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This Booke
When Brasse and Marble fade, shall make thee looke
Fresh to all Ages.
Author: Unattributed Author
Source: Commentary Verses prefixed to the folio of Shakespeare
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Few of the university pen plaies well, they smell too much of
that writer Ovid and that writer Metamorphosis and talk too much
of Prosperpina and Jupiter. Why, here's our fellow Shakespeare
puts them all down. Aye, and Ben Jonson too. O that B.J. is a
pestilent fellow, he brought up Horace giving poets a pill, but
our fellow, Shakespeare, hath given him a purge that made him
beray his credit.
Author: Unattributed Author
Source: The Return from Parnassus; or, the Scourge of Simony (act IV, sc. 3)
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This was Shakespeare's form;
Who walked in every path of human life,
Felt every passion; and to all mankind
Doth now, will ever, that experience yield
Which his own genius only could acquire.
Author: Mark Akenside
Source: Inscription (IV)
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Others abide our question. Thou art free.
We ask and ask--Thou smilest and art still,
Out-topping knowledge.
Author: Matthew Arnold
Source: Shakespeare
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Renowned Spenser, lie a thought more nigh
To learned Chaucer, and rare Beaumont lie
A little nearer Spenser, to make room
For Shakespeare in your threefold, fourfold tomb.
Author: William Basse (Bas)
Source: On Shakespeare
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There, Shakespeare, on whose forehead climb
The crowns o' the world. Oh, eyes sublime
With tears and laughter for all time.
Author: Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Source: A Vision of Poets
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"With this same key
Shakespeare unlocked his heart," once more!
Did Shakespeare? If so, the less Shakespeare be!
Author: Robert Browning
Source: House (X)
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If I say that Shakespeare is the greatest of intellects, I have
said all concerning him. But there is more in Shakespeare's
intellect than we have yet seen. It is what I call an
unconscious intellect; there is more virtue in it that he himself
is aware of.
Author: Thomas Carlyle
Source: Essays--Characteristics of Shakespeare
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Voltaire and Shakespeare! He was all
The other feigned to be.
The flippant Frenchman speaks: I weep;
And Shakespeare weeps with me.
Author: Matthias Claudius
Source: A Comparison
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Our myriad-minded Shakespeare.
Author: Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Source: Biographia Literaria (ch. XV), borrowed from a Greek monk who had applied it to a Patriarch of Const
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When great poets sing,
Into the night new constellations spring,
With music in the air that dulls the craft
Of rhetoric. So when Shakespeare sang or laughed
The world with long, sweet Alpine echoes thrilled
Voiceless to scholars' tongues no muse had filled
With melody divine.
Author: Christopher Pearce Cranch
Source: Shakespeare
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But Shakespeare's magic could not copied be;
Within that circle none durst walk but he.
Author: John Dryden
Source: The Tempest--Prologue
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The passages of Shakespeare that we most prize were never quoted
until within this century.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson,
Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson
Source: Letters and Social Aims--Quotation and Originality
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Nor sequent centuries could hit
Orbit and sum of Shakespeare's wit.
Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson
Source: May Day and Other Pieces--Solution (l. 39)
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What point of morals, of manners, of economy, of philosophy, of
religion, of taste, of the conduct of life, has he not settled?
What mystery has he not signified his knowledge of? What office,
or function, or district of man's work, has he not remembered?
What king has he not taught state, as Talma taught Napoleon?
What maiden has not found him finer than her delicacy? What
lover has he not outloved? What sage has he not outseen? What
gentleman has he not instructed in the rudeness of his behavior?
Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson
Source: Representative Men--Shakespeare
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I'll moider da bum.
Author: Tony Galento
Source: when asked what he thought of William Shakespeare
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Now you who rhyme, and I who rhyme,
Have not we sworn it, many a time,
That we no more our verse would scrawl,
For Shakespeare he had said it all!
Author: Richard Watson Gilder
Source: The Modern Rhymer
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If we wish to know the force of human genius we should read
Shakespeare. If we wish to see the insignificance of human
learning we may study his commentators.
Author: William Hazlitt
Source: Table Talk--On the Ignorance of the Learned
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Mellifluous Shakespeare, whose enchanting Quill
Commandeth Mirth or Passion, was but Will.
Author: Thomas Heywood
Source: Hierarchie of the Blessed Angels
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The stream of Time, which is continually washing the dissoluble
fabrics of other poets, passes without injury by the adamant of
Shakespeare.
Author: Samuel Johnson
Source: Preface to Works of Shakspere
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I remember, the players have often mentioned it as an honour to
Shakespeare, that in his writing (whatsoever he penned) he never
plotted out a line. My answer hath been, would he had blotted a
thousand.
Author: Ben Jonson
Source: Discoveries--De Shakespeare nostrat
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This figure that thou here seest put,
It was for gentle Shakespeare cut,
Wherein the graver had a strife
With Nature, to outdo the life:
Oh, could he but have drawn his wit
As well in brass, as he has hit
His face, the print would then surpass
All that was ever writ in brass;
But since he cannot, reader, look
Not on his picture, but his book.
Author: Ben Jonson
Source: Lines on a Picture of Shakespeare
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For a good poet's made, as well as born,
And such wast thou! Look how the father's face
Lives in his issue; even so the race
Of Shakespeare's mind and manner brightly shine
In his well-turned and true-filed lines;
In each of which he seems to shake a lance,
As brandished at the eyes of ignorance.
Author: Ben Jonson
Source: Lines to the Memory of Shakespeare
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He was not of an age, but for all time!
And all the Muses still were in their prime,
When, like Apollo, he came forth to warm
Our ears, or like a Mercury to charm!
Author: Ben Jonson
Source: Lines to the Memory of Shakespeare
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Nature herself was proud of his designs,
And joyed to wear the dressing of his lines!
Which were so richly spun, and woven so fit,
As since, she will vouchsafe no other wit.
Author: Ben Jonson
Source: Lines to the Memory of Shakespeare
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Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits. -The Two Gentleman of Verona. Act i. Sc. 1.
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: None
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I have no other but a woman's reason: I think him so, because I think him so. -The Two Gentleman of Verona. Act i. Sc. 2.
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: None
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O, how this spring of love resembleth The uncertain glory of an April day! -The Two Gentleman of Verona. Act i. Sc. 3.
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: None
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And if it please you, so; if not, why, so. -The Two Gentleman of Verona. Act ii. Sc. 1.
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: None
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O jest unseen, inscrutable, invisible, As a nose on a man's face, or a weathercock on a steeple. -The Two Gentleman of Verona. Act ii. Sc. 1.
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: None
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She is mine own, And I as rich in having such a jewel As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl, The water nectar, and the rocks pure gold. -The Two Gentleman of Verona. Act ii. Sc. 4.
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: None
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He makes sweet music with th' enamell'd stones, Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge He overtaketh in his pilgrimage. -The Two Gentleman of Verona. Act ii. Sc. 7.
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: None
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That man that hath a tongue, I say, is no man, If with his tongue he cannot win a woman. -The Two Gentleman of Verona. Act iii. Sc. 1.
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: None
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Except I be by Sylvia in the night, There is no music in the nightingale. -The Two Gentleman of Verona. Act iii. Sc. 1.
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: None
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A man I am, cross'd with adversity. -The Two Gentleman of Verona. Act iv. Sc. 1.
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: None
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Is she not passing fair? -The Two Gentleman of Verona. Act iv. Sc. 4.
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: None
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How use doth breed a habit in a man! -The Two Gentleman of Verona. Act v. Sc. 4.
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: None
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O heaven! were man But constant, he were perfect. -The Two Gentleman of Verona. Act v. Sc. 4.
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: None
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Come not within the measure of my wrath. -The Two Gentleman of Verona. Act v. Sc. 4.
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: None
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I will make a Star-chamber matter of it. -The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act i. Sc. 1.
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: None
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All his successors gone before him have done 't; and all his ancestors that come after him may. -The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act i. Sc. 1.
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: None
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It is a familiar beast to man, and signifies love. -The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act i. Sc. 1.
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: None
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Seven hundred pounds and possibilities is good gifts. -The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act i. Sc. 1.
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: None
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Mine host of the Garter. -The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act i. Sc. 1.
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: None
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I had rather than forty shillings I had my Book of Songs and Sonnets here. -The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act i. Sc. 1.
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: None
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If there be no great love in the beginning, yet heaven may decrease it upon better acquaintance, when we are married and have more occasion to know one another: I hope, upon familiarity will grow more contempt. -The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act i. Sc. 1.
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: None
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O base Hungarian wight! wilt thou the spigot wield? -The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act i. Sc. 3.
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: None
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“Convey,” the wise it call. “Steal!” foh! a fico for the phrase! -The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act i. Sc. 3.
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: None
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Sail like my pinnace to these golden shores. -The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act i. Sc. 3.
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: None
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Tester I 'll have in pouch, when thou shalt lack, Base Phrygian Turk! -The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act i. Sc. 3.
Author: William Shakespeare
Source: None
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