THIRD CITIZEN: Ingratitude is monstrous.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Coriolanus, Act 2, sc. 3, l. 10 (2.3.10) (c. 1608)
(Source)
ROSENCRANTZ: Many wearing rapiers are afraid of goosequills.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Hamlet, Act 2, sc. 2, l. 366ff (2.2.366) (c. 1600)
(Source)
NORFOLK: Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot
That it do singe yourself.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Henry VIII, Act 1, sc. 1, l. 168ff (1.1.168-169) (1613)
(Source)
ANTONIO: In nature there’s no blemish but the mind;
None can be called deformed but the unkind.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Twelfth Night, Act 3, sc. 4, l. 386ff (3.4.386-387) (1601)
(Source)
OPHELIA: Lord, we know what we are but know not what we may be.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Hamlet, Act 4, sc. 5, l. 48ff (4.5.48-49) (c. 1600)
(Source)
ANTONY: To business that we love we rise betime
And go to ’t with delight.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Antony and Cleopatra, Act 4, sc. 4, l. 27ff (4.4.27-28) (1607)
(Source)
MESSENGER: Frame your mind to mirth and merriment,
Which bars a thousand harms, and lengthens life.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Taming of the Shrew, Induction, sc. 2, l. 137ff (c. 1591)
(Source)
MENAS: We, ignorant of ourselves,
Beg often our own harms, which the wise powers
Deny us for our good; so find we profit
By losing of our prayers.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Antony and Cleopatra, Act 2, sc. 1, l. 7ff (2.1.7-10) (1607)
(Source)
MALCOLM: Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak
Whispers the o’er-fraught heart and bids it break.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Macbeth, Act 4, sc. 3, l. 246ff (4.3.246-247) (1606)
(Source)
HENRY: Now join your hands, and with your hands your hearts.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Henry VI, Part 3, Act 4, sc. 6, l. 39ff (4.6.39) (1591)
(Source)
ALBANY: Striving to better, oft we mar what’s well.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
King Lear, Act 1, sc. 4, l. 369 (1.4.369) (1606)
(Source)
SAYE: Ignorance is the curse of God,
Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Henry VI, Part 2, Act 4, sc. 7, l. 73ff (4.7.73-74) (1591)
(Source)
CASSIUS: Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves.
Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Julius Caesar, Act 1, sc. 2, l. 142ff (1.2.142-148) (1599)
(Source)
AUSTRIA: For courage mounteth with occasion.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
King John, Act 2, sc. 1, l. 82 (2.1.82) (1596)
(Source)
ANGELO: ‘Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus,
Another thing to fall.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Measure for Measure, Act 2, sc. 1, l. 18ff (2.1.18-19) (1604)
(Source)
POLONIUS: This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Hamlet, Act 1, sc. 3, l. 84ff (1.3.84-86) (c. 1600)
(Source)
VOLUMNIA: Action is eloquence.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Coriolanus, Act 3, sc. 2, l. 95 (3.2.95) (c. 1608)
(Source)
One of the tragedies of modern times is that people have come to believe that something said by someone in the past, perhaps for illustrative or provocation purposes, actually represents that person’s beliefs at the time.
Idries Shah (1924-1996) Indian- British writer, Sufi teacher
(Attributed)
Truth is the most powerful thing in the world, since even fiction itself must be governed by it, and can only please by its resemblance.
Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don’t have the balls to live in the real world.
Mary Shafer (contemp.) American aeronautics engineer
(Attributed)
There is no religion without love, and people may talk as much as they like about their religion, but if it does not teach them to be good and kind to man and beast, it is all a sham.
Anna Sewell (1820-1878) English novelist
Black Beauty, Part 1, ch. 13 “The Devil’s Trade-Mark” (1877)
(Source)
It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper.
Rod Serling (1924-1975) American screenwriter, playwright, television producer, narrator
(Attributed)
Unsourced. An alternate (parallel?) quote from the documentary Rod Serling: Submitted for Your Approval: "How can you put out a meaningful drama when every fifteen minutes proceedings are interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits with toilet paper? No dramatic art form should be dictated and controlled by men whose training and instincts are cut of an entirely different cloth. The fact remains that these gentlemen sell consumer goods, not an art form."
Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind.
Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC-AD 65) Roman statesman, philosopher, playwright [Lucius Annaeus Seneca]
Moral Letters to Lucilius [Epistulae morales ad Lucilium], letter 71, sec. 3 “On the Supreme Good” [tr. Grummere (1918)]
(Source)
Alt trans.: "If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable."
Life’s like a play; it’s not the length but the excellence of the acting that matters.
Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC-AD 65) Roman statesman, philosopher, playwright [Lucius Annaeus Seneca]
Moral Letters to Lucilius [Epistulae morales ad Lucilium], letter 77
Alt trans. by R. Gummere: "It is with life as it is with a play, - it matters not how long the action is spun out, but how good the acting is." Full text.
The willing, Destiny guides them; the unwilling, Destiny drags them.
Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC-AD 65) Roman statesman, philosopher, playwright [Lucius Annaeus Seneca]
Moral Letters to Lucilius [Epistulae morales ad Lucilium], “On Obedience to the Universal Will”
It is equally faulty to trust everyone and to trust no one.
[Utrumque enim vitium est et omnibus credere et nulli.]
Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC-AD 65) Roman statesman, philosopher, playwright [Lucius Annaeus Seneca]
Moral Letters to Lucilius [Epistulae morales ad Lucilium], letter 3 “On True and False Friendship” [tr. Gummere]
(Source)
Alt. trans.: "For it is both a vice to believe everyone and no-one."
It is dangerous for a man too suddenly, or too easily, to believe himself. Wherefore let us examine, watch, observe, and inspect our own hearts; for we are ourselves our own greatest flatterers: we should every night call ourselves to account, “What infirmity have I mastered to-day? what passion opposed? what temptation resisted? what virtue acquired?” Our vices will abate of themselves, if they be brought every day to the shrift.
Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC-AD 65) Roman statesman, philosopher, playwright [Lucius Annaeus Seneca]
Moral Essays, “On the Happy Life” [De Vita Beata]” [tr. L’Estrange (1834)]
(Source)
Sometimes incorrectly quoted as "Our vices will abort of themselves ...."
The poor one is not the man who has little, but the man who craves more.
[Non qui parum habet, sed qui plus cupit, pauper est.]
Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC-AD 65) Roman statesman, philosopher, playwright [Lucius Annaeus Seneca]
Moral Letters to Lucilius [Epistulae morales ad Lucilium], letter 2 “On Discursiveness in Reading,” sec. 6
Alt trans. (Gummere (1918)): "It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor."
BATMAN: Some days you just can’t get rid of a bomb.
Wrong? What could be wrong with our child, Robert?
David Seltzer (b. 1940) American screenwriter, director, producer
The Omen (1976)
‘Twas an unhappy division that has been made betwixt faith and works; though in my intellect I may divide them just as in the candle, I know there is both heat and light; but yet put out the candle, and they are both gone: one remains not without the other.
John Selden (1584-1654) English jurist, antiquary, politician, Orientalist
Table Talk, ch. 42 “Faith and Works” (1686)
What? Men dodging this way for single bullets? What will you do when they open fire along the whole line? I am ashamed of you. They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance.
John Sedgwick (1813-1864) American army officer
Report by General Martin T. McMahon
(Nearly) last words by General Sedgwick to his troops during the Battle of Spotsylvania, shortly before being shot and killed by a sniper. Source. Some paraphrases have the last word cut off.
Seeing death as the end of life is like seeing the horizon as the end of the ocean.
David Searls (b. 1947) American journalist, columnist, blogger
(Attributed)
Who o’er the herd would wish to reign,
Fantastic, fickle, fierce, and vain!
Vain as the leaf upon the stream,
And fickle as a changeful dream;
Fantastic as a woman’s mood,
And fierce as Frenzy’s fever’d blood.
Thou many-headed monster thing,
Oh who would wish to be thy king!
The willow which bends to the tempest, often escapes better than the oak which resists it; and so in great calamities, it sometimes happens that light and frivolous spirits recover their elasticity and presence of mind sooner than those of a loftier character.
I’ve always known I was gifted, which is not the easiest thing in the world for a person to know, because you’re not responsible for your gift, only for what you do with it.
Not one of us knows what effect his life produces, and what he gives to others; that is hidden from us and must remain so, though we are often allowed to see some little fraction of it, so that we may not lose courage. The way in which power works is a mystery.