Shakespeare

Front 1

This fellow is wise enough to play the fool,
And to do that well craves a kind of wit.

Back 1

Viola, 12th Night, re Feste

Front 2

Were I in England now, as once I was, and had but this fish painted, not a holiday fool there but would give a piece of silver.

Back 2

Trinculo, The Tempest

Front 3

Let me hire him too. Here’s my coxcomb.

Back 3

Fool, King Lear

Front 4

Oh, ill-starr’d wench!
Pale as thy smock!

Back 4

Othello, Othello

Front 5

Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie
Which we ascribe to heaven. The fated sky
Gives us free scope, only doth backward pull
Our slow designs when we ourselves are dull.

Back 5

Helena, All's Well

Front 6

Say there be;
Yet nature is made better by no mean
But nature makes that mean. So, over that art
Which you say adds to nature is an art
That nature makes

Back 6

Polixenes, Winter's Tale

Front 7

I marvel your ladyship takes delight in such a barren rascal. I saw him put down the other day with an ordinary fool that has no more brain than a stone.

Back 7

Malvolio, 12th Night

Front 8

Be your tears wet? Yes, faith. I pray, weep not.
If you have poison for me I will drink it.
I know you do not love me, for your sisters
Have, as I do remember, done me wrong.
You have some cause, they have not.

Back 8

Lear, King Lear

Front 9

Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves,
And ye that on the sands with printless foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune

Back 9

Prospero, The Tempest

Front 10

We were as twinned lambs that did frisk i’ the sun,
And bleat the one at th’other. What we changed
Was innocence for innocence

Back 10

Polixenes, The Winter's Tale

Front 11

There is a willow grows askant the brook,
That shows his hoar leaves in the blassy stream

Back 11

Gertrude, Hamlet

Front 12

Impute it not a crime
To me or my swift passage, that I slide
O’er sixteen years and leave the growth untried
Of that wide gap, since it is in my power

Back 12

Time, The Winter's Tale

Front 13

Not a whit. We defy augury. There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now,
’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now; yet it will come. The readiness is all. Since no man of aught he leaves knows, what is’t to leave betimes? Let be

Back 13

Hamlet, Hamlet

Front 14

Thus do I ever make my fool my purse;
For I mine own gained knowledge should profane
If I would time expend with such a snipe
But for my sport and profit.

Back 14

Iago, Othello

Front 15

Fairest Cordelia, that art most rich being poor,
Most choice, forsaken, and most loved, despised,
Thee and thy virtues here I seize upon,
Be it lawful I take up what’s cast away.

Back 15

King of France, King Lear

Front 16

Daffodils,
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty; violets dim,
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes
Or Cytherea’s breath; pale primroses

Back 16

Perdita, The Winter's Tale

Front 17

Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometimes voices
That, if I then had wak'd after long sleep

Back 17

Caliban, The Tempest

Front 18

Ay, let her rot and perish, and be damned tonight, for she shall not live. No, my heart is turned to stone; I strike it, and it hurts my hand.

Back 18

Othello, Othello

Front 19

O, my offense is rank! It smells to heaven,
It hath the primal eldest curse upon ’t,
A brother’s murder.

Back 19

Claudius, Hamlet

Front 20

Twere all one
That I should love a bright particular star
And think to wed it, he is so above me

Back 20

Hellena, All's Well

Front 21

O, reason not the need! Our basest beggars
Are in the poorest thing superfluous.
Allow not nature more than nature needs

Back 21

Lear, King Lear

Front 22

It is an honor ’longing to our house,
Bequeathèd down from many ancestors,
Which were the greatest obloquy i’th’world
In me to lose.

Back 22

Bertram, All's Well that ends Well

Front 23

Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats
Will not debate the question of this straw.
This is th’impostume of much wealth and peace

Back 23

Hamlet, Hamlet

Front 24

Misprision in the highest degree! Lady, cucullus non facit monachum; that’s as much to say as I wear not motley in my brain. Good Madonna, give me leave to prove you a fool.

Back 24

Fool, 12th Night

Front 25

I did consent,
And often did beguile her of her tears,
When I did speak of some distressful stroke
That my youth suffered. My story being done,
She gave me for my pains a world of sighs.

Back 25

Othello, Othello