jaelyn bennett > jaelyn's Quotes

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  • #1
    William Shakespeare
    “Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
    As I foretold you, were all spirits and
    Are melted into air, into thin air:
    And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
    The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
    The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
    Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
    And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
    Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
    As dreams are made on, and our little life
    Is rounded with a sleep.”
    William Shakespeare, The Tempest

  • #2
    William Shakespeare
    “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.”
    William Shakespeare, The Tempest

  • #3
    William Shakespeare
    “Full fathom five thy father lies;
    Of his bones are coral made;
    Those are pearls that were his eyes:
    Nothing of him that doth fade,
    But doth suffer a sea-change
    Into something rich and strange.
    Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell: Ding-dong
    Hark! now I hear them,—Ding-dong, bell.”
    William Shakespeare, The Tempest

  • #4
    William Shakespeare
    “For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground
    And tell sad stories of the death of kings;
    How some have been deposed; some slain in war,
    Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;
    Some poison'd by their wives: some sleeping kill'd;
    All murder'd: for within the hollow crown
    That rounds the mortal temples of a king
    Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits,
    Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,
    Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
    To monarchize, be fear'd and kill with looks,
    Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
    As if this flesh which walls about our life,
    Were brass impregnable, and humour'd thus
    Comes at the last and with a little pin
    Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!”
    William Shakespeare, Richard II

  • #5
    William Shakespeare
    “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,
    Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
    In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
    That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
    As the death-bed whereon it must expire
    Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.
    This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
    To love that well which thou must leave ere long.”
    William Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Sonnets

  • #6
    William Shakespeare
    “What do I fear? Myself? There’s none else by.
    Richard loves Richard; that is, I and I.
    Is there a murderer here? No. Yes, I am.
    Then fly! What, from myself? Great reason why:
    Lest I revenge. What, myself upon myself?
    Alack, I love myself. Wherefore? For any good
    That I myself have done unto myself?
    O, no! Alas, I rather hate myself
    For hateful deeds committed by myself.
    I am a villain. Yet I lie. I am not.
    Fool, of thyself speak well. Fool, do not flatter:
    My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
    And every tongue brings in a several tale,
    And every tale condemns me for a villain.
    Perjury, perjury, in the highest degree;
    Murder, stern murder, in the direst degree;
    All several sins, all used in each degree,
    Throng to the bar, crying all, “Guilty! guilty!”
    I shall despair. There is no creature loves me,
    And if I die no soul will pity me.
    And wherefore should they, since that I myself
    Find in myself no pity to myself?”
    William Shakespeare, Richard III

  • #7
    William Shakespeare
    “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.”
    William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

  • #8
    William Shakespeare
    “My dear dear lord,
    The purest treasure mortal times afford
    Is spotless reputation: that away,
    Men are but gilded loam or painted clay.
    A jewel in a ten-times-barr'd-up chest
    Is a bold spirit in a loyal breast.
    Mine honour is my life; both grow in one:
    Take honour from me, and my life is done:
    Then, dear my liege, mine honour let me try;
    In that I live and for that will I die.”
    William Shakespeare, Richard II

  • #9
    William Shakespeare
    “No matter where; of comfort no man speak:
    Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;
    Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes
    Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth,
    Let's choose executors and talk of wills:
    And yet not so, for what can we bequeath
    Save our deposed bodies to the ground?
    Our lands, our lives and all are Bolingbroke's,
    And nothing can we call our own but death
    And that small model of the barren earth
    Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
    For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground
    And tell sad stories of the death of kings;
    How some have been deposed; some slain in war,
    Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;
    Some poison'd by their wives: some sleeping kill'd;
    All murder'd: for within the hollow crown
    That rounds the mortal temples of a king
    Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits,
    Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,
    Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
    To monarchize, be fear'd and kill with looks,
    Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
    As if this flesh which walls about our life,
    Were brass impregnable, and humour'd thus
    Comes at the last and with a little pin
    Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!
    Cover your heads and mock not flesh and blood
    With solemn reverence: throw away respect,
    Tradition, form and ceremonious duty,
    For you have but mistook me all this while:
    I live with bread like you, feel want,
    Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,
    How can you say to me, I am a king?”
    William Shakespeare, Richard II

  • #10
    William Shakespeare
    “Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind. Nor hath love's mind of any judgment taste; Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste: And therefore is love said to be a child, Because in choice he is so oft beguil'd.”
    William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

  • #11
    William Shakespeare
    “If music be the food of love, play on;
    Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
    The appetite may sicken, and so die.
    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 now as it was before.
    O spirit of love! how quick and fresh art thou,
    That, notwithstanding thy capacity
    Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,
    Of what validity and pitch soe'er,
    But falls into abatement and low price,
    Even in a minute: so full of shapes is fancy
    That it alone is high fantastical.”
    William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

  • #12
    William Shakespeare
    “To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
    Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
    To the last syllable of recorded time;
    And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
    The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
    Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
    That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
    And then is heard no more. It is a tale
    Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
    Signifying nothing.”
    William Shakespeare, Macbeth

  • #13
    William Shakespeare
    “Let me not to the marriage of true minds
    Admit impediments. Love is not love
    Which alters when it alteration finds,
    Or bends with the remover to remove.
    O no, it is an ever-fixed mark
    That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
    It is the star to every wand'ring barque,
    Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
    Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
    Within his bending sickle's compass come;
    Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
    But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
    If this be error and upon me proved,
    I never writ, nor no man ever loved.”
    William Shakespeare, Great Sonnets

  • #14
    William Shakespeare
    “Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
    Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
    More than cool reason ever comprehends.
    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 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.”
    Shakespeare William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

  • #15
    Mary Oliver
    “You do not have to be good.
    You do not have to walk on your knees
    for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
    You only have to let the soft animal of your body
    love what it loves.
    Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
    Meanwhile the world goes on.
    Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
    are moving across the landscapes,
    over the prairies and the deep trees,
    the mountains and the rivers.
    Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
    are heading home again.
    Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
    the world offers itself to your imagination,
    calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
    over and over announcing your place
    in the family of things.”
    Mary Oliver

  • #16
    Mary Oliver
    “The Journey

    One day you finally knew
    what you had to do, and began,
    though the voices around you
    kept shouting
    their bad advice --
    though the whole house
    began to tremble
    and you felt the old tug
    at your ankles.
    "Mend my life!"
    each voice cried.
    But you didn't stop.
    You knew what you had to do,
    though the wind pried
    with its stiff fingers
    at the very foundations,
    though their melancholy
    was terrible.
    It was already late
    enough, and a wild night,
    and the road full of fallen
    branches and stones.
    But little by little,
    as you left their voices behind,
    the stars began to burn
    through the sheets of clouds,
    and there was a new voice
    which you slowly
    recognized as your own,
    that kept you company
    as you strode deeper and deeper
    into the world,
    determined to do
    the only thing you could do --
    determined to save
    the only life you could save.”
    Mary Oliver

  • #17
    Mary Oliver
    “How I go to the wood

    Ordinarily, I go to the woods alone, with not a single
    friend, for they are all smilers and talkers and therefore
    unsuitable.

    I don’t really want to be witnessed talking to the catbirds
    or hugging the old black oak tree. I have my way of
    praying, as you no doubt have yours.

    Besides, when I am alone I can become invisible. I can sit
    on the top of a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds,
    until the foxes run by unconcerned. I can hear the almost
    unhearable sound of the roses singing.

    If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must love
    you very much.”
    Mary Oliver, Swan: Poems and Prose Poems

  • #18
    Mary Oliver
    “If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happened better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb. (Don't Hesitate)”
    Mary Oliver, Swan: Poems and Prose Poems

  • #19
    Mary Oliver
    “Can You Imagine?
    For example, what the trees do
    not only in lightening storms
    or the watery dark of a summer's night
    or under the white nets of winter
    but now, and now, and now - whenever
    we're not looking. Surely you can't imagine
    they don't dance, from the root up, wishing
    to travel a little, not cramped so much as wanting
    a better view, or more sun, or just as avidly
    more shade - surely you can't imagine they just
    stand there loving every
    minute of it, the birds or the emptiness, the dark rings
    of the years slowly and without a sound
    thickening, and nothing different unless the wind,
    and then only in its own mood, comes
    to visit, surely you can't imagine
    patience, and happiness, like that.”
    Mary Oliver

  • #20
    Mary Oliver
    “eventually tides will be the only calendar you believe in…
    And someone’s face, whom you love, will be as a star
    Both intimate and ultimate,
    And you will be heart-shaken and respectful.

    And you will hear the air itself, like a beloved, whisper
    Oh let me, for a while longer, enter the two
    Beautiful bodies of your lungs...

    Look, and look again.
    This world is not just a little thrill for your eyes.

    It’s more than bones.
    It’s more than the delicate wrist with its personal pulse.
    It’s more than the beating of a single heart.
    It’s praising.
    It’s giving until the giving feels like receiving.
    You have a life- just imagine that!
    You have this day, and maybe another, and maybe
    Still another…

    And I have become the child of the clouds, and of hope.
    I have become the friend of the enemy, whoever that is.
    I have become older and, cherishing what I have learned,
    I have become younger.

    And what do I risk to tell you this, which is all I know?
    Love yourself. Then forget it. Then, love the world.”
    Mary Oliver, Evidence: Poems

  • #21
    Mary Oliver
    “The Fourth Sign of The Zodiac (Part 3) by Mary Oliver

    I know, you never intended to be in this world.
    But you’re in it all the same.

    So why not get started immediately.

    I mean, belonging to it.
    There is so much to admire, to weep over.

    And to write music or poems about.

    Bless the feet that take you to and fro.
    Bless the eyes and the listening ears.
    Bless the tongue, the marvel of taste.
    Bless touching.

    You could live a hundred years, it’s happened.
    Or not.
    I am speaking from the fortunate platform
    of many years,
    none of which, I think, I ever wasted.
    Do you need a prod?
    Do you need a little darkness to get you going?
    Let me be as urgent as a knife, then,
    and remind you of Keats,
    so single of purpose and thinking, for a while,
    he had a lifetime.
    Mary oliver”
    Mary Oliver

  • #22
    Anaïs Nin
    “I am the most tired woman in the world. I am tired when I get up. Life requires an effort I cannot make. Please give me that heavy book. I need to put something heavy like that on top of my head. I have to place my feet under the pillows always, so as to be able to stay on earth. Otherwise I feel myself going away, going away at a tremendous speed, on account of my lightness. I know that I am dead. As soon as I utter a phrase my sincerity dies, becomes a lie whose coldness chills me. Don't say anything, because I see that you understand me, and I am afraid of your understanding. I have such a fear of finding another like myself, and such a desire to find one! I am so utterly lonely, but I also have such a fear that my isolation be broken through, and I no longer be the head and ruler of my universe. I am in great terror of your understanding by which you penetrate into my world; and then I stand revealed and I have to share my kingdom with you.”
    Anais Nin



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