Clemency Bedford > Clemency's Quotes

“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.”
― William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

“Shall we their fond pageant see?
Lord, what fools these mortals be!”
― William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

“Be as thou wast wont to be.
See as thou wast wont to see.”
― William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

“The iron tongue of Midnight hath
told twelve lovers, to bed; 'tis
almost fairy time. I fear we
shall outstep the coming morn
as much as we this night over-watch'd.”
― William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

“Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire,
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moon's sphere;
And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green.
The cowslips tall her pensioners be:
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours,
In those freckles live their savours:
I must go seek some dewdrops here
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.
Farewell, thou lob of spirits; I'll be gone:
Our queen and all our elves come here anon.”
― William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream

“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

“in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush supposed a bear!”
― William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

“The course of true love never did run smooth; But, either it was different in blood,
O cross! too high to be enthrall’d to low.
Or else misgraffed in respect of years,
O spite! too old to be engag’d to young.
Or else it stood upon the choice of friends,
O hell! to choose love by another’s eye.”
― William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

“If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumbered here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend:
If you pardon, we will mend:
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call;
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.”
― William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

“O, when she's angry, she is keen and shrewd! She was a vixen when she went to school; And though she be but little, she is fierce.”
― William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

“Ay me! for aught that ever I could read,
could ever hear by tale or history,
the course of true love never did run smooth.”
― William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

“I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was: man is but an ass, if he go about to expound this dream. Methought I was--there is no man can tell what. Methought I was,--and methought I had,--but man is but a patched fool, if he will offer to say what methought I had. The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was. I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream: it shall be called Bottom's Dream, because it hath no bottom...”
― William Shakespeare

“For you, in my respect, are all the world.
Then how can it be said I am alone
When all the world is here to look on me?”
― William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

“But we are spirits of another sort:
I with the morning's love have oft made sport,
And, like a forester, the groves may tread,
Even till the eastern gate, all fiery-red,
Opening on Neptune with fair blessed beams,
Turns into yellow gold his salt green streams.”
― William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

“If we offend, it is with our good will.    That you should think, we come not to offend, But with good will. To show our simple skill,    That is the true beginning of our end.”
― William Shakespeare

“And yet,to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays.”
― William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

“My soul is in the sky.”
― William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

“Take pains. Be perfect.”
― William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

“How now, spirit! Whither wander you?”
― William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

“Are you sure That we are awake? It seems to me That yet we sleep, we dream”
― William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

“A sad tale's best for winter: I have one of sprites and goblins.”
― William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale

“Though I am not naturally honest, I am sometimes so by chance.”
― William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale

“Leontes is whispering nothing?
Is leaning cheek to cheek? Is meeting noses?
Kissing with inside lip? Stopping the career
Of laughter with a sigh?- a note infallible
Of breaking honesty. Horsing foot on foot?
Skulking in corners? Wishing clocks more swift;
Hours, minutes; noon, midnight? And all eyes
Blind with the pin and web but theirs, theirs only,
That would unseen be wicked - is this nothing?
Why, then the world and all that's in't is nothing;
The covering sky is nothing; Bohemia nothing;
My wife is nothing; nor nothing have these nothings,
If this be nothing.”
― William Shakespeare

“a wild dedication of yourselves
To undiscovered waters, undreamed shores.”
― William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale

“What you do
Still betters what is done. When you speak, sweet.
I'ld have you do it ever: when you sing,
I'ld have you buy and sell so, so give alms,
Pray so; and, for the ordering your affairs,
To sing them too: when you do dance, I wish you
A wave o' the sea, that you might ever do
Nothing but that; move still, still so,
And own no other function: each your doing,
So singular in each particular,
Crowns what you are doing in the present deed,
That all your acts are queens.”
― William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale

“Here come those I have done good to against my will,”
― William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale

“If it prove She's otherwise, I'll keep my stables where I lodge my wife; I'll go in couples with her; Than when I feel and see her no further trust her; For every inch of woman in the world, Ay, every dram of woman's flesh, is false, If she be.”
― William Shakespeare