Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare Part 28

Thou hast seen a farmer's dog bark at a beggar?

And the creature run from the cur?

There thou might'st behold the great image of authority a dog's obeyed in office.

King Lear -- IV. 6.

Could great men thunder As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet, For every pelting, petty officer Would use his heaven for thunder: nothing but thunder-- Merciful heaven!

Thou rather, with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt, Splitt'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak, Than the soft myrtle!--O, but man, proud man!

Drest in a little brief authority -- Most ignorant of what he's most a.s.sured, His gla.s.sy essence,--like an angry ape, Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven, As make the angels weep.

Measure for Measure -- II. 2.

BEAUTY.

The hand, that hath made you fair, hath made you good: the goodness, that is cheap in beauty, makes beauty brief in goodness; but grace, being the soul of your complexion, should keep the body of it ever fair.

Measure for Measure -- III. 1.

BLESSINGS UNDERVALUED.

It so falls out That what we have we prize not to the worth, Whiles we enjoy it; but being lacked and lost, Why, then we rack the value; then we find The virtue, that possession would not show us Whiles it was ours.

Much Ado About Nothing -- IV. 1.

BRAGGARTS.

It will come to pa.s.s, That every braggart shall be found an a.s.s.

All's Well that Ends Well -- IV. 3.

They that have the voice of lions, and the act of bares, are they not monsters?

Troilus and Cressida -- III. 2.

CALUMNY.

Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny.

Hamlet -- III. 1.

No might nor greatness in mortality Can censure 'scape; back-wounding calumny The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong, Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue?

Measure for Measure -- III. 2.

CEREMONY.

Ceremony Was but devised at first, to set a gloss On faint deeds, hollow welcomes.

Recanting goodness, sorry ere 'tis shown; But where there is true friends.h.i.+p, there needs none.

Timon of Athens -- I. 2.

COMFORT.

Men Can counsel, and speak comfort to that grief Which they themselves not feel; but tasting it, Their counsel turns to pa.s.sion, which before Would give preceptial medicine to rage, Fetter strong madness in a silken thread, Charm ache with air, and agony with words: 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.

Much Ado About Nothing -- V. 1.

Well, every one can master a grief, but he that has it.

Idem -- II.

COMPARISON.

When the moon shone, we did not see the candle.

So doth the greater glory dim the less; A subst.i.tute s.h.i.+nes brightly as a king, Until a king be by; and then his state Empties itself, as does an inland brook Into the main of waters.

Merchant of Venice -- V. 1.

CONSCIENCE.

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought; And enterprises of great pith and moment, With this regard, their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action.

Hamlet -- III. 1.