I enjoy happiness in sharing with others some of the things that enrich my life and these one line observations of Shakespeare I have read and enjoyed many times because they remind me of so many situations, or things I have read or felt or wanted to say but could not find words to express my thoughts adequately. I hope you will enjoy as I do his comprehensive and incomparable wisdom. Happy reading!!!
Shakespeare is acclaimed for many worthy reasons, his plays, his characters, et.al but his one-line statements of wisdom may be the most valuable because they are easily read, easily understood, quotable, remembered and applicable to many occasions.
Brevity is the soul of wit.
The empty vessel makes the greatest sound.
When clouds are seen wise men put on their cloaks.
Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all.
I will chide no heathen in the world but myself, against whom I know most faults.
A light heart lives long.
I had rather have a fool make me merry, than experience make me sad.
Men in rage strike those that wish them good.
While thou livest, keep a good tongue in thy head.
Trust not him that hath once broken faith.
I feel within me a peace above all earthly dignities, a still and quiet conscience.
The cheek is apter than the tongue to tell an errand.
Deter not time; delays have dangerous ends.
Happy are they that hear their detractions, and can put them to mending.
The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.
It is certain, that either wise bearing or ignorant carriage is caught, as men take diseases one of another; therefore, let them take heed of their company.
I can easier teach twenty men what were good to be done, than to be one of twenty to follow mine own teaching.
Virtue and genuine graces in themselves speak what no words can utter.
Fearless minds climb soonest unto crowns.
Let us teach ourselves that honorable step, not to outdo discretion.
Often times excusing of a fault, doth make a fault the worse by the excuse.
Oft expectation fails, and most oft there were most it promises.
Experience is a jewel, and it had need be so, for it is often purchased at an infinite rate.
In thy face I see the map of honor, truth, and loyalty.
All men’s faces are true, whatsoever their hands are.
The fashion doth wear out more apparel than the man.
There is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them as we will.
Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate.
The fault-finder–it is his nature’s plague to spy into abuses; and oft his jealousy shapes faults that are not.
To fear the worst oft cures the worst.
It is not enough to help the feeble up, but to support him after.
How far that little candle throws his beams! so shines a good deed in a naughty world.
The king-becoming graces are justice, verity, temperance, stableness, bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness, devotion, patience, courage, fortitude.
O Lord, who lends me life, lend me a heart replete with thankfulness.
Some are born great; some achieve greatness; and some have greatness thrust upon them.
He is not great, who is not greatly good.
Be bright and jovial among your guests tonight.
Unbidden guests are often welcomest when they are gone.
They whose guilt within their bosom lies, imagine every eye beholds their blame.
The guilt being great, the fear doth still exceed.
Guiltiness will speak though tongues were out of use.
Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind; the thief doth fear each bush an officer.
Sorrow’s best antidote is employment.
How use doth breed a habit in a man.
Wisely and slow;–they stumble that run fast.
Modest wisdom plucks me from over-credulous haste.
A good heart is worth gold.
The love of heaven makes one heavenly.
Heaven, the treasury of everlasting joy.
Divines and dying men may talk of hell, but in my heart her several torments dwell.
God be praised, who, to believing souls gives light in darkness, comfort in despair.
If all the year were playing holidays, to sport would be as tedious as to work; but when they seldom come the wished for come.
Honor is my life; both grow in one; take honor from me and my life is done.
Life every man holds dear; but the dear man holds honor far more precious dear than life.
No legacy so rich as honesty.
The miserable hath no other medicine but hope.
One may smile and smile and be a villain still.
Ten thousand harms more than the ills we know, our idleness doth hatch.
Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.
I hate ingratitude more in man than lying, vainness, babbling, drunkenness or any taint or vice, whose strong corruption inhabits our frail blood.
Liars,--- past all shame—so past all truth.
Many a man’s tongue shakes out its master’s undoing..
Love is blind and lovers cannot see the pretty follies that themselves commit.
They love least, that let men know their love.
How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child.
Blow, blow, thou winter wind, Thou art not so unkind As man’s ingratitude.
What is a stronger breastplate than a heart untainted?
Unstained thoughts do seldom dream on evil.
The silence, often, of pure innocence persuades when speaking fails.
Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods? Draw near them then in being merciful;
sweet mercy is nobility’s true badge.
Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy.
Frame your mind to mirth and merriment, which bar a thousand harms and lengthen life.
The man that hath not music in himself, and is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for reasons, stratagems, and spoils; let no man trust him.
Sweet are the uses of adversity.
Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice; take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgement.
Rancor will out. How poor are they who have no patience. What wound ever healed but by degrees?
A light wife will make a heavy husband.
Unhappy is the man for whom his own wife has not made all other women sacred. You are my true and honorable wife, as dear to me, as are the ruddy drops that visit my sad heart.
He wants wit who wants resolved will.
Kindness in women, not their beauteous looks shall win my love.
Women are the books, the arts, the academies, that show, contain, and nourish all the world.
My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: words without thoughts, never to heaven go.
You have too much respect upon the world: they lose it that do buy it with much care.
To persist in doing wrong extenuates not the wrong, but makes it much more heavy.
Youthful rashness skips like a hare over the meshes of good counsel.
Beggars run their horses to death.
Screw your courage to the sticking point.
A man can die but once; we owe God a death.
Cowards die many times before their deaths. Brave men die but once.
The course of true never did run smooth.
One that loved not wisely but too well.
Can you desire too much of a good thing?
The wish is father to the to the thought.
The mind of guilt is full of scorpions.
The guilt being great, the fear doth still exceed.
Company, villainous company hath been the ruin of me.
Trifles, light as air, are to the jealous confirmations strong as proofs of holy writ.
Beware of jealousy; it is the green-eyed monster, which doth mock the meat it feeds upon.
Uneasy is the head that wears a crown.
What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculties! In form and moving, How express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a God!
Who dares do all that may become a man, and dares no more, he is a man indeed!
Those that are good manners at court are as ridiculous in the country, as the behavior of the country is most mockable at the court.
Take not too short a time, to make a world-wide bargain in marriage. (Life-long ?)
Hasty marriages seldom proveth well.
Maids want nothing but husbands, and when they have them, they want everything.
Men, at sometime, are masters of their fate.
Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods? Draw near them then in being merciful;
sweet mercy is nobility’s badge.
Modest wisdom plucks me from overcredulous haste.
He, who the sword of heaven will bear, should be as holy as severe.
Some falls are means the happier to rise.
Ill deeds are doubled with an evil word.
Better three hours too soon, than one minute too late.
Good reasons must, of force, give place to better. Strong reasons make strong actions.
Repentance is the heart’s sorrow, and a clear life ensuing.
Experience teaches that resolution is a sole help in need.
Society is no comfort to one not sociable.
The purest treasure mortal times afford is spotless reputation; that away men are but gilded loam or painted clay.
Adversity’s sweet milk, philosophy.
All the world’s a stage and all the men and women in it merely players. The have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts.
Sweet are the uses of adversity.
What’s gone and past help, should be past grief.
Some old men never seem to grow old. Always active in thought, always ready to adopt new ideas, they are never chargeable with fogyism. Satisfied, yet ever dissatisfied, settled, yet ever unsettled, they always enjoy the best of what is, and are the first to find the best of what will be.
Fling away ambition. By that sin angels fell. How then can man, the image of his Maker, hope to win by it? (Consider well the objectives, goals and limits of ambitions–WMH)
Every one can master a grief but he that hath it.
God be praised, who, to believing souls, gives light in darkness, comfort in despair.
It seems to me ’tis only noble to be good.
Conscience makes cowards of us all.
Passion makes the will lord of the reason.
No legacy is so rich as honesty.
The quality of mercy is not strained; it falleth as the gentle rain from heaven
upon the place beneath. It is twice blest; It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.(Portia in Merchant of Venice iv, i, line 182)
Present fears are less than horrible imaginings.
There is no virtue like necessity.
Ill deeds are doubled with an evil word.
When I have something to do-- I go and do it..
We must follow, not force providence.
Strong reasons make strong actions.
Love thyself last.
What a spendthrift he is of his tongue.
One sin doth provoke another.
Violent delights have violent ends.
When words are scarce they’re seldom spent in vain.
Though authority be a stubborn bear, yet he is often led by the nose with gold.
Heaven is above all; there sits a judge that no king can corrupt.
They do not love, that do not show their love.
God, the best maker of all marriages.
It is the mind that makes the body rich.
SHAKESPEARE’S PERSONAL STATEMENT ABOUT ONE OF HIS CHARACTERS:
“Gratiano speaks with an infinite deal of nothing; his reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff; you shall seek all day ere you find them, and when you have them they are not worth the search.” “He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument.”
TRUE OF MOST CONVERSATIONS IN SHAKESPEARE’S PLAYS! But!!!
I have gleaned these four pages of wisdom from his writings!!! They show his incomparable wisdom. Who else since Solomon has been so wise?
For additional writings by Ward Hicken read:
www.instantwisdomforbusypeople.blogspot.com (9 pages of proverbs and statements of
wisdom by prominent and thoughtful people from the time of Confucius to John F. Kennedy)
www.happypoems.blogspot.com (Concise practical instructions in verse and rhyme for daily happiness. plus teachings and miracles of Jesus in enjoyable verse and rhyme.)
