Quotes
Quotes about Wit
A merrier man,
Within the limit of becoming mirth,
I never spent an hour's talk withal.
As sweet and musical
As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair;
And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods
Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.
They have measured many a mile
To tread a measure with you on this grass.
When daisies pied and violets blue,
And lady-smocks all silver-white,
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue
Do paint the meadows with delight,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men.
But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd
Than that which withering on the virgin thorn
Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness.
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.
And the imperial votaress passed on,
In maiden meditation, fancy-free.
Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell:
It fell upon a little western flower,
Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound,
And maidens call it love-in-idleness.
I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine.
I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was.
You have too much respect upon the world:
They lose it that do buy it with much care.
Why should a man whose blood is warm within,
Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster?
Fish not, with this melancholy bait,
For this fool gudgeon, this opinion.
In my school-days, when I had lost one shaft,
I shot his fellow of the selfsame flight
The selfsame way, with more advised watch,
To find the other forth; and by adventuring both,
I oft found both.
They are as sick that surfeit with too much, as they that starve with nothing.
I will buy with you, sell with you, talk with you, walk with you, and so following; but I will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray with you. What news on the Rialto?
Shall I bend low, and in a bondman's key,
With bated breath and whispering humbleness.
All things that are,
Are with more spirit chased than enjoy'd.
How like a younker or a prodigal
The scarfed bark puts from her native bay,
Hugg'd and embraced by the strumpet wind!
How like the prodigal doth she return,
With over-weather'd ribs and ragged sails,
Lean, rent, and beggar'd by the strumpet wind!
In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt
But being season'd with a gracious voice
Obscures the show of evil?
I never knew so young a body with so old a head.
How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Here we will sit and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony.
Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold:
There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins.
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.
The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus.
Let no such man be trusted.
Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other.
Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and adversity is not without comforts and hopes.
I had rather believe all the fables in the legends and the Talmud and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a mind.
Discretion of speech is more than eloquence; and to speak agreeably to him with whom we deal is more than to speak in good words or in good order.
