A Midsummer Night's Dream
But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd
Than that which withering on the virgin thorn
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Scene 1.
For aught that I could ever read,
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Scene 1.
O, hell! to choose love by another's eyes.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Scene 1.
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream;
Brief as the lightning in the collied night,
That in a spleen unfolds both heaven and earth,
And ere a man hath power to say, "Behold!"
The jaws of darkness do devour it up:
So quick bright things come to confusion.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Scene 1.
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Scene 1.
Masters, spread yourselves.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Scene 2.
This is Ercles' vein.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Scene 2.
I 'll speak in a monstrous little voice.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Scene 2.
I am slow of study.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Scene 2.
That would hang us, every mother's son.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Scene 2.
I will roar you as gently as any sucking dove;
I will roar you, an 't were any nightingale.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Scene 2.
A proper man, as one shall see in a summer's day.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Scene 2.
The human mortals.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act ii. Scene 1.
The rude sea grew civil at her song,
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres
To hear the sea-maid's music.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act ii. Scene 1.
And the imperial votaress passed on,
In maiden meditation, fancy-free.
Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell:
It fell upon a little western flower,
Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound,
And maidens call it love-in-idleness.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act ii. Scene 1.
I 'll put a girdle round about the earth
In forty minutes.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act ii. Scene 1.
My heart
Is true as steel.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act ii. Scene 1.
I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act ii. Scene 1.
A lion among ladies is a most dreadful thing.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act iii. Scene 1.
Bless thee, Bottom! bless thee! thou art translated.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act iii. Scene 1.
Lord, what fools these mortals be!
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act iii. Scene 2.
So we grew together,
Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,
But yet an union in partition.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act iii. Scene 2.
Two lovely berries moulded on one stem.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act iii. Scene 2.
I have an exposition of sleep come upon me.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act iv. Scene 1.
I have had a dream, past the wit of man
to say what dream it was.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act iv. Scene 1.
The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man’s hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act iv. Scene 1.
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet
Are of imagination all compact:
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,
That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:
The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
Such tricks hath strong imagination,
That if it would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy;
Or in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush supposed a bear!
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act v. Scene 1.
For never anything can be amiss,
When simpleness and duty tender it.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act v. Scene 1.
The true beginning of our end.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act v. Scene 1.
The best in this kind are but shadows.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act v. Scene 1.
A very gentle beast, and of a good conscience.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act v. Scene 1.
This passion, and the death of a dear friend,
would go near to make a man look sad.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act v. Scene 1.
The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act v. Scene 1.