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By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. In fact, it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of
others as it is to invent. R. Emerson

LIX



If there be nothing new, but that which is

Hath been before, how are our brains beguil'd,

Which labouring for invention bear amiss

The second burthen of a former child!

O! that record could with a backward look,

Even of five hundred courses of the sun,

Show me your image in some antique book,

Since mind at first in character was done!

That I might see what the old world could say

To this composed wonder of your frame;

Wh'r we are mended, or wh'r better they,

Or whether revolution be the same. 

  O! sure I am the wits of former days,

  To subjects worse have given admiring praise.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXXI



'Tis better to be vile than vile esteem'd,

When not to be receives reproach of being;

And the just pleasure lost, which is so deem'd

Not by our feeling, but by others' seeing:

For why should others' false adulterate eyes

Give salutation to my sportive blood?

Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,

Which in their wills count bad what I think good?

No, I am that I am, and they that level

At my abuses reckon up their own:

I may be straight though they themselves be bevel;

By their rank thoughts, my deeds must not be shown;

  Unless this general evil they maintain,

  All men are bad and in their badness reign.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXXIX



The expense of spirit in a waste of shame

Is lust in action: and till action, lust

Is perjur'd, murderous, bloody, full of blame,

Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;

Enjoy'd no sooner but despised straight;

Past reason hunted; and no sooner had,

Past reason hated, as a swallow'd bait,

On purpose laid to make the taker mad:

Mad in pursuit and in possession so;

Had, having, and in quest, to have extreme;

A bliss in proof,-- and prov'd, a very woe;

Before, a joy propos'd; behind a dream.

  All this the world well knows; yet none knows well

  To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

 	--William Shakespeare