“What is literature but the expression of moods by the vehicle of symbol and incident?”

“All men live in sufferingI know as few can know,Whether they take the upper roadOr stay content on the low.”

“Once out of nature I shall never take My bodily form from any natural thing, But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make Of hammered gold and gold enameling To keep a drowsy Emperor awake; Or set upon a golden bough to sing To lords and ladies of Byzantium Of what is past, or passing, or to come.”

“All art is in the last analysis an endeavor to condense as out of the flying vapor of the world an image of human perfection, and for its own and not for the art's sake.”

“The women that I picked spoke sweet and lowAnd yet gave tongue. "Hound voices" were they all.”

“I love a ballad but even too well if it be doleful matter merrily set down, or a very pleasant thing indeed and sung lamentably.”

“If it be true that good wine needs no bush, 'tis true that a good play needs no epilogue.”

“The object of Art is to give life a shape.”

“Away, you cut-purse rascal! you filthy bung, away! By this wine, I'll thrust my knife in your mouldy chaps, an you play the saucy cuttle with me. Away, you bottle-ale rascal! you basket-hilt stale juggler, you!”

“Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war!”

“War is no strife To the dark house and the detested wife.”

“If ever thou shalt love,In the sweet pangs of it remember me;For such as I am all true lovers are,Unstaid and skittish in all motions elseSave in the constant image of the creatureThat is beloved.”

“Love sees with the heart and not with mind.”

“I love a ballad but even too well if it be doleful matter merrily set down, or a very pleasant thing indeed and sung lamentably.”

“I that please some, try all, both joy and terrorOf good and bad, that makes and unfolds error.”

“Do all men kill the things they do not love?”

“If the masses can love without knowing why, they also hate without much foundation.”

“I that please some, try all, both joy and terrorOf good and bad, that makes and unfolds error.”

“Weed your better judgments of all opinion that grows rank in them.”

“All hoods make not monks.”

“Why, look you, I am whipp'd and scourg'd with rods,Nettled and stung with pismires[nettles], when I hearOf this vile politician, Bolingbroke.”

“For Brutus is an honourable man;So are they all, all honourable men.”

“Policy sits above conscience.”

“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 Caesar says, 'Do this', it is performed.”

“Thou hast seen a farmer's dog bark at a beggar? And the creature run from the cur. There thou mightst behold the great image of authority-a dog's obeyed in office.”

“The breach of customIs breach of all.”

“Liberty plucks justice by the nose; The baby beats the nurse, and quite athwart Goes all decorum.”

“What is the city but the people?”

“The State is a poor, good beast who means the best: it means friendly.”

“In dealing with the State, we ought to remember that its institutions are not aboriginal, though they existed before we were born; that they are not superior to the citizen; that every one of them was once the act of a single man; every law and usage was a man's expedient to meet a particular case; that they all are imitable, all alterable; we may make as good; we may make better.”

“This little world, this little state, this little commonwealth of our own.”