“The true'to put it very briefly, is only the expedient in the way of our thinking, just as 'the right' is only the expedient in the way of our behaving.”

“We ought, all of us, to realize each other in this intense, pathetic, and important way. If you say that this is absurd, and that we cannot be in love with everyone at once, I merely point out to you that, as a matter of fact, certain persons do exist with an enormous capacity for friendship and for taking delight in other people's lives; and that such persons know more of truth than if their hearts were not so big.”

“There can be no final truth in ethics any more than in physics, until the last man has had his experience and said his say.”

“The total mental efficiency of a man is the resultant of the working together of all his faculties. He is too complex a being for any one of them to have the casting vote. If any one of them do have the casting vote, it is more likely to be the strength of his desire and passion, the strength of the interest he takes in what is proposed. Concentration, memory, reasoning power, inventiveness, excellence of the senses, all are subsidiary to this.”

“I don't see how an epigram, being a bolt from the blue, with no introduction or cue, ever gets itself writ.”

“...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.”

“O, then I see Queen Mab hath been with you. . . . She is the fairies’ midwife, and she comes In shape no bigger than an agate stone On the forefinger of an alderman, Drawn with a team of little atomi Athwart men’s noses as they lie asleep.”

“For in that sleep of death what dreams may come.”

“I have bought golden opinions from all sorts of people.”

“Perseverance... keeps honor bright: to have done, is to hang quite out of fashion, like a rusty nail in monumental mockery.”

“...lest too light winning make the prize light.”

“I hope to see London once ere I die.”

“Tis but a base, ignoble mind That mounts no higher than a bird can soar.”

“We aim above the mark to hit the mark.”

“No profit grows where no pleasure is taken.”

“O, the blood more stirsTo rouse a lion than to start a hare!”

“The sweat of industry would dry and die,But for the end it works to.”

“Small herbs have grace, great weeds do grow apace.”

“Spirits are not finely touched But to fine issues.”

“And it is very much lamented,... That you have no such mirrors as will turn Your hidden worthiness into your eye That you might see your shadow.”

“And fearless minds climb soonest unto crowns.”

“Some falls the means are happier to rise.”

“Many strokes, though with a little axe, hew down and fell the hardest-timber'd oak.”

“I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was.”

“What ugly sights of death within mine eyes!”

“Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible to feelings as to sight?”