Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date. – William Shakespeare Sonnet 18
If the first heir of my invention prove deformed, I shall be sorry it had so noble a godfather. – William Shakespeare Venus and Adonis
So on the tip of his subduing tongue All kinds of arguments and questions deep, All replication prompt, and reason strong, For his advantage still did wake and sleep. To make the weeper laugh, the laugher weep, He had the dialect and different skill, Catching all passion in his craft of will. – William Shakespeare A Lover’s Complaint
‘Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear, Or, like a fairy, trip upon the green, Or, like a nymph, with long dishevelled hair, Dance on the sands, and yet no footing seen: Love is a spirit all compact of fire, Not gross to sink, but light, and will aspire. – William Shakespeare Venus and Adonis
Have you not heard it said full oft, A woman’s nay doth stand for naught? – William Shakespeare The Passionate Pilgrim, No. 14.
Crabbed age and youth cannot live together: Youth is full of pleasance, age is full of care. – William Shakespeare The Passionate Pilgrim, No. 12.
O father, what a hell of witchcraft lies In the small orb of one particular tear. – William Shakespeare A Lover’s Complaint
Beauty itself doth of itself persuade The eyes of men without an orator. – William Shakespeare The Rape of Lucrece
What I have done is yours; what I have to do is yours; being part in all I have, devoted yours. – William Shakespeare The Rape of Lucrece
Who buys a minute’s mirth to wail a week? Or sells eternity to get a toy? For one sweet grape who will the vine destroy? – William Shakespeare The Rape of Lucrece
The mightier man, the mightier is the thing That makes him honoured or begets him hate; For greatest scandal waits on greatest state. – William Shakespeare The Rape of Lucrece
When forty winters shall besiege thy brow, And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field. – William Shakespeare Sonnet 2
For he being dead, with him is beauty slain, And, beauty dead, black chaos comes again. – William Shakespeare Venus and Adonis
And now this pale swam in her watery nest Begins the sad dirge of her certain ending. – William Shakespeare The Rape of Lucrece
As an unperfect actor on the stage, Who with his fear is put beside his part, Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage, Whose strength’s abundance weakens his own heart; So I, for fear of trust, forget to say The perfect ceremony of love’s rite. – William Shakespeare Sonnet 23
Time’s glory is to calm contending kings, To unmask falsehood, and bring truth to light. – William Shakespeare The Rape of Lucrece
O! let my looks be then the eloquence And dumb presagers of my speaking breast. – William Shakespeare Sonnet 23
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste. – William Shakespeare Sonnet 30
Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud: Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun, And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud. – William Shakespeare Sonnet 35
Thou art thy mother’s glass, and she in thee Calls back the lovely April of her prime. – William Shakespeare Sonnet 3
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves, Which erst from heat did canopy the herd, And summer’s green all girded up in sheaves, Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard. – William Shakespeare Sonnet 12
But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st, Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st, So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. – William Shakespeare Sonnet 18
Full many a glorious morning have I seen Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye, Kissing with golden face the meadows green, Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy. – William Shakespeare Sonnet 33
Haply I think on thee, and then my state, Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate; For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings. – William Shakespeare Sonnet 29
So true a fool is love, that in your will, Though you do anything, he thinks no ill. – William Shakespeare Sonnet 57
No longer mourn for me when I am dead Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell Give warning to the world that I am fled From this vile world with vilest worms to dwell. – William Shakespeare Sonnet 71
