“It’s not wise to violate rules until you know how to observe them.” – T. S. Eliot, “The Art of Poetry,” Paris Review
“Unheedful vows may heedfully be broken; and he wants wit that wants resolved will to learn his wit to exchange the bad for better.” – William Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Verona 2.6
“Upon a homely object love can wink.” – William Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Verona 1.4
“Maids, in modesty, say No to that which they would have the profferer construe Ay.” – William Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Verona 1.2 (emphasis in original)
“Fire that is closest kept burns most of all.” – William Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Verona 1.2
“The understanding of art depends finally upon one’s willingness to extend one’s humanity and one’s knowledge of human life.” – Ralph Ellison, “The Art of Fiction,” Paris Review
“As the most forward bud is eaten by the canker ere it blow, even so by love the young and tender wit is turn’d to folly; blasting in the bud, losing his verdure even in the prime, and all the fair effects of future hopes.” – William Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Verona 1.1
“To be in love, where scorn is bought with groans; coy looks with heart-sore sighs; one fading moment’s mirth with twenty watchful, tedious nights: if haply won, perhaps a hapless gain; if lost, why then a grievous labour won; however, but a folly bought with wit, or else a wit by folly vanquished.” – William Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Verona 1.1
“Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits.” – William Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Verona 1.1
“Conscience is but a word that cowards use, devis’d at first to keep the strong in awe.” – William Shakespeare, The Life and Death of King Richard III 5.3
“An honest tale speeds best being plainly told.” – William Shakespeare, The Life and Death of King Richard III 4.4
“Why should calamity be full of words? Windy attorneys to their client woes, airy succeeders of intestate joys, poor breathing orators of miseries let them have scope: though what they do help nothing else, yet do they ease the heart.” – William Shakespeare, The Life and Death of King Richard III 4.4
“Fearful commenting is leaden servitor to dull delay; delay leads impotent and snail-pac’d beggary.” – William Shakespeare, The Life and Death of King Richard III 4.4
“When clouds are seen, wise men put on their cloaks; when great leaves fall, then winter is at hand; when the sun sets, who doth not look for night? Untimely storms make men expect a dearth.” – William Shakespeare, The Life and Death of King Richard III 2.3
“Woe to that land that’s govern’d by a child!” – William Shakespeare, The Life and Death of King Richard III 2.3
“Sorrow breaks seasons and reposing hours, makes the night morning, and the noontide night.” – William Shakespeare, The Life and Death of King Richard III 1.4
“Talkers are no good doers.” – William Shakespeare, The Life and Death of King Richard III 1.3
“They that stand high have many blasts to shake them; and if they fall they dash themselves to pieces.” – William Shakespeare, The Life and Death of King Richard III 1.3
“Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind; the thief doth fear each bush an officer.” – William Shakespeare, King Henry VI – Third Part 5.6
“Wise men ne’er sit and wail their loss, but cheerly seek how to redress their harms.” – William Shakespeare, King Henry VI – Third Part 5.4
“When the fox hath once got in his nose, he’ll soon find means to make the body follow.” – William Shakespeare, King Henry VI – Third Part 4.7
“What fates impose, that men must needs abide; it boots not to resist both wind and tide.” – William Shakespeare, King Henry VI – Third Part 4.3
“My crown is in my heart, not on my head; not deck’d with diamonds and Indian stones, nor to be seen: my crown is called content,—a crown it is that seldom kings enjoy.” – William Shakespeare, King Henry VI – Third Part 3.1
“What makes robbers bold but too much lenity?” – William Shakespeare, King Henry VI – Third Part 2.6
“Ill blows the wind that profits nobody.” – William Shakespeare, King Henry VI – Third Part 2.5
“Unreasonable creatures feed their young; and though man’s face be fearful to their eyes, yet, in protection of their tender ones, who hath not seen them,—even with those wings which sometimes they have us’d with fearful flight,—make war with him that climb’d unto their nest, offering their own lives in their young’s defence?” – William Shakespeare, King Henry VI – Third Part 2.2
“To whom do lions cast their gentle looks? Not to the beast that would usurp their den. Whose hand is that the forest bear doth lick? Not his that spoils her young before her face. Who scapes the lurking serpent’s mortal sting? Not he that sets his foot upon her back. The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on, and doves will peck in safeguard of their brood.” – William Shakespeare, King Henry VI – Third Part 2.2
“Many strokes, though with a little axe, hew down and fell the hardest-timber’d oak.” – William Shakespeare, King Henry VI – Third Part 2.1
“He that is truly dedicate to war hath no self-love, nor he that loves himself hath not essentially but by circumstance the name of valor.” – William Shakespeare, King Henry VI – Second Part 5.2
“It is great sin to swear unto a sin. But greater sin to keep a sinful oath. Who can be bound by any solemn vow to do a murderous deed, to rob a man, to force a spotless virgin’s chastity, to reave the orphan of his patrimony, to wring the widow from her custom’d right, and have no other reason for this wrong but that he was bound by a solemn oath?” – William Shakespeare, King Henry VI – Second Part 5.1