Philosophy
Lovers!
Click Here

Shakespearean Lines (Tags) for Every Occasion

[These lines are from A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream, a play about which Samuel Pepys wrote in his diary for Monday 29 September 1662: ‘. . . and then to the King’s Theatre, where we saw “Midsummer’s Night’s Dream,” which I had never seen before, nor shall ever again, for it is the most insipid ridiculous play that ever I saw in my life.’]

What’s the news with thee?
Full of vexation come I.
What say you Hermia (or whoever)?
I am beloved of beauteous Hermia (or whoever).
Examine well your blood.
Take time to pause.
How now my love?
To you my mind I will unfold.
My chief humour is for. . .
I will undertake it.
Pray you, fail me not!
How now, spirit?
Whither wander you?
Thou speak’st aright.
Pursue it with the soul of love.
Be it so.
Nay gentle friend. . .
Amen to that fair prayer say I.
The more my prayer, the lesser is my grace.
I do repent the tedious minutes I with her (him, them) have spent.
What sayest thou?
I have a device to make all well.
Thou art translated.
I will not stir from this place.
What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?
This falls out better than I could devise.
There is no following her in this fierce vein.
Lord, what fools these mortals be!
Will you tear impatient answers from my gentle tongue?
Aye, that way goes the game!
I am amazed and know not what to say.
I’ll be with thee straight.
Art thou fled?
Faintness contraineth me to measure out my length on this cold bed.
Methinks I’m marvellous hairy about the face.
I have an exposition of sleep come upon me.
How came these things to pass?
I have had a most rare vision.
Where is our usual manager of mirth?
What revels are in hand?
Is there no play (or whatever) to ease the anguish of a torturing hour?
We’ll have none of that.
For never anything can be amiss when simpleness and duty tender it.
Yonder she (he, they) comes.
Very notably discharged.
And so, good night unto you all.

[Lines from The Merchant of Venice.]

Fie, fie, fie!
Fare thee well awhile.
Gratiano (or whoever) speaks an infinite deal of nothing.
Sometimes from her eyes I did receive fair speechless messages.
I am aweary of this great world.
Money is your (my, their) suit.
I would be friends with you and have your love.
Pray you take pain to dilute with some cold drops of modesty your skipping spirit.
That is the very defect of the matter.
Sweet friends (or whoever), your patience for my long delay.
It is worth the pains.
I will make some speed of my return.
I will not jump with common spirits and rank me with the barbarous multitude.
I would it might prove the end of his misfortune (or whatever).
You stick a dagger in me.
Joy be the consequence.
I feel too much your blessing.
What demigod has come so near creation?
Madam . . . you have bereft me of all words.
With all my heart.
I’ll follow him (her, them) with bootless prayers.
I never did repent for doing good, nor shall not now.
This comes too near the praising of myself. Therefore no more of it.
Fair thoughts and happy hours attend on you.
Mark the music.
The world thinks, and I think so too that. . . .
I never knew so young a body with so old a head.
To do a great right, do a little wrong.
Get you gone then.
He is well-paid that is well-satisfied.
Fare you well.
You press me far, therefore I will yield.
You are liberal in offers.
I do accept most thankfully.
If I could add a lie unto a fault, I would deny it.
If you did know . . . you would abate the strength of your displeasure.
What should I say, sweet lady?
By Heaven. . .
This is like the mending of the highways in summer, when the ways are fair enough!
Speak not so grossly.

[Lines from Much Ado About Nothing.]

I am not of many words, but. . . .
Examine your conscience, and so I leave you.
Why are you out of measure sad?
I cannot hide what I am.
How came you to this?
Come, let us thither.
He’s (she’s, you’re) of a very melancholy disposition.
And we’ll be merry as the day is long.
It keeps on the windy side of care.
Go with me, I will tell you my drift.
God give me patience!
The man hath a contemptible spirit.
Happy are they that hear their detractions and can put them to mending.
There’s a double meaning in that.
Disdain and scorn ride sparkling in her eyes.
Are you good men and true?
So say I.
I’m so attired in wonder I know not what to say.
Pause awhile and let my counsel sway you in this case.
Have patience and endure.
I confess nothing, nor I deny nothing.
I am gone though I am here.
As sure as I have a thought or a soul.
There thou speakest reason.

[Lines from Macbeth.]

Things without all remedy should be without regard. What’s done is done.
Avaunt, and quit my sight.
A kind goodnight to all.
Be bloody, bold, and resolute.
Hell is murky.

[Lines from Hamlet.]

In the gross and scope of my opinion this bodes some strange eruption to our state.
So have I heard and do in part believe it.
But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad, walks o’er the dew of yon high eastward hill.
The state is disjoint and out of frame
Farewell, and let your haste commend your duty.
We doubt it nothing, heartily farewell.
That duty done. . .my thoughts and wishes bend again toward France.
Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off and let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark. Do not forever with thy veiled lids seek for thy noble father in the dust. Thou know’st ‘tis common; all that lives must die, passing through nature to eternity.
It shows a will most incorrect to heaven, a heart unfortified, a mind impatient, an understanding simple and unschooled.
Why should we in our peevish opposition take it to heart.
Throw to earth this unprevailing woe.
Why tis a loving and fair reply.
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world.
Frailty, thy name is woman.
It is not, nor it cannot come to good.
In my mind’s eye, Horatio.
Take him all in all, I think I shall not look upon his like again.
With a countenance more in sorrow than in anger I doubt some foul play, till then, sit still, my soul.
Do not, as some ungracious pastors do, show me the steep and thorny way to heaven whilst like a pugged and reckless libertine himself the primrose path of dalliance treads and recks not his own rede.
Give thy thoughts no tongue, nor any unproportioned thought his act.
Most humbly do I take my leave.
You speak like a green girl unsifted in such perilous circumstances.
It is a nipping and an eager air.
It is a custom more honoured in the breach than in the observance.
He waxes desperate with imagination.
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Angels and ministers of grace defend us!
What a falling-off was there.
Adieu, adieu. . . remember me.
There needs no ghost come from the grave to tell us.
These are but wild and whirling words.
Give me one poor request.
Oh day and night, but this is wondrous strange!
And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
The time is out of joint.
We shall sift him.
Since brevity is the soul of wit and tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief.
More matter with less art.
That’s an ill phrase, a vile phrase.
He is far gone, far gone.
Though this be madness, yet there is method in it.
How pregnant sometimes his replies are.
Happy in that we are not over-happy.
For there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.
Come, deal justly with me.
I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth.
What a piece of work is a man. . .
And yet, to me what is this quintessence of dust.
Man delights not me.
There was no such stuff in my thoughts.
I will use them according to their dessert.
Soft you now, the fair Ophelia.
O what a noble mind is here o’erthrown.
O woe is me, t’have seen what I have seen.
. . .though it lacked form a little. . .
Suit the action to the word, the word to the action.
Though it makes the unskillful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve.
Give me that man that is not passion’s slave and I will wear him in my heart’s core, ay, in my heart of heart, as I do thee.
They stay upon your patience.
The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
O, my offense is rank. It smells to heaven.
O, speak to me no more! These words like daggers enter in my ears.
Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper sprinkle cool patience.
Thou has cleft my heart in twain.
Assume a virtue if you have it not.
Alack, I had forgot.
Where the offense is, let the great axe fall.
One woe doth tread upon another’s heel, so fast they follow.
Go to.
A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.
There’s a divinity that shapes our ends rough-hew them how we will.
The readiness is all.

Click HERE to reach the associated topic for this webpage.
For more topics click HERE.