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I told you, sir, they were redhot with drinking;
So full of valor that they smote the air
For breathing in their faces, beat the ground,
For kissing of their feet; yet always bending
Towards their project.
Topic: Intemperance
Source: The Tempest (Ariel at IV, i)
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(Olivia:) What's a drunken man like, fool?
(Clown:) Like a drowned man, a fool, and a madman. One draught
above heat makes him a fool, the seconds mads him, and a third
drowns him.
Topic: Intemperance
Source: Twelfth Night, or, What You Will (Olivia & Clown at I, v)
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She has a housewife's hand; but that's no matter:
I say she never did invent this letter;
This is a man's invention and his hand.
Topic: Invention
Source: As You Like It (Rosalind at IV, iii)
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Remember, sir, my liege,
The kings your ancestors, together with
The natural bravery of your isle, which stands
As Neptune's park, ribbed and paled in
With rocks unscalable and roaring waters,
With sands that will not bear your enemies' boats
But suck them up to th' topmast.
Topic: Islands
Source: Cymbeline (Queen, wife to Cymbeline at III, i)
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What, is the jay more precious than the lark
Because his feathers are more beautiful?
Or is the adder better than the eel
Because his painted skin contents the eye?
Topic: Jays
Source: The Taming of the Shrew (Petruchio at IV, iii)
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So full of artless jealousy is guilt
It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.
Topic: Jealousy
Source: Hamlet Prince of Denmark (Gertrude, Queen of Denmark at IV, v)
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I do beseech you--
Though I perchance am vicious in my guess
(As I confess it is my nature's plague
To spy into abuses, and oft my jealousy
Shapes faults that are not), that your wisdom yet
From one that so imperfectly conjects
Would take no notice, nor build yourself a trouble
Out of his scattering and unsure observance.
Topic: Jealousy
Source: Othello the Moor of Venice (Iago at III, iii)
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O, beware, my lord, of jealousy!
It is the green-eyed monster, which doth mock
The meat it feeds on. That cuckold lives in bliss
Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger;
But O, what damned minutes tells he o'er
Who dotes, yet doubts--suspects, yet strongly loves!
Topic: Jealousy
Source: Othello the Moor of Venice (Iago at III, iii)
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Trifles light as air
Are to the jealous confirmations strong
As proofs of holy writ.
Topic: Jealousy
Source: Othello the Moor of Venice (Iago at III, iii)
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But jealous souls will not be answered so;
They are not ever jealous for the cause,
But jealous for they're jealous.
'Tis a monster
Begot upon itself, born on itself.
Topic: Jealousy
Source: Othello the Moor of Venice (Emilia at III, iv)
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If I shall be condemned
Upon surmises, all proofs sleeping else
But what your jealousies awake, I tell you
'Tis rigor and not law.
Topic: Jealousy
Source: The Winter's Tale (Hermione at III, ii)
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Never waste jealousy on a real man: it is the imaginary man that
supplants us all in the long run.
Topic: Jealousy
Source: The Winter's Tale (Hermione at III, ii)
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O! beware, my lord, of jealousy; It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock The meat it feeds on.
Topic: Jealousy
Source: None
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So full of artless jealousy is guilt, It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.
Topic: Jealousy
Source: None
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The venom clamours of a jealous woman poison more deadly than a mad dog's tooth.
Topic: Jealousy
Source: None
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Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite
jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath borne me on his back a
thousand times. And now how abhorred in my imagination it is!
Topic: Jesting
Source: Hamlet Prince of Denmark (Hamlet at V, i)
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Jesters do oft prove prophets.
Topic: Jesting
Source: King Lear (Regan at V, iii)
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A jest's prosperity lies in the ear
Of him that hears it, never in the tongue
Of him that makes it.
Topic: Jesting
Source: Love's Labor's Lost (Rosaline at V, ii)
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(Andrew:) I am not such an ass but I can keep my hand dry. But
what's your jest?
(Maria:) A dry jest, sir.
(Andrew:) Are you full of them?
(Maria:) Ay, sir, I have them at my fingers' ends. Marry, now I
let go your hand, I am barren.
Topic: Jesting
Source: Twelfth Night, or, What You Will (Andrew & Maria at I, iii)
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I see, the jewel best enamelled
Will lose his beauty; yet the gold bides still
That others touch, and often touching will
Wear gold; and no man that hath a name,
By falsehood and corruption doth it shame.
Topic: Jewels
Source: The Comedy of Errors (Adriana at II, i)
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'Tis plate of rare device and jewels
Of rich and exquisite form, their values great,
And I am something curious, being strange,
To have them in sale stowage.
Topic: Jewels
Source: Cymbeline (Iachimo at I, vi)
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Take that life, beseech you,
Which I so often owe; but your ring first,
And here the bracelet of the truest princess
That ever swore her faith.
Topic: Jewels
Source: Cymbeline (Iachimo at V, v)
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A woman that is like a German clock,
Still a-repairing, ever out of frame,
And never going aright, being a watch,
But being watched that it may still go right!
Topic: Jewels
Source: Love's Labor's Lost (Berowne at III, i)
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For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.
Topic: Joy
Source: Hamlet Prince of Denmark (Ophelia at IV, v)
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My plenteous joys,
Wanton in fullness, seek to hide themselves
In drops of sorrow.
Topic: Joy
Source: Macbeth (Duncan, King of Scotland at I, iv)
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Therefore I say again
I utterly abhor, yea, from my soul
Refuse you for my judge, whom yet once more
I hold my most malicious for and think not
At all a friend to truth.
Topic: Judges
Source: The Life of King Henry the Eighth (Katherine at II, iv)
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Heaven is above all yet; there sits a judge
That no king can corrupt.
Topic: Judges
Source: The Life of King Henry the Eighth (Katherine at III, i)
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O, let her brother live:
Thieves for the robbery have authority
When judges steal themselves.
Topic: Judges
Source: Measure for Measure (Angelo at II, ii)
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He who the sword of heaven will bear
Should be as holy as severe;
Pattern in himself to know,
Grace to stand, and virtue go;
More nor less to others paying
Than by self-offenses weighing.
Shame to him whose cruel striking
Kills for faults of his own liking.
Topic: Judges
Source: Measure for Measure (Vincentio, the Duke at III, ii)
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To offend and judge are distinct offices,
And of opposed natures.
Topic: Judges
Source: The Merchant of Venice (Portia at II, ix)
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It doth appear you are a worthy judge;
You know the law, your exposition
Hath been most sound.
Topic: Judges
Source: The Merchant of Venice (Shylock at IV, i)
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A little more than kin, and less than kind!
Topic: Kindness
Source: Hamlet Prince of Denmark (Hamlet at I, i)
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Have you the heart? When your head did but ache,
I knit my handkercher about your brows--
The best I had, a princess wrought it me--
And I did never ask it you again;
And with my hand at midnight held your head,
And like the watchful minutes to the hour,
Still and anon cheered up the heavy time,
Saying, 'What lack you?' and 'Where lies your grief?'
Topic: Kindness
Source: The Life and Death of King John (Arthur at IV, i)
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Yet do I fear thy nature.
It is too full o' th' milk of human kindness
To catch the nearest way.
Topic: Kindness
Source: Macbeth (Lady Macbeth at I, v)
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Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.
Topic: Kindness
Source: None
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I think the King is but a man as I am: the violet smells to him as it doth to me.
Topic: Kings
Source: None
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There's never a villain dwelling in all Denmark
But he's an arrant knave.
Topic: Knavery
Source: Hamlet Prince of Denmark (Hamlet at I, v)
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A knave, a rascal, an eater of broken meats; a base, proud,
shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy
worsted-stocking knave; a lily-livered, action-faking, whoreson,
glass-gazing, superserviceable, finical rogue;
one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a bawd in way of
good service, and art nothing but the composition of a knave,
beggar, coward, pander, and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch;
one whom I will beat into clamorous whining if thou deny'st the
least syllable of thy addition.
Topic: Knavery
Source: King Lear (Kent at II, ii)
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Whip me such honest knaves!
Topic: Knavery
Source: Othello the Moor of Venice (Iago at I, i)
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Knowledge is the wing whereby we fly to Heaven.
Topic: Knowledge
Source: None
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Fie, fie upon her!
There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip;
Nay, her foot speaks. Her wanton spirits look out
At every joint and motive of her body.
Topic: Language
Source: The History of Troilus and Cressida (Ulysses at IV, v)
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Thou whoreson zed, thou unnecessary letter!
Topic: Language
Source: King Lear (Kent at II, ii)
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He has strangled
His language in his tears.
Topic: Language
Source: The Life of King Henry the Eighth (King Henry at V, i)
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You taught me language, and my profit on't
Is, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you
For learning me your language!
Topic: Language
Source: The Tempest (Caliban at I, ii)
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There was speech in their dumbness, language in their very
gesture.
Topic: Language
Source: The Winter's Tale (First Gentleman at V, ii)
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Great Britain and the United States are nations separated by a
common language.
Topic: Language
Source: The Winter's Tale (First Gentleman at V, ii)
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It was greek to me.
Topic: Language
Source: None
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Now begin;
For look where Beatrice, like a lapwing runs
Close by the ground, to hear our conference.
Topic: Lapwings
Source: Much Ado About Nothing (Hero at III, i)
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Then my dial goes not true; I look this lark for a bunting.
Topic: Larks
Source: All's Well That Ends Well (Lafew at II, v)
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Hark, hark, the lark at heaven's gate sings,
And Phoebus gins arise,
His steeds to water at those springs
On chaliced flowers that lies;
And winking Mary-buds begin
To ope their golden eyes.
With every thing that pretty is,
My lady sweet, arise,
Arise, arise!
Topic: Larks
Source: Cymbeline (Musicians at II, ii)
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