This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
A tribulation is better than a hundred warnings. (Used to make a point that one learns better from their mistakes or misfortunes rather than the advice of others.)
A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. Much Ado About Nothing, Act ii, Scene 3
A kind heart he hath. A woman would run through fire and water for such a kind heart. Merry Wives of Windsor, Act iii, Scene 4
Quiet |
Ah, what a sign it is of evil life, where death's approach is seen so terrible!
Good |
A merry heart goes all the day, your sad tires in a mile-a. A Winter’s Tale, Act iv, Scene 3
Ay me! for aught that I could ever read, could ever hear by tale or history, the course of true love never did run smooth; but either it was different in blood . . . Or else misgraffed in respect of years . . . Or else it stood upon the choice of friends. . . Or, if there were a sympathy in choice, war, death, or sickness did lay siege to it, making it momentany as a sound, swift as a shadow, short as any dream brief as the lightning in the collied night, that, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth, and ere a man hath power to say 'Behold!' the jaws of darkness do devour it up: so quick bright things come to confusion. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act I, Scene 1
As by your high imperial majesty I had in charge at my depart for France, as procurator to your excellence, to marry Princess Margaret for your grace, so, in the famous ancient city Tours, in presence of the Kings of France and Sicil, the Dukes of Orleans, Calabar, Bretagne, and Alencon, seven earls, twelve barons, and twenty reverend bishops, I have performed my mask and was espoused. Henry VI, Act I, Scene 1
Abundance | Books | Ceremony | Fear | Heart | Love | Rage | Recompense | Strength | Learn |
Ay, that I had not done a thousand more. Even now I curse the day—and yet, I think, few come within the compass of my curse,— wherein I did not some notorious ill, as kill a man, or else devise his death, ravish a maid, or plot the way to do it, accuse some innocent and forswear myself, set deadly enmity between two friends, make poor men's cattle break their necks; set fire on barns and hay-stacks in the night, and bid the owners quench them with their tears. Oft have I digg'd up dead men from their graves, and set them upright at their dear friends' doors, even when their sorrows almost were forgot; and on their skins, as on the bark of trees, have with my knife carved in Roman letters, 'Let not your sorrow die, though I am dead.' Tut, I have done a thousand dreadful things as willingly as one would kill a fly, and nothing grieves me heartily indeed but that I cannot do ten thousand more. Titus Andronicus, Act v, Scene 1
Soul |
By my troth, I care not; a man can die but once; we owe God a death ... and let it go which way it will, he that dies this year is quit for the next. Henry IV, Part II, Act iii, Scene 2
But let the frame of things disjoint, both the worlds suffer, ere we will eat our meal in fear, and sleep in the affliction of these terrible dreams that shake us nightly. Macbeth, Act iii, Scene 2
But man, proud man, drest in a little brief authority, most ignorant of what he’s most assur'd; his glassy essence, like an angry ape, plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven, as make the angels weep. Measure for Measure. Act ii. Sc. 2.