heard it is a life in death,
That laughs and weeps, and all but with a breath.”
― William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis

“Who sees his true-love in her naked bed,
Teaching the sheets a whiter hue than white,
But when his glutton eye so full hath fed,
His other agents aim at like delight?
Who is so faint that dare not be so bold
To touch the fire, the weather being cold?”
― William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis

“He kisses her, and she by her good will / Will never rise, so he will kiss her still.”
― William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis

“Touch but my lips with those fair lips of thine,--
Though mine be not so fair, yet are they red--
The kiss shall be thine own as well as mine.
What seest thou in the ground? hold up thy head:
Look in mine eye-balls, there thy beauty lies;
Then why not lips on lips, since eyes in eyes?
'Art thou ashamed to kiss? then wink again,
And I will wink; so shall the day seem night;
Love keeps his revels where they are but twain;
Be bold to play, our sport is not in sight:
These blue-vein'd violets whereon we lean
Never can blab, nor know not what we mean.
'The tender spring upon thy tempting lip
Shows thee unripe; yet mayst thou well be tasted:
Make use of time, let not advantage slip;
Beauty within itself should not be wasted:
Fair flowers that are not gather'd in their prime
Rot and consume themselves in little time.”
― William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis

“One sweet kiss shall pay this countless debt.”
― William shakespeare, Venus and Adonis

“Fie, fie, fond love, thou art so full of fear
As one with treasure laden, hemm’d with thieves;
Trifles, unwitnessed with eye or ear,
Thy coward heart with false bethinking grieves.”
― William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis

“O hard-believing love, how strange it seems!
Not to believe, and yet too credulous:
Thy weal and woe are both of them extremes;
Despair and hope make thee ridiculous:
The one doth flatter thee in thoughts unlikely,
In likely thoughts the other kills thee quickly.”
― William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis

“In night,” quoth she, “desire sees best of all.”
― William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis

“I’ll sigh celestial breath, whose gentle wind
Shall cool the heat of this descending sun.
I’ll make a shadow for thee of my hairs;
If they burn too, I’ll quench them with my tears.”
― William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis

“Hard-favored tyrant, ugly, meager, lean,
Hateful divorce of love,' thus chides she death.
'Grim-grinning ghost, earth's worm, what dost thou mean
To stifle beauty and to steal his breath,
Who, when he lived, his breath and beauty set
Gloss on the rose, smell to the violet?”
― William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis