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A prose that is altogether alive demands something of the reader that the ordinary novel reader is not prepared to give.
T. S. Eliot
Only by acceptance of the past, can you alter it
T.S. Eliot
Till swollen with cunning, of a self-conceit,
His waxen wings did mount above his reach,
And melting heavens conspired his overthrow.
Christopher Marlowe, Dr. Faustus
He is haunted by a demon, a demon against which he feels powerless, because in its first manifestation it has no face, no name, nothing; and the words, the poem he makes, are a kind of exorcism of this demon.
T.S. Eliot, The Three Voices of Poetry
There was a door
And I could not open it. I could not touch the handle.
Why could I not walk out of my prison?
What is hell? Hell is oneself,
Hell is alone, the other figures in it
Merely projections. There is nothing to escape from
And nothing to Escape to. One is always alone.
T.S. Eliot, The Cocktail Party
We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far can one go.
T. S. Elliot
Oh why rebuke you him that loves you so? / Lay breath so bitter on your bitter foe.
William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
We must not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we began and to know the place for the first time.
T.S. Eliot
Was this the face that launched a thousand ships,
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.—
Her lips suck forth my soul; see where it flies...
Christopher Marlowe
Of lovers whose bodies smell of each other
Who think the same thoughts without need of speech
T.S. Eliot
All causes shall give way: I am in blood
Stepp’d in so far that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o’er.
William Shakespeare, Macbeth
That holy shape becomes a devil best.
Christopher Marlowe, Dr. Faustus
O, swear not by the moon, th’ inconstant moon,
That monthly changes in her circle orb,
Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.
William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Thou from this land, I from myself am banish'd.
Christopher Marlowe, Edward II
turn him into stars and form a constellation in his image. His face will make the heavens so beautiful that the world will fall in love with the night and forget about the garish sun.
William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow.
William Shakespeare, Hamlet
If I be cruel and grow tyrannous,
Now let them thank themselves, and rue too late.
Christopher Marlowe, Edward II
Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.
William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing
I hold the Fates bound fast in iron chains,
And with my hand turn Fortune's wheel about;
Christopher Marlowe, Tamburlaine
I do feel it gone,
But know not how it went
William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale
Unhappy Persia, that in former age
Hast been the seat of mighty Conquerors,
That in their prowesse and their policies, Have triumph over Africa.
---Christopher Marlowe, Tamburlaine
And this our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything. I would not change it.
William Shakespeare, As You Like It
FAUSTUS: Bell, book and candle, candle, book and bell,
Forward and backward, to curse Faustus to hell.
Christopher Marlowe, Dr. Faustus
Alas, that love, so gentle in his view,
Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof!
It’s sad. Love looks like a nice thing, but it’s actually very rough when you experience it.
William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
That like I best that flies beyond my reach.
Set me to scale the high pyramids
And thereon set the diadem of France;
I'll either rend it with my nails to nought,
Or mount the top with my aspiring wings,
Although my downfall be the deepest hell.
Christopher Marlowe
These violent delights have violent ends
And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,
Which as they kiss consume. The sweetest honey
Is loathsome in his own deliciousness
And in the taste confounds the appetite.
Therefore love moderately; long love doth so;
Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.
William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting
That would not let me sleep.
----William Shakespeare
See how she leans her cheek upon her hand.
O, that I were a glove upon that hand
That I might touch that cheek!
---William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Like madness is the glory of this life.
---Shakespeare, Timon of Athens
Sweets to the sweet, farewell! I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet’s wife; I thought thy bride-bed to have decked, sweet maid, And not have strewed thy grave.
William Shakespeare, Hamlet
For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds; Lillies that fester smell far worse than weeds.
William Shakespeare, The Sonnets
There is sweet music here that softer falls
Than petals from blown roses on the grass,
Or night-dews on still waters between walls
Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass;
Music that gentlier on the spirit lies,
Than tir'd eyelids upon tir'd eyes;
Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies.
Here are cool mosses deep,
And thro' the moss the ivies creep,
And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep,
And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep.
Lord Alfred Tennyson
This thing of darkness I
Acknowledge mine.
William Shakespeare, The Tempest
If love be rough with you, be rough with love;
Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down.
Give me a case to put my visage in:
A visor for a visor! what care I
What curious eye doth quote deformities?
Here are the beetle brows shall blush for me.
William Shakespeare
The Devil hath power
To assume a pleasing shape.
William Shakespeare, Hamlet
Better a witty fool, than a foolish wit.
William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls:
Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis something, nothing;
’twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed.
William Shakespeare, Othello
Are you sure That we are awake? It seems to me That yet we sleep, we dream
---William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtues we write in water.
William Shakespeare, Henry VIII
You speak an infinite deal of nothing.
William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice
O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;
It is the green-ey'd monster, which doth mock
The meat it feeds on. That cuckold lives in bliss,
Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger:
But O, what damnèd minutes tells he o'er
Who dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet strongly loves!
William Shakespeare, Othello
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
----Alfred Lord Tennyson
Words are easy, like the wind; faithful friends are hard to find.
---William Shakespeare, The Passionate Pilgrim
I follow up the quest despite of day and night and death and hell.
Alfred Lord Tennyson
The intellect of man is forced to choose
Perfection of the life, or of the work.
---William Butler Yeats
I follow up the quest despite of day and night and death and hell.
--Alfred Lord Tennyson
THOUGH you are in your shining days,
Voices among the crowd
And new friends busy with your praise,
Be not unkind or proud,
But think about old friends the most:
Time's bitter flood will rise,
Your beauty perish and be lost
For all eyes but these eyes.
---William Butler Yeats
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!
As tho’ to breathe were life!
---Alfred Lord Tennyson, Ulysses
By logic and reason we die hourly; by imagination we live.
---William Butler Yeats
Forgive my grief for one removed
Thy creature whom I found so fair
I trust he lives in Thee and there
I find him worthier to be loved.
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
Oh, when may it suffice?
---William Butler Yeats
O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer,
Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?
O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?
---W.B. Yeats
Ours is not to wonder why. Ours is just to do or die.
Lord Tennyson Alfred
The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.
---W.B. Yeats