William Shakespeare Men Quotations [Page 4]

He is the most wretched of men who has never felt adversity.

Accommodated; that is, when a man is, as they say, accommodated; or when a man is, being, whereby a' may be thought to be accommodated,?which is an excellent thing.

Merciful heaven, Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt Splits the unwedgeable and gnarled oak Than the soft myrtle; but man, proud man, Dressed in a little brief authority, Most ignorant of what he's most assured His glassy essence--like an angry ape Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven As makes the angels weep; who, with our spleens, would all themselves laugh mortal.

I'll privily away; I love the people, But do not like to stage me to their eyes; Though it do well, I do not relish well Their loud applause and aves vehement, Nor do I think the man of safe discretion That does not affect it.

Every true man's apparel fits your thief.

That which ordinary men are fit for, I am qualified in. and the best of me is diligence.

This was the noblest Roman of them all. All the conspirators, save only he,Did that they did in envy of Caesar;He only, in a general honest thoughtAnd common good to all, made one of them. His life was gentle, and the elementsSo mixd in him that Nature might stand upAnd say to all the world, This was a man!

Gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite The man that mocks at it and sets it light.

What Time hath scanted men in hair, he hath given them in wit.

To show an unfelt sorrow is an office Which the false man does easy.

Tis ever common That men are merriest when they are from home.

For many men that stumble at the threshold are well foretold that danger lurks within.

Man, proud man, Drest in a little brief authority, Most ignorant of what he's most assured.

Let the end try the man.

...an old man is twice a child.

Manhood is melted into courtesies, valor into compliment, and men are only turned into tongue, and trim ones, too.

Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men; As hounds, and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs, Shoughs, water-rugs, and demi-wolves, are 'clept All by the name of dogs: the valued file Distinguishes the swift, the slow, the subtle, The housekeeper, the hunter, every one According to the gift which bounteous nature Hath in him closed.

There is none of my uncle's marks upon you; he taught me how to know a man in love; in which cage of rushes I am sure you are not prisoner.

One man in his time plays many parts.

Care I for the limb, the thews, the stature, bulk, and big assemblance of a man! Give me the spirit.

There's nothing situate under heaven's eye But hath his bond in earth, in sea, in sky. The beasts, the fishes, and the winged fowls Are their males' subjects and at their controls. Man, more divine, the master of all these, Lord of the wide world and wild wat'ry seas, Indu'd with intellectual sense and souls, Of more pre-eminence than fish and fowls, Are masters to their females, and their lords; Then let your will attend on their accords.

Like a man made after supper of a cheese-paring: when a' was naked, he was, for all the world, like a forked radish, with a head fantastically carved upon it with a knife.

A man may see how this world goes with no eyes. Look with thine ears: see how yond justice rails upon yon simple thief. Hark, in thine ear: change places; and, handy-dandy, which is the justice, which is the thief?

He that plays the king shall be welcome- his Majesty shall have tribute of me; the adventurous knight shall use his foil and target; the lover shall not sigh gratis; the humorous man shall end his part in peace; the clown shall make those laugh whose lungs are tickle o' th' sere; and the lady shall say her mind freely, or the blank verse shall halt fort.

O King, believe not this hard-hearted man!

Let men say we be men of good government, being governed, as the sea is, by our noble and chaste mistress the moon, under whose countenance we steal.

There is an old poor man,. . . . Oppress'd with two weak evils, age and hunger.

Thou seest I have more flesh than another man, and therefore more frailty.

Costly thy habit [dress] as thy purse can buy; But not expressed in fancy - rich, not gaudy. For the apparel oft proclaims the man.

Man and wife, being two, are one in love.

O good old man, how well in thee appears The constant service of the antique world, When service sweat for duty, not for meed! Thou art not for the fashion of these times, Where none will sweat but for promotion, And having that do choke their service up Even with the having. . . .

Men's faults do seldom to themselves appear.

Is not birth, beauty, good shape, discourse, Manhood, learning, gentleness, virtue, youth, liberality, and such like, the spice and salt that season a man

A blind man can't forget the eyesight he lost, show me any beautiful girl. How can her beauty not remind me of the one whose beauty surpasses hers?

They are fairies; he that speaks to them shall die. I'll wink and couch; no man their works must eye.

A goodly portly man, i' faith, and a corpulent; of a cheerful look, a pleasing eye, and a most noble carriage; and, as I think, his age some fifty, or, by'r Lady, inclining to threescore; and now I remember me, his name is Falstaff.

Just death, kind umpire of men's miseries.

You are not wood, you are not stones, but men.

A rarer spirit never Did steer humanity; but you gods will give us Some faults to make us men.

Being daily swallowed by men's eyes, They surfeited with honey and began To loathe the taste of sweetness, whereof a little More than a little is by much too much. So, when he had occasion to be seen, He was but as the cuckoo is in June. Heard, not regarded.

Small things make base men proud.

For as a surfeit of the sweetest things The deepest loathing to the stomach brings, Or as tie heresies that men do leave Are hated most of those they did deceive, So thou, my surfeit and my heresy, Of all be hated, but the most of me!

O that men's ears should be To counsel deaf but not to flattery!

By God, I cannot flatter, I do defy The tongues of soothers! but a braver place In my heart's love hath no man than yourself. Nay, task me to my word; approve me, lord.

If he be so resolved, I can o'ersway him; for he loves to hear That unicorns may be betrayed with trees And bears with glasses, elephants with holes, Lions with toils, and men with flatterers

Rest you fair, good signior; Your worship was the last man in our mouths.

Two loves I have, of comfort and despair, Which like two spirits do suggest me still: The better angel is a man right fair, The worser spirit a woman coloured ill.

Now stand you on the top of happy hours, And many maiden gardens yet unset, With virtuous wish would bear you living flowers, Much liker than your painted counterfeit: So should the lines of life that life repair Which this, Time's pencil, or my pupil pen Neither in inward worth nor outward fair Can make you live your self in eyes of men.

But pearls are fair; and the old saying is: Black men are pearls in beauteous ladies' eyes.

She says I am not fair, that I lack manners; She calls me proud, and that she could not love me, Were man as rare as Phoenix.

Because I cannot flatter and look fair, Smile in men's faces, smooth, deceive, and cog, Duck with French nods and apish courtesy, I must be held a rancorous enemy.

He was too good to be Where ill men were, and was the best of all Amongst the rar'st of good ones- sitting sadly Hearing us praise our loves of Italy For beauty that made barren the swell'd boast Of him that best could speak; for feature, laming The shrine of Venus or straight-pight Minerva, Postures beyond brief nature; for condition, A shop of all the qualities that man Loves woman for; besides that hook of wiving, Fairness which strikes the eye- CYMBELINE.

Men should be what they seem; Or those that be not, would they might seem none!.

Where is your ancient courage? You were used to say extremities was the trier of spirits; That common chances common men could bear; That when the sea was calm all boats alike showed mastership in floating.

He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous.

So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men.

Help, master, help! here's a fish hangs in the net, like a poor man's right in the law; 'twill hardly come out.

But whate'er you are That in this desert inaccessible, Under the shade of melancholy boughs, Lose and neglect the creeping hours of time; If you have ever looked on better days, If ever been where bells knoll'd to church, If ever sat at any good man's feast, If ever from your eyelids wiped a tear, And know what 'tis to pity and be pitied, Let gentleness my strong enforcement be. . . .

No worse a husband than the best of men.

Why, friends, you go to do you know not what: Wherein hath Caesar thus deserved your loves? Alas, you know not: I must tell you then: You have forgot the will I told you of. . . . . Here is the will, and under Caesar's seal. To every Roman citizen he gives, To every several man, seventy-five drachmas. . . . . Moreover, he hath left you all his walks, His private arbours and new-planted orchards, On this side Tiber; he hath left them you, And to your heirs for ever, common pleasures, To walk abroad, and recreate yourselves. Here was a Caesar! when comes such another?

Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in all Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day ere you find them, and when you have them, they are not worth the search.

Men judge by the complexion of the sky The state and inclination of the day:

Stay, my lord, And let your reason with your choler question What 'tis you go about: to climb steep hills Requires slow pace at first: anger is like A full-hot horse, who being allow'd his way, Self-mettle tires him. Not a man in England Can advise me like you: be to yourself As you would to your friend.

There's nothing in this world can make me joy: Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man; And bitter shame hath spoil'd the sweet world's taste That it yields nought but shame and bitterness.

Methinks sometimes I have no more wit than a Christian or an ordinary man has; but I am a great eater of beef, and I believe that does harm to my wit.

They love least that let men know their loves.

O mischief, thou art swift to enter in the thoughts of desperate men!

Well, I will find you twenty lascivious turtles ere one chaste man.

To wilful men, the injuries that they themselves procure must be their schoolmasters.

King Henry: But what a point, my lord, your falcon made, And what a pitch she flew above the rest! To see how God in all his creatures works! Yea, man and birds are fain of climbing high. Suffolk: No marvel, an it like your majesty, My lord protectors hawks do tower so well; They know their masters loves to be aloft, And bears his thoughts above his falcon's pitch. Gloucester: My lord, 'tis but a base ignoble mind That mounts no higher than a bird can soar.

We must love men, ere to us they will seem worthy of our love.

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; for thus sings he, Cuckoo; Cuckoo, cuckoo; O, word of fear, Unpleasing to a married ear.

When holy and devout religious men are at their beads, 'tis hard to draw them thence; so sweet is zealous contemplation.

Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud; Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun, And loathsome canker lies in sweetest bud. All men make faults.

Wise men never sit and wail their loss, but cheerily seek how to redress their harms.

He's truly valiant that can wisely suffer The worst that man can breathe, and make his wrongs His outsides, to wear them like his raiment, carelessly, And ne'er prefer his injuries to his heart, To bring it into danger.

This man, lady, hath robb'd many beasts of their particular additions: he is as valiant as a lion, churlish as the bear, slow as the elephant-a man into whom nature hath so crowded humours that his valour is crush'd into folly, his folly sauced with discretion.

The why is plain as way to parish church: He that a fool doth very wisely hit Doth very foolishly, although he smart, Not to seem senseless of the bob; if not, The wise man's folly is anatomiz'd Even by the squand'ring glances of the fool.

Such men as he be never at heart's ease Whiles they behold a greater than themselves, And therefore are they very dangerous.

I am a true laborer: I earn that I eat, get that I wear, owe no man hate, envy no man's happiness, glad of other men's good, content with my harm.

O powerful love, that in some respects makes a beast a man, in some other, a man a beast.

Some men there are love not a gaping pig, some that are mad if they behold a cat, and others when the bagpipe sings I the nose cannot contain their urine.

Well could he ride, and often men would say, "That horse his mettle from his rider takes: Proud of subjection, noble by the sway, What rounds, what bounds, what course, what stop he makes!" And controversy hence a question takes, Whether the horse by him became his deed, Or he his manage by the well-doing steed.

Cry "havoc!" and let loose the dogs of war, That this foul deed shall smell above the earth With carrion men, groaning for burial.

No, no; 'tis all men's office to speak patience To those that wring under the load of sorrow, But no man's virtue nor sufficiency To be so moral when he shall endure The like himself. Therefore give me no counsel: My griefs cry louder than advertisement.

You see me here, you gods, a poor old man, As full of grief as age; wretched in both.

A man cannot make him laugh; but that's no marvel; he drinks no wine.... If I had a thousand sons, the first human principle I would teach them should be, to forswear thin potations and to addict themselves to sack.

A young man married is a man that's marred.

Good name in man and woman is the immediate jewel of their souls.

They say best men are molded out of faults, And, for the most, become much more the better For being a little bad

Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love.

Men of few words are the best men." (3.2.41)

That man that hath a tongue, I say is no man, if with his tongue he cannot win a woman.

I am a man more sinned against than sinning

All of Creation’s a farce. Man was born as a joke. In his head his reason is buffeted Like wind-blown smoke. Life is a game. Everyone ridicules everyone else. But he who has the last laugh Laughs longest.

He jests at scars that never felt a wound.

HAMLET [...] we fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots. Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service, two dishes, but to one table; that's the end. CLAUDIUS Alas, alas. HAMLET A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm. CLAUDIUS What dost thou mean by this? HAMLET Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar.

Men must learn now with pity to dispense; For policy sits above conscience.

Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him? - Lady Macbeth

O! that a man might know The end of this day's business, ere it come; But it sufficeth that the day will end, And then the end is known.