William Shakespeare Sweet Quotations

What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

Sweet are the uses of adversity which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head.

The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils.

O! Let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven; keep me in temper; I would not be mad!

Music do I hear?Ha, ha! keep time: how sour sweet music is,When time is broke and no proportion kept!So is it in the music of men's lives.

Murder's out of tune, and sweet revenge grows harsh

One more, and this the last:So sweet was ne'er so fatal.

Happy is your Grace That can translate the stubbornness of fortune Into so quiet and so sweet a style

He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one;Exceedingly wise, fair-spoken and persuading;Lofty and sour to them that loved him not;But to those men that sought him sweet as summer.

O how wretched is that poor man that hangs on princes favors! There is betwixt that smile we would aspire to, that sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin, more pangs and fears than wars or women have, and when he falls, he falls like Lucifer, never to hope again.

A violet in the youth of primy nature, Forward, not permanent--sweet, not lasting; The perfume and suppliance of a minute; No more.

Macbeth: How does your patient, doctor? Doctor: Not so sick, my lord, as she is troubled with thick-coming fancies that keep her from rest. Macbeth: Cure her of that! Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, raze out the written troubles of the brain, and with some sweet oblivious antidote cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff which weighs upon her heart. Doctor: Therein the patient must minister to himself.

I am giddy, expectation whirls me round. The imaginary relish is so sweet That it enchants my sense.

Music can minister to minds diseased, pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, raze out the written troubles of the brain, and with its sweet oblivious antidote, cleanse the full bosom of all perilous stuff that weighs upon the heart.

Come away, come away, Death, And in sad cypress let me be laid; Fly away, fly away, breath, I am slain by a fair cruel maid. My shroud of white stuck all with yew, O prepare it! My part of death no one so true did share it. Not a flower, not a flower sweet, On my black coffin let there be strewn: Not a friend, not a friend greet My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown. A thousand thousand sighs to save, lay me O where Sad true lover never find my grave, to weep there!

Sweet are the uses of adversity

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank Here we will sit, and let the sounds of music Creep in our ears; soft stillness, and the night Become the touches of sweet harmony

O, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note, to drown me in thy sister’s flood of tears.

Come unto these yellow sands, And then take hands. Curtsied when you have and kissed The wild waves whist, Foot is featly here and there; And, sweet sprites, the burden bear. Ariel's song, scene II, Act I

Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs; Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes; Being vexed, a sea nourished with loving tears. What is it else? A madness most discreet, A choking gall, and a preserving sweet. *Here’s what love is: a smoke made out of lovers' sighs. When the smoke clears, love is a fire burning in your lover’s eyes. If you frustrate love, you get an ocean made out of lovers' tears. What else is love? It’s a wise form of madness. It’s a sweet lozenge that you choke on.*

What early tongue so sweet saluteth me?

Enough no more; Tis not so sweet now as it was before.

The summer's flower is to the summer sweet Though to itself it only live and die

Under the greenwood tree, Who loves to lie with me And tune his merry note, Unto the sweet bird's throat; Come hither, come hither, come hither. Here shall he see No enemy But winter and rough weather.

Wherefore was I to this keen mockery born? When at your hands did I deserve this scorn? Is't not enough, is't not enough, young man, That I did never, no, nor never can, Deserve a sweet look from Demetrius' eye, But you must flout my insufficiency?

But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes, Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel, Making a famine where abundance lies, Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.

Love is a smoke rais'd with the fume of sighs; being purg'd, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes; being vex'd, a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears; what is it else? A madness most discreet, a choking gall, and a preserving sweet.

Things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour.

So sweet was ne'er so fatal. I must weep. But they are creul tears. This sorrow's heavenly; it strikes where it doth love.

Is there no pity sitting in the clouds That sees into the bottom of my grief? O sweet my mother, cast me not away! Delay this marriage for a month, a week, Or if you do not, make the bridal bed In that dim monument where Tybalt lies.

It is my soul that calls upon my name; How silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night, like softest music to attending ears! -Romeo

Tam: What begg’st thou then? fond woman, let me go. Lav: ’Tis present death I beg; and one thing more That womanhood denies my tongue to tell. O! keep me from their worse than killing lust, And tumble me into some loathsome pit, Where never man’s eye may behold my body: Do this, and be a charitable murderer. Tam: So should I rob my sweet sons of their fee: No, let them satisfy their lust on thee. Dem: Away! for thou hast stay’d us here too long. Lav: No grace! no womanhood! Ah, beastly creature, The blot and enemy to our general name. Confusion fall—

So are you to my thoughts as food to life, or as sweet seasoned showers are to the ground.

Parting is such sweet sorrow

DEMETRIUS Relent, sweet Hermia: and, Lysander, yield Thy crazed title to my certain right. LYSANDER You have her father's love, Demetrius; Let me have Hermia's: do you marry him.

There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray, love, remember; and there is pansies, that’s for thoughts... There’s fennel for you, and columbines; there’s rue for you, and here’s some for me; we may call it herb of grace o’ Sundays. O, you must wear your rue with a difference. There’s a daisy. I would give you some violets, but they wither’d all when my father died. They say he made a good end,— [Sings.] “For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.

The moon shines bright. In such a night as this. When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees and they did make no noise, in such a night...

This music crept by me upon the waters, Allaying both their fury and my passion With its sweet air: thence I have follow’d it.

Keep time! How sour sweet music is when time is broke and no proportion kept! So is it in the music of men's lives. I wasted time and now doth time waste me.

What if this cursed hand Were thicker than itself with brother's blood Is there not rain enough in the sweet heaves To wash it white as snow?

Orpheus with his lute made trees, And the mountain tops that freeze, Bow themselves, when he did sing; To his music, plants and flowers Ever sprung; as sun and showers There had made a lasting spring. Every thing that heard him play, Even the billows of the sea, Hung their heads, and then lay by. In sweet music is such art, Killing care and grief of heart Fall asleep, or hearing, die.

It is thyself, mine own self's better part; Mine eye's clear eye, my dear heart's dearer heart; My food, my fortune, and my sweet hope's aim, My sole earth's heaven, and my heaven's claim.

When holy and devout religious men are at their beads, 'tis hard to draw them thence; so sweet is zealous contemplation.

There's nothing in this world can make me joy: Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man; And bitter shame hath spoil'd the sweet world's taste That it yields nought but shame and bitterness.

Chewing the food of sweet and bitter fancy.

What's to come is still unsure: In delay there lies no plenty; Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty, Youth's a stuff will not endure.

O, a kiss Long as my exile, sweet as my revenge! Now, by the jealous queen of heaven, that kiss I carried from thee, dear, and my true lip Hath virgined it e'er since.

That strain again! It had a dying fall: O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound That breathes upon a bank of violets, Stealing and giving odour! Enough; no more: 'Tis not so sweet as it was before.

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank! Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music Creep in our ears; soft stillness and the night Become the touches of sweet harmony. Sit, Jessica: look, how the floor of heaven Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold; There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st But in his motion like an angel sings, Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins. Such harmony is in immortal souls; But whilst this muddy vesture of decay Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.

Delivers in such apt and gracious words that aged ears play truant at his tales; And younger hearings are quite ravished; So sweet and voluble is his discourse.

If you did wed my sister for her wealth, Then for her wealth's sake use her with more kindness; Or, if you like elsewhere, do it by stealth; Muffle your false love with some show of blindness; Let not my sister read it in your eye; Be not thy tongue thy own shame's orator; Look sweet, speak fair, become disloyalty; Apparel vice like virtue's harbinger; Bear a fair presence, though your heart be tainted; Teach sin the carriage of a holy saint; Be secret-false.

The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem For that sweet odour which doth in it live.

What drink'st thou oft, instead of homage sweet, But poisoned flattery?

But here's the joy: my friend and I are one, Sweet flattery!

O' thinkest thou we shall ever meet again? I doubt it not; and all these woes shall serve For sweet discourses in our times to come.

So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.

Now see that noble and most sovereign reason, Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh.

That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. In me thou seest the twilight of such day, As after sunset fadeth in the west, Which by-and-by black night doth take away...

The daintiest last, to make the end most sweet.

O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name; Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love... 'Tis but thy name that is my enemy; What's in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet...

Sweets grown common lose their dear delight.

Sweets to the sweet.

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...

Passion lends them power, time means to meet, tempering extremities with extremes sweet.

What win I, if I gain the thing I seek? A dream, a breath, a froth of fleeting joy. 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? Or what fond beggar, but to touch the crown, Would with the sceptre straight be strucken down?

In springtime, the only pretty ring time Birds sing, hey ding A-ding, a-ding Sweet lovers love the spring—

Sweet Beatrice, wouldst thou come when I called thee? BEATRICE Yea, signior, and depart when you bid me. BENEDICK O, stay but till then! BEATRICE 'Then' is spoken; fare you well now... (Much Ado About Nothing)

O Mistress mine, where are you roaming? O, stay and hear; your true love's coming, That can sing both high and low: Trip no further, pretty sweeting; Journeys end in lovers meeting, Every wise man's son doth know. What is love? 'Tis not hereafter; Present mirth hath present laughter; What's to come is still unsure: In delay there lies not plenty; Then, come kiss me, sweet and twenty, Youth's a stuff will not endure.

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 sometime voices, That, if I then had waked after long sleep, Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming, The clouds methought would open, and show riches Ready to drop upon me; that, when I waked, I cried to dream again.

The setting sun, and the music at the close, As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last, Writ in rememberance more than long things past.

Thy tongue Makes Welsh as sweet as ditties highly penn'd, Sung by a fair queen in a summer's bower, With ravishing division, to her lute.

Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy.

Let husbands know Their wives have sense like them. They see, and smell, And have their palates both for sweet and sour, As husbands have.

'Tis sweet to kiss a girl on Spring's first day, but only half so sweet as 'tis to kiss a girl on her bootyhole.

The last taste of sweets is sweetest last.

Nay, had I pow'r, I should Pour the sweet milk of concord into hell, Uproar the universal peace, confound All unity on earth.

O, but they say, the tongues of dying men enforce attention, like deep harmony: where words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain: for they breathe truth, that breathe their words in pain. he, that no more must say, is listened more than they whom youth and ease have taught to gloze; more are men's ends marked, than their lives before: the setting sun, and music at the close, as the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last; writ in rememberance more than things long past

Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy.

So far be distant; and good night, sweet friend: thy love ne'er alter, till they sweet life end

Sweet love! Sweet lines! Sweet life! Here is her hand, the agent of her heart; Here is her oath for love, her honour's pawn

Sweet flowers are slow and weeds make haste.

It was a lover and his lass, With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, That o'er the green corn-field did pass, In the spring time, the only pretty ring time, When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding; Sweet lovers love the spring.

The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose, And on old Hiems' thin and icy crown An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds Is, as in mockery, set. The spring, the summer, The childing autumn, angry winter, change Their wonted liveries, and the mazed world, By their increase, now knows not which is which.

For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty.

Then will I raise aloft the milk-white rose. For whose sweet smell the air shall be perfumed.

What early tongue so sweet saluteth me? Young son, it argues a distemper'd head So soon to bid good morrow to thy bed: Care keeps his watch in every old man's eye, And where care lodges, sleep will never lie; But where unbruised youth with unstuff'd brain Doth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth reign:

Most dear actors, eat no onions nor garlic, for we are to utter sweet breath.

Methinks you are my glass, and not my brother: I see by you I am a sweet-faced youth.

Lay her i' the earth: And from her fair and unpolluted flesh May violets spring! I tell thee, churlish priest, A ministering angel shall my sister be, When thou liest howling. HAMLET. What, the fair Ophelia! QUEEN GERTRUDE. Sweets to the sweet: farewell!

Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and white Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on.

O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father refuse thy name, thou art thyself thou not a montegue, what is montegue? tis nor hand nor foot nor any other part belonging to a man What is in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, So Romeo would were he not Romeo called retain such dear perfection to which he owes without that title, Romeo, Doth thy name! And for that name which is no part of thee, take all thyself.

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.

Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye Than twenty of their swords: look thou but sweet, And I am proof against their enmity.

When daffodils begin to peer, With heigh! the doxy, over the dale, Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year; For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale. The white sheet bleaching on the hedge, With heigh! the sweet birds, O, how they sing! Doth set my pugging tooth on edge; For a quart of ale is a dish for a king.

Their savage eyes turned to a modest gaze by the sweet power of music.

How soar sweet music is, when time is broke, and no proportion kept!

I am never merry when I hear sweet music.

Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast! Would I were sleep and peace, so sweet to rest.

Weep not, sweet queen, for trickling tears are vain.