APEMANTUS: Immortal gods, I crave no
pelf;
I pray for no man but myself:
Grant I may never prove so fond,
To trust man on his oath or bond;
Or a harlot, for her weeping;
Or a dog, that seems a-sleeping:
Or a keeper with my freedom;
Or my friends, if I should need 'em.
Amen.
Timon of Athens, I, ii
APEMANTUS: Hoy-day, what a sweep of vanity comes this way!
Timon of Athens, I, ii
APEMANTUS: Who lives that's not depraved or depraves?
Timon of Athens, I, ii
FLAVIUS: He commands us to provide, and give
great gifts,
And all out of an empty coffer:
Nor will he know his purse, or yield me this,
To show him what a beggar his heart is,
Being of no power to make his wishes good.
Timon of Athens, I, ii
FLAVIUS: His promises fly so beyond his
state
That what he speaks is all in debt; he owes
For every word.
Timon of Athens, I, ii
FLAVIUS: I bleed inwardly for my lord.
Timon of Athens, I, ii
SENATOR: I love and honour him,
But must not break my back to heal his finger.
Timon of Athens, II, i
FLAVIUS: No care, no stop! so senseless of
expense,
That he will neither know how to maintain it,
Nor cease his flow of riot: takes no account
How things go from him, nor resumes no care
Of what is to continue.
Timon of Athens, II, ii
FLAVIUS: The future comes apace. What shall defend the interim?
Timon of Athens, II, ii
FLAVIUS: O my good lord, the world is but a
word:
Were it all yours to give it in a breath,
How quickly were it gone!
Timon of Athens, II, ii
FLAVIUS: They answer, in a joint and corporate
voice,
That now they are at fall, want treasure, cannot
Do what they would; are sorry -- you are honourable, --
But yet they could have wish'd -- they know not --
Something hath been amiss -- a noble nature
May catch a wrench -- would all were well -- 'tis pity; --
And so, intending other serious matters,
After distasteful looks and these hard fractions,
With certain half-caps and cold-moving nods
They froze me into silence.
Timon of Athens, II, ii
FIRST STRANGER: Men must learn now with pity
to dispense;
For policy sits above conscience.
Timon of Athens, III, ii
ALCIBIADES: I have kept back their foes,
While they have told their money and let out
Their coin upon large interest, I myself
Rich only in large hurts. All those for this?
Timon of Athens, III, v
TIMON: Let no assembly of twenty be without a score of villains.
Timon of Athens, III, vi
APEMANTUS: The commonwealth of Athens is become a forest of beasts.
Timon of Athens, IV, iii
TIMON: Go, live rich and happy;
But thus conditioned: thou shalt build from men;
Hate all, curse all, show charity to none,
But let the famished flesh slide from the bone,
Ere thou relieve the beggar. Give to dogs
What thou deny'st to men. Let prisons swallow 'em,
Debts wither 'em to nothing; be men like blasted woods,
And may diseases lick up their false bloods!
And so farewell and thrive.
Timon of Athens, IV, iii
MARCIUS: What would you have, you curs, that like nor peace nor war? The one affrights you, the other makes you proud.
Coriolanus, I, i
MARCIUS: He that trusts to you, where he should find you lions, finds you hares; where foxes, geese: you are no surer, no, than is the coal of fire upon the ice, or hailstone in the sun.
Coriolanus, I, i
MARCIUS: With every minute you do change a
mind,
And call him noble that was now your hate,
Him vile that was your garland.
Coriolanus, I, i
VALERIA: O' my word, the father's son! I'll swear, 'tis a very pretty boy. O' my troth, I looked upon him a Wednesday half an hour together; has such a confirmed countenance! I saw him run after a gilded butterfly; and when he caught it, he let it go again, and after it again, and over and over he comes, and again, catched it again; or whether his fall enraged him, or how 'twas, he did so set his teeth and tear it. O, I warrant, how he mammocked it!
VOLUMNIA: One on 's father's moods.
VALERIA: Indeed, la, 'tis a noble child.
Coriolanus, I, iii
BRUTUS: We do it not alone, sir.
MENENIUS: I know you can do very little alone; for your helps are many, or else your actions would grow wondrous single: your abilities are too infant-like for doing much alone.
Coriolanus, II, i
FIRST OFFICER: If he did not care whether he had their love or no, he waved indifferently 'twixt doing them neither good nor harm: but he seeks their hate with greater devotion than can render it him; and leaves nothing undone that may fully discover him their opposite. Now, to seem to affect the malice and displeasure of the people is as bad as that which he dislikes, to flatter them for their love.
Coriolanus, II, ii
CORIOLANUS: Yet oft, when blows have made me stay, I fled from words.
Coriolanus, II, ii
CORIOLANUS: Bid them wash their faces and keep their teeth clean.
Coriolanus, II, iii
CORIOLANUS: And mountainous error be too highly heap'd for truth to o'erpeer.
Coriolanus, II, iii
BRUTUS: Get you hence instantly, and tell
those friends,
They have chose a consul that will from them take
Their liberties, make them of no more voice
Than dogs that are as often beat for barking
As therefore kept to do so.
Coriolanus, II, iii
COMINIUS: But now 'tis odds beyond arithmetic.
Coriolanus, III, i
SECOND PATRICIAN: I would they were abed!
MENENIUS: I would they were in Tiber!
Coriolanus, III, i
MENENIUS: The service of the foot
Being once gangrened, is not then respected
For what before it was.
Coriolanus, III, i
CORIOLANUS: For you, the city, thus I turn my
back:
There is a world elsewhere.
Coriolanus, III, iii
VOLUMNIA: Anger's my meat; I sup upon myself, and so shall starve with feeding.
Coriolanus, IV, ii
FIRST SERVANT: Let me have war, say I; it exceeds peace as far as day does night; it's spritely, waking, audible, and full of vent. Peace is a very apoplexy, lethargy; mulled, deaf, sleepy, insensible; a getter of more bastard children than war's a destroyer of men.
Coriolanus, IV, v
THIRD CITIZEN: That we did, we did for the best; and though we willingly consented to his banishment, yet it was against our will.
Coriolanus, IV, vi
COMINIUS: I offer'd to awaken his regard
For's private friends: his answer to me was,
He could not stay to pick them in a pile
Of noisome musty chaff. He said 'twas folly,
For one poor grain or two, to leave unburnt
And still to nose the offence.
MENENIUS: For one poor grain or two!
I am one of those; his mother, wife, his child,
And this brave fellow too, we are the grains.
Coriolanus, V, i
MENENIUS: He had not dined:
The veins unfill'd, our blood is cold, and then
We pout upon the morning, are unapt
To give or to forgive; but when we have stuff'd
These and these conveyances of our blood
With wine and feeding, we have suppler souls
Than in our priest-like fasts.
Coriolanus, V, i
MENENIUS: The tartness of his face sours ripe grapes.
Coriolanus, V, iv
MENENIUS: No, in such a case the gods will not be good unto us. When we banished him, we respected not them; and, he returning to break our necks, they respect not us.
Coriolanus, V, iv
AUFIDIUS: At a few drops of women's rheum, which are as cheap as lies, he sold the blood and labour of our great action: therefore shall he die, and I'll renew me in his fall.
Coriolanus, V, vi
CLOTEN: I am glad I was up so late; for that's the reason I was up so early.
Cymbeline, II, iii
CLOTEN: Britain is a world by itself; and we will nothing pay for wearing our own noses.
Cymbeline, III, i
CLOTEN: If you seek us afterwards in other terms, you shall find us in our salt-water girdle. If you beat us out of it, it is yours; if you fall in the adventure, our crows shall fare the better for you, and there's an end.
Cymbeline, III, i
PISANIO: What shall I need to draw my sword?
the paper
Hath cut her throat already.
Cymbeline, III, iv
PISANIO: No, 'tis slander,
Whose edge is sharper than the sword, whose tongue
Outvenoms all the worms of Nile, whose breath
Rides on the posting winds and doth belie
All corners of the world.
Cymbeline, III, iv
PISANIO: Kings, queens and states,
Maids, matrons, nay, the secrets of the grave
This viperous slander enters.
Cymbeline, III, iv
IMOGEN: I see a man's life is a tedious one.
Cymbeline, III, vi
IMOGEN: Plenty and peace breeds cowards:
hardness ever
Of hardiness is mother.
Cymbeline, III, vi
IMOGEN: Stick to your journal course: the breach of custom is breach of all.
Cymbeline, IV, ii
IMOGEN: Society is no comfort to one not sociable.
Cymbeline, IV, ii
GUIDERIUS: I cannot sing: I'll weep, and word
it with thee;
For notes of sorrow out of tune are worse
Than priests and fanes that lie.
Cymbeline, IV, ii
Fear no more the heat o' the sun,
Nor the furious winter's rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
Cymbeline, IV, ii
Fear no more the frown o' the great;
Thou art past the tyrant's stroke;
Care no more to clothe and eat;
To thee the reed is as the oak:
The sceptre, learning, physic, must
All follow this, and come to dust.
Cymbeline, IV, ii
All lovers young, all lovers must
Consign to thee, and come to dust.
Cymbeline, IV, ii
PISANIO: The heavens still must work.
Cymbeline, IV, iii
POSTHUMUS LEONATUS: A book? O rare one!
Be not, as is our fangled world, a garment
Nobler than that it covers!
Cymbeline, V, iv