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Henry David Thoreau
I do not wish to kill nor to be killed, but I can foresee circumstances in
which these things would be by me unavoidable.

The brevity of human life gives a melancholy to the profession of the architect. -Emerson, Journals,
1842

There is a battle that goes on between men and women. Many people
call it love.
Edvard Munch

Tis not a lip or eye we beauty call, But the joint force and full result of all.
-Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism, 1711

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CI



O truant Muse what shall be thy amends

For thy neglect of truth in beauty dy\'d?

Both truth and beauty on my love depends;

So dost thou too, and therein dignified.

Make answer Muse: wilt thou not haply say,

\'Truth needs no colour, with his colour fix\'d;

Beauty no pencil, beauty\'s truth to lay;

But best is best, if never intermix\'d\'?

Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb?

Excuse not silence so, for\'t lies in thee

To make him much outlive a gilded tomb

And to be prais\'d of ages yet to be.

  Then do thy office, Muse; I teach thee how

  To make him seem long hence as he shows now.

 	--William Shakespeare

CIV



To me, fair friend, you never can be old,

For as you were when first your eye I ey\'d,

Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold,

Have from the forests shook three summers\' pride,

Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn\'d,

In process of the seasons have I seen,

Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn\'d,

Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.

Ah! yet doth beauty like a dial-hand,

Steal from his figure, and no pace perceiv\'d;

So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,

Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceiv\'d:

  For fear of which, hear this thou age unbred:

  Ere you were born was beauty\'s summer dead.

 	--William Shakespeare

Though argument does not create conviction, lack of it destroys belief. C.S. Lewis

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Founding Fathers Quotes

An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and
no property can bear taxation.
John Marshall, McCullough v. Maryland, 1819



Going to college offered me the chance to play football for four more
years.
Ronald Reagan

Today, if you invent a better mousetrap, the government comes along with a
better mouse.
Ronald Reagan

Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an
escape
from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from
these things.
T. S. Eliot

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We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be
prepared, so we will always be free.
Ronald Reagan
A little beauty is preferable to much wealth. SADI, Gulistan (1258)

VII



Lo! in the orient when the gracious light

Lifts up his burning head, each under eye

Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,

Serving with looks his sacred majesty; 

And having climb\'d the steep-up heavenly hill,

Resembling strong youth in his middle age,

Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,

Attending on his golden pilgrimage:

But when from highmost pitch, with weary car,

Like feeble age, he reeleth from the day,

The eyes, \'fore duteous, now converted are

From his low tract, and look another way:

  So thou, thyself outgoing in thy noon:

  Unlook\'d, on diest unless thou get a son.

 	--William Shakespeare

It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have
learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.
Ronald Reagan

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I never paint dreams or nightmares. I paint my own reality.
Frida Kahlo
The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more
certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie
through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but
through striving after rational knowledge. --Albert Einstein

CLIV



The little Love-god lying once asleep,

Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand,

Whilst many nymphs that vow\'d chaste life to keep

Came tripping by; but in her maiden hand

The fairest votary took up that fire

Which many legions of true hearts had warm\'d;

And so the general of hot desire

Was, sleeping, by a virgin hand disarm\'d.

This brand she quenched in a cool well by,

Which from Love\'s fire took heat perpetual,

Growing a bath and healthful remedy,

For men diseas\'d; but I, my mistress\' thrall,

  Came there for cure and this by that I prove, 

  Love\'s fire heats water, water cools not love.

	--William Shakespeare

LIV



O! how much more doth beauty beauteous seem

By that sweet ornament which truth doth give.

The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem

For that sweet odour, which doth in it live.

The canker blooms have full as deep a dye

As the perfumed tincture of the roses.

Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly

When summer\'s breath their masked buds discloses:

But, for their virtue only is their show,

They live unwoo\'d, and unrespected fade;

Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so;

Of their sweet deaths, are sweetest odours made: 

  And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,

  When that shall vade, by verse distills your truth.

 	--William Shakespeare

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Art is a way of expression that has to be understood by everyone,
everywhere.
Rufino Tamayo, artist

LXXXIV



Who is it that says most, which can say more,

Than this rich praise,--that you alone, are you?

In whose confine immured is the store

Which should example where your equal grew.

Lean penury within that pen doth dwell

That to his subject lends not some small glory;

But he that writes of you, if he can tell

That you are you, so dignifies his story,

Let him but copy what in you is writ,

Not making worse what nature made so clear,

And such a counterpart shall fame his wit,

Making his style admired every where.

  You to your beauteous blessings add a curse,

  Being fond on praise, which makes your praises worse.

 	--William Shakespeare

God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates
empirically. --Albert Einstein

No mother would ever willingly sacrifice her sons for territorial gain,
for economic advantage, for ideology.
Ronald Reagan

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Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty.
Ronald Reagan


We might come closer to balancing the Budget if all of us lived closer to
the Commandments and the Golden Rule.
Ronald Reagan

Insight: St. Augustine Quotes
People travel to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of rivers, at the vast
compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering.

Men are what their mothers made them. --Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.
--Albert Einstein

To draw, you must close your eyes and sing.
Pablo Ruiz y Picasso

XXIV



Mine eye hath play\'d the painter and hath stell\'d,

Thy beauty\'s form in table of my heart;

My body is the frame wherein \'tis held,

And perspective it is best painter\'s art.

For through the painter must you see his skill,

To find where your true image pictur\'d lies,

Which in my bosom\'s shop is hanging still,

That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes.

Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done:

Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me

Are windows to my breast, where-through the sun

Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee; 

  Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art,

  They draw but what they see, know not the heart.

 	--William Shakespeare

We should comport ourselves with the masterpieces of art as with
exalted personages -- stand quietly before them and wait until they speak
to us.
Arthur Schopenhauer

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Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too
strong.
Ronald Reagan


How important are the visual arts in our society? I feel strongly
that
the visual arts are of vast and incalculable importance. Of course
I
could be prejudiced. I am a visual art.
Kermit the Frog, muppet

Beauty in distress is much the most affecting beauty. -Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry Into The
Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, 1757

I don\'t believe in pessimism. If something doesn\'t come up the way you
want, forge ahead. If you think it\'s going to rain, it will.
Clint Eastwood

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I want to know God\'s thoughts; the rest are details. --Albert Einstein

What makes him think a middle aged actor, who\'s played with a chimp, could
have a future in politics?
Ronald Reagan

History teaches that war begins when governments believe the price of
aggression is cheap.
Ronald Reagan

XXIX



When in disgrace with fortune and men\'s eyes

I all alone beweep my outcast state,

And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,

And look upon myself, and curse my fate,

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,

Featur\'d like him, like him with friends possess\'d,

Desiring this man\'s art, and that man\'s scope,

With what I most enjoy contented least;

Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,

Haply I think on thee,-- and then my state,

Like to the lark at break of day arising

From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven\'s gate,;

  For thy sweet love remember\'d such wealth brings

  That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

 	--William Shakespeare

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

LXXXI



Or I shall live your epitaph to make,

Or you survive when I in earth am rotten;

From hence your memory death cannot take,

Although in me each part will be forgotten.

Your name from hence immortal life shall have,

Though I, once gone, to all the world must die:

The earth can yield me but a common grave,

When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie.

Your monument shall be my gentle verse,

Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read;

And tongues to be, your being shall rehearse,

When all the breathers of this world are dead;

  You still shall live,--such virtue hath my pen,--

  Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men.

 	--William Shakespeare

CLI



Love is too young to know what conscience is, 

Yet who knows not conscience is born of love?

Then, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss,

Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove:

For, thou betraying me, I do betray

My nobler part to my gross body's treason;

My soul doth tell my body that he may

Triumph in love; flesh stays no farther reason,

But rising at thy name doth point out thee,

As his triumphant prize. Proud of this pride,

He is contented thy poor drudge to be,

To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.

  No want of conscience hold it that I call

  Her 'love,' for whose dear love I rise and fall.

 	--William Shakespeare

LIV



O! how much more doth beauty beauteous seem

By that sweet ornament which truth doth give.

The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem

For that sweet odour, which doth in it live.

The canker blooms have full as deep a dye

As the perfumed tincture of the roses.

Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly

When summer's breath their masked buds discloses:

But, for their virtue only is their show,

They live unwoo'd, and unrespected fade;

Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so;

Of their sweet deaths, are sweetest odours made: 

  And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,

  When that shall vade, by verse distills your truth.

 	--William Shakespeare

XIV



Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck;

And yet methinks I have astronomy,

But not to tell of good or evil luck,

Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality;

Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell,

Pointing to each his thunder, rain and wind,

Or say with princes if it shall go well

By oft predict that I in heaven find:

But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,

And constant stars in them I read such art

As 'Truth and beauty shall together thrive,

If from thyself, to store thou wouldst convert'; 

  Or else of thee this I prognosticate:

  'Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date.'



XV



When I consider every thing that grows

Holds in perfection but a little moment,

That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows

Whereon the stars in secret influence comment;

When I perceive that men as plants increase,

Cheered and checked even by the self-same sky,

Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,

And wear their brave state out of memory;

Then the conceit of this inconstant stay

Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,

Where wasteful Time debateth with decay

To change your day of youth to sullied night,

  And all in war with Time for love of you,

  As he takes from you, I engraft you new.

 	--William Shakespeare

XLIX



Against that time, if ever that time come,

When I shall see thee frown on my defects,

When as thy love hath cast his utmost sum,

Call'd to that audit by advis'd respects;

Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass,

And scarcely greet me with that sun, thine eye,

When love, converted from the thing it was,

Shall reasons find of settled gravity;

Against that time do I ensconce me here,

Within the knowledge of mine own desert,

And this my hand, against my self uprear,

To guard the lawful reasons on thy part: 

  To leave poor me thou hast the strength of laws,

  Since why to love I can allege no cause.

 	--William Shakespeare

XLII



That thou hast her it is not all my grief,

And yet it may be said I loved her dearly;

That she hath thee is of my wailing chief,

A loss in love that touches me more nearly. 

Loving offenders thus I will excuse ye:

Thou dost love her, because thou know'st I love her;

And for my sake even so doth she abuse me,

Suffering my friend for my sake to approve her.

If I lose thee, my loss is my love's gain,

And losing her, my friend hath found that loss;

Both find each other, and I lose both twain,

And both for my sake lay on me this cross:

  But here's the joy; my friend and I are one;

  Sweet flattery! then she loves but me alone.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXXVIII



So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse,

And found such fair assistance in my verse

As every alien pen hath got my use

And under thee their poesy disperse.

Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to sing

And heavy ignorance aloft to fly,

Have added feathers to the learned's wing

And given grace a double majesty.

Yet be most proud of that which I compile,

Whose influence is thine, and born of thee:

In others' works thou dost but mend the style,

And arts with thy sweet graces graced be;

  But thou art all my art, and dost advance

  As high as learning, my rude ignorance.

 	--William Shakespeare

CL



O! from what power hast thou this powerful might,

With insufficiency my heart to sway?

To make me give the lie to my true sight,

And swear that brightness doth not grace the day?

Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill,

That in the very refuse of thy deeds

There is such strength and warrantise of skill,

That, in my mind, thy worst all best exceeds?

Who taught thee how to make me love thee more,

The more I hear and see just cause of hate?

O! though I love what others do abhor,

With others thou shouldst not abhor my state:

  If thy unworthiness rais'd love in me,

  More worthy I to be belov'd of thee.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXXVI



Why is my verse so barren of new pride,

So far from variation or quick change?

Why with the time do I not glance aside

To new-found methods, and to compounds strange?

Why write I still all one, ever the same,

And keep invention in a noted weed,

That every word doth almost tell my name,

Showing their birth, and where they did proceed?

O! know sweet love I always write of you,

And you and love are still my argument;

So all my best is dressing old words new,

Spending again what is already spent:

  For as the sun is daily new and old,

  So is my love still telling what is told.

 	--William Shakespeare

CII



My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seeming;

I love not less, though less the show appear;

That love is merchandiz'd, whose rich esteeming,

The owner's tongue doth publish every where.

Our love was new, and then but in the spring,

When I was wont to greet it with my lays;

As Philomel in summer's front doth sing,

And stops her pipe in growth of riper days:

Not that the summer is less pleasant now

Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night,

But that wild music burthens every bough,

And sweets grown common lose their dear delight.

  Therefore like her, I sometime hold my tongue:

  Because I would not dull you with my song.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXXVI



Why is my verse so barren of new pride,

So far from variation or quick change?

Why with the time do I not glance aside

To new-found methods, and to compounds strange?

Why write I still all one, ever the same,

And keep invention in a noted weed,

That every word doth almost tell my name,

Showing their birth, and where they did proceed?

O! know sweet love I always write of you,

And you and love are still my argument;

So all my best is dressing old words new,

Spending again what is already spent:

  For as the sun is daily new and old,

  So is my love still telling what is told.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXXXIII



Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan

For that deep wound it gives my friend and me!

Is't not enough to torture me alone,

But slave to slavery my sweet'st friend must be?

Me from myself thy cruel eye hath taken,

And my next self thou harder hast engross'd:

Of him, myself, and thee I am forsaken;

A torment thrice three-fold thus to be cross'd:

Prison my heart in thy steel bosom's ward, 

But then my friend's heart let my poor heart bail;

Whoe'er keeps me, let my heart be his guard;

Thou canst not then use rigour in my jail:

  And yet thou wilt; for I, being pent in thee,

  Perforce am thine, and all that is in me.

 	--William Shakespeare

XC



Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now;

Now, while the world is bent my deeds to cross,

Join with the spite of fortune, make me bow,

And do not drop in for an after-loss:

Ah! do not, when my heart hath 'scap'd this sorrow,

Come in the rearward of a conquer'd woe;

Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,

To linger out a purpos'd overthrow.

If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,

When other petty griefs have done their spite,

But in the onset come: so shall I taste

At first the very worst of fortune's might;

  And other strains of woe, which now seem woe,

  Compar'd with loss of thee, will not seem so.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXIII



Against my love shall be as I am now,

With Time's injurious hand crush'd and o'erworn;

When hours have drain'd his blood and fill'd his brow

With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn

Hath travell'd on to age's steepy night;

And all those beauties whereof now he's king

Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight,

Stealing away the treasure of his spring; 

For such a time do I now fortify

Against confounding age's cruel knife,

That he shall never cut from memory

My sweet love's beauty, though my lover's life:

  His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,

  And they shall live, and he in them still green.

 	--William Shakespeare

XLVII



Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took,

And each doth good turns now unto the other:

When that mine eye is famish'd for a look,

Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother,

With my love's picture then my eye doth feast,

And to the painted banquet bids my heart;

Another time mine eye is my heart's guest,

And in his thoughts of love doth share a part:

So, either by thy picture or my love,

Thy self away, art present still with me;

For thou not farther than my thoughts canst move,

And I am still with them, and they with thee;

  Or, if they sleep, thy picture in my sight

  Awakes my heart, to heart's and eye's delight.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXLII



Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate,

Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving:

O! but with mine compare thou thine own state,

And thou shalt find it merits not reproving;

Or, if it do, not from those lips of thine, 

That have profan'd their scarlet ornaments

And seal'd false bonds of love as oft as mine,

Robb'd others' beds' revenues of their rents.

Be it lawful I love thee, as thou lov'st those

Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee:

Root pity in thy heart, that, when it grows,

Thy pity may deserve to pitied be.

  If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide,

  By self-example mayst thou be denied!



CXLIII



Lo, as a careful housewife runs to catch

One of her feather'd creatures broke away,

Sets down her babe, and makes all swift dispatch

In pursuit of the thing she would have stay;

Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase,

Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent

To follow that which flies before her face,

Not prizing her poor infant's discontent;

So runn'st thou after that which flies from thee, 

Whilst I thy babe chase thee afar behind;

But if thou catch thy hope, turn back to me,

And play the mother's part, kiss me, be kind;

  So will I pray that thou mayst have thy 'Will,'

  If thou turn back and my loud crying still.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXXXIX



O! call not me to justify the wrong

That thy unkindness lays upon my heart;

Wound me not with thine eye, but with thy tongue:

Use power with power, and slay me not by art,

Tell me thou lov'st elsewhere; but in my sight,

Dear heart, forbear to glance thine eye aside:

What need'st thou wound with cunning, when thy might

Is more than my o'erpress'd defence can bide?

Let me excuse thee: ah! my love well knows

Her pretty looks have been mine enemies;

And therefore from my face she turns my foes,

That they elsewhere might dart their injuries:

  Yet do not so; but since I am near slain, 

  Kill me outright with looks, and rid my pain.

 	--William Shakespeare

XLVIII



How careful was I when I took my way,

Each trifle under truest bars to thrust,

That to my use it might unused stay

From hands of falsehood, in sure wards of trust!

But thou, to whom my jewels trifles are,

Most worthy comfort, now my greatest grief,

Thou best of dearest, and mine only care,

Art left the prey of every vulgar thief. 

Thee have I not lock'd up in any chest,

Save where thou art not, though I feel thou art,

Within the gentle closure of my breast,

From whence at pleasure thou mayst come and part;

  And even thence thou wilt be stol'n I fear,

  For truth proves thievish for a prize so dear.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXIV



Or whether doth my mind, being crown'd with you,

Drink up the monarch's plague, this flattery?

Or whether shall I say, mine eye saith true,

And that your love taught it this alchemy,

To make of monsters and things indigest

Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble,

Creating every bad a perfect best,

As fast as objects to his beams assemble?

O! 'tis the first, 'tis flattery in my seeing,

And my great mind most kingly drinks it up:

Mine eye well knows what with his gust is 'greeing, 

And to his palate doth prepare the cup:

  If it be poison'd, 'tis the lesser sin

  That mine eye loves it and doth first begin.

 	--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

LXI



Is it thy will, thy image should keep open

My heavy eyelids to the weary night?

Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken,

While shadows like to thee do mock my sight?

Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee

So far from home into my deeds to pry,

To find out shames and idle hours in me,

The scope and tenure of thy jealousy?

O, no! thy love, though much, is not so great:

It is my love that keeps mine eye awake:

Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat,

To play the watchman ever for thy sake:

  For thee watch I, whilst thou dost wake elsewhere,

  From me far off, with others all too near.

 	--William Shakespeare

CVI



When in the chronicle of wasted time

I see descriptions of the fairest wights,

And beauty making beautiful old rime,

In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,

Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best,

Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,

I see their antique pen would have express'd

Even such a beauty as you master now.

So all their praises are but prophecies

Of this our time, all you prefiguring;

And for they looked but with divining eyes,

They had not skill enough your worth to sing:

  For we, which now behold these present days,

  Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXX



That you were once unkind befriends me now,

And for that sorrow, which I then did feel,

Needs must I under my transgression bow,

Unless my nerves were brass or hammer'd steel.

For if you were by my unkindness shaken,

As I by yours, you've pass'd a hell of time;

And I, a tyrant, have no leisure taken

To weigh how once I suffer'd in your crime.

O! that our night of woe might have remember'd

My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits,

And soon to you, as you to me, then tender'd

The humble salve, which wounded bosoms fits!

  But that your trespass now becomes a fee;

  Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXXIV



If my dear love were but the child of state,

It might for Fortune's bastard be unfather'd,

As subject to Time's love or to Time's hate,

Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gather'd.

No, it was builded far from accident;

It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls

Under the blow of thralled discontent,

Whereto th' inviting time our fashion calls:

It fears not policy, that heretic,

Which works on leases of short-number'd hours,

But all alone stands hugely politic, 

That it nor grows with heat, nor drowns with showers.

  To this I witness call the fools of time,

  Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime.

 	--William Shakespeare

XLVI



Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war,

How to divide the conquest of thy sight;

Mine eye my heart thy picture's sight would bar,

My heart mine eye the freedom of that right.

My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie,--

A closet never pierc'd with crystal eyes--

But the defendant doth that plea deny,

And says in him thy fair appearance lies.

To side this title is impannelled

A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart;

And by their verdict is determined

The clear eye's moiety, and the dear heart's part:

  As thus; mine eye's due is thy outward part,

  And my heart's right, thy inward love of heart.

 	--William Shakespeare

XXXVII



As a decrepit father takes delight

To see his active child do deeds of youth,

So I, made lame by Fortune's dearest spite,

Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth; 

For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,

Or any of these all, or all, or more,

Entitled in thy parts, do crowned sit,

I make my love engrafted, to this store:

So then I am not lame, poor, nor despis'd,

Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give

That I in thy abundance am suffic'd,

And by a part of all thy glory live.

  Look what is best, that best I wish in thee:

  This wish I have; then ten times happy me!



XXXVIII



How can my muse want subject to invent,

While thou dost breathe, that pour'st into my verse

Thine own sweet argument, too excellent

For every vulgar paper to rehearse?

O! give thy self the thanks, if aught in me

Worthy perusal stand against thy sight;

For who's so dumb that cannot write to thee,

When thou thy self dost give invention light? 

Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth

Than those old nine which rhymers invocate;

And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth

Eternal numbers to outlive long date.

  If my slight muse do please these curious days,

  The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXXXVII



Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,

And like enough thou know'st thy estimate,

The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;

My bonds in thee are all determinate.

For how do I hold thee but by thy granting?

And for that riches where is my deserving?

The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,

And so my patent back again is swerving.

Thy self thou gav'st, thy own worth then not knowing,

Or me to whom thou gav'st it, else mistaking;

So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,

Comes home again, on better judgement making.

  Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter,

  In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXXXVIII



When my love swears that she is made of truth,

I do believe her though I know she lies,

That she might think me some untutor'd youth,

Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.

Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,

Although she knows my days are past the best,

Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue:

On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed:

But wherefore says she not she is unjust? 

And wherefore say not I that I am old?

O! love's best habit is in seeming trust,

And age in love, loves not to have years told:

  Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,

  And in our faults by lies we flatter'd be.

 	--William Shakespeare

XXXVI



Let me confess that we two must be twain,

Although our undivided loves are one:

So shall those blots that do with me remain,

Without thy help, by me be borne alone.

In our two loves there is but one respect,

Though in our lives a separable spite,

Which though it alter not love's sole effect,

Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight.

I may not evermore acknowledge thee,

Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame,

Nor thou with public kindness honour me,

Unless thou take that honour from thy name:

  But do not so, I love thee in such sort,

  As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.

 	--William Shakespeare

XXXII



If thou survive my well-contented day,

When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover

And shalt by fortune once more re-survey

These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover,

Compare them with the bett'ring of the time,

And though they be outstripp'd by every pen,

Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme,

Exceeded by the height of happier men.

O! then vouchsafe me but this loving thought:

'Had my friend's Muse grown with this growing age,

A dearer birth than this his love had brought,

To march in ranks of better equipage:

  But since he died and poets better prove,

  Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love'.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXXV



Were't aught to me I bore the canopy,

With my extern the outward honouring,

Or laid great bases for eternity,

Which proves more short than waste or ruining?

Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour

Lose all and more by paying too much rent

For compound sweet; forgoing simple savour,

Pitiful thrivers, in their gazing spent?

No; let me be obsequious in thy heart,

And take thou my oblation, poor but free,

Which is not mix'd with seconds, knows no art,

But mutual render, only me for thee.

  Hence, thou suborned informer! a true soul

  When most impeach'd, stands least in thy control.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXXII



Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain

Full character'd with lasting memory,

Which shall above that idle rank remain,

Beyond all date; even to eternity:

Or, at the least, so long as brain and heart

Have faculty by nature to subsist;

Till each to raz'd oblivion yield his part

Of thee, thy record never can be miss'd.

That poor retention could not so much hold,

Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score;

Therefore to give them from me was I bold,

To trust those tables that receive thee more:

  To keep an adjunct to remember thee

  Were to import forgetfulness in me.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXI



Is it thy will, thy image should keep open

My heavy eyelids to the weary night?

Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken,

While shadows like to thee do mock my sight?

Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee

So far from home into my deeds to pry,

To find out shames and idle hours in me,

The scope and tenure of thy jealousy?

O, no! thy love, though much, is not so great:

It is my love that keeps mine eye awake:

Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat,

To play the watchman ever for thy sake:

  For thee watch I, whilst thou dost wake elsewhere,

  From me far off, with others all too near.

 	--William Shakespeare

XCIX



The forward violet thus did I chide:

Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,

If not from my love's breath? The purple pride

Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells

In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dy'd.

The lily I condemned for thy hand,

And buds of marjoram had stol'n thy hair;

The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,

One blushing shame, another white despair;

A third, nor red nor white, had stol'n of both,

And to his robbery had annex'd thy breath;

But, for his theft, in pride of all his growth 

A vengeful canker eat him up to death.

  More flowers I noted, yet I none could see,

  But sweet, or colour it had stol'n from thee.

 	--William Shakespeare

VIII



Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?

Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy:

Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly,

Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy?

If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,

By unions married, do offend thine ear,

They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds

In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear. 

Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,

Strikes each in each by mutual ordering;

Resembling sire and child and happy mother,

Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing:

  Whose speechless song being many, seeming one,

  Sings this to thee: 'Thou single wilt prove none.'



IX



Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye,

That thou consum'st thy self in single life?

Ah! if thou issueless shalt hap to die,

The world will wail thee like a makeless wife;

The world will be thy widow and still weep

That thou no form of thee hast left behind,

When every private widow well may keep

By children's eyes, her husband's shape in mind:

Look! what an unthrift in the world doth spend

Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;

But beauty's waste hath in the world an end,

And kept unused the user so destroys it.

  No love toward others in that bosom sits

  That on himself such murd'rous shame commits.

 	--William Shakespeare

XXX



When to the sessions of sweet silent thought

I summon up remembrance of things past,

I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,

And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:

Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,

For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,

And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,

And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight:

Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,

And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er

The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,

Which I new pay as if not paid before.

  But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,

  All losses are restor'd and sorrows end.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXXI



No longer mourn for me when I am dead

Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell

Give warning to the world that I am fled

From this vile world with vilest worms to dwell:

Nay, if you read this line, remember not

The hand that writ it, for I love you so,

That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,

If thinking on me then should make you woe.

O! if,--I say you look upon this verse,

When I perhaps compounded am with clay,

Do not so much as my poor name rehearse;

But let your love even with my life decay;

  Lest the wise world should look into your moan,

  And mock you with me after I am gone.

 	--William Shakespeare

CVIII



What's in the brain, that ink may character,

Which hath not figur'd to thee my true spirit?

What's new to speak, what now to register,

That may express my love, or thy dear merit?

Nothing, sweet boy; but yet, like prayers divine,

I must each day say o'er the very same;

Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine, 

Even as when first I hallow'd thy fair name.

So that eternal love in love's fresh case,

Weighs not the dust and injury of age,

Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place,

But makes antiquity for aye his page;

  Finding the first conceit of love there bred,

  Where time and outward form would show it dead.

 	--William Shakespeare

LIV



O! how much more doth beauty beauteous seem

By that sweet ornament which truth doth give.

The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem

For that sweet odour, which doth in it live.

The canker blooms have full as deep a dye

As the perfumed tincture of the roses.

Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly

When summer's breath their masked buds discloses:

But, for their virtue only is their show,

They live unwoo'd, and unrespected fade;

Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so;

Of their sweet deaths, are sweetest odours made: 

  And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,

  When that shall vade, by verse distills your truth.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXVI



Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,

As to behold desert a beggar born,

And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity,

And purest faith unhappily forsworn,

And gilded honour shamefully misplac'd,

And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,

And right perfection wrongfully disgrac'd,

And strength by limping sway disabled

And art made tongue-tied by authority,

And folly--doctor-like--controlling skill,

And simple truth miscall'd simplicity,

And captive good attending captain ill:

  Tir'd with all these, from these would I be gone,

  Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.

 	--William Shakespeare

LVIII



That god forbid, that made me first your slave,

I should in thought control your times of pleasure,

Or at your hand the account of hours to crave,

Being your vassal, bound to stay your leisure!

O! let me suffer, being at your beck,

The imprison'd absence of your liberty;

And patience, tame to sufferance, bide each check,

Without accusing you of injury. 

Be where you list, your charter is so strong

That you yourself may privilage your time

To what you will; to you it doth belong

Yourself to pardon of self-doing crime.

  I am to wait, though waiting so be hell,

  Not blame your pleasure be it ill or well.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXL



Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press

My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain;

Lest sorrow lend me words, and words express

The manner of my pity-wanting pain.

If I might teach thee wit, better it were,

Though not to love, yet, love to tell me so;--

As testy sick men, when their deaths be near,

No news but health from their physicians know;--

For, if I should despair, I should grow mad,

And in my madness might speak ill of thee;

Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,

Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be.

  That I may not be so, nor thou belied,

  Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.

 	--William Shakespeare

XXX



When to the sessions of sweet silent thought

I summon up remembrance of things past,

I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,

And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:

Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,

For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,

And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,

And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight:

Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,

And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er

The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,

Which I new pay as if not paid before.

  But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,

  All losses are restor'd and sorrows end.

 	--William Shakespeare

XLVII



Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took,

And each doth good turns now unto the other:

When that mine eye is famish'd for a look,

Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother,

With my love's picture then my eye doth feast,

And to the painted banquet bids my heart;

Another time mine eye is my heart's guest,

And in his thoughts of love doth share a part:

So, either by thy picture or my love,

Thy self away, art present still with me;

For thou not farther than my thoughts canst move,

And I am still with them, and they with thee;

  Or, if they sleep, thy picture in my sight

  Awakes my heart, to heart's and eye's delight.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXXXII



I grant thou wert not married to my Muse,

And therefore mayst without attaint o'erlook

The dedicated words which writers use

Of their fair subject, blessing every book. 

Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue,

Finding thy worth a limit past my praise;

And therefore art enforced to seek anew

Some fresher stamp of the time-bettering days.

And do so, love; yet when they have devis'd,

What strained touches rhetoric can lend,

Thou truly fair, wert truly sympathiz'd

In true plain words, by thy true-telling friend;

  And their gross painting might be better us'd

  Where cheeks need blood; in thee it is abus'd.

 	--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

XLVI



Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war,

How to divide the conquest of thy sight;

Mine eye my heart thy picture's sight would bar,

My heart mine eye the freedom of that right.

My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie,--

A closet never pierc'd with crystal eyes--

But the defendant doth that plea deny,

And says in him thy fair appearance lies.

To side this title is impannelled

A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart;

And by their verdict is determined

The clear eye's moiety, and the dear heart's part:

  As thus; mine eye's due is thy outward part,

  And my heart's right, thy inward love of heart.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXXXIV



So, now I have confess'd that he is thine,

And I my self am mortgag'd to thy will,

Myself I'll forfeit, so that other mine

Thou wilt restore to be my comfort still:

But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free,

For thou art covetous, and he is kind;

He learn'd but surety-like to write for me,

Under that bond that him as fast doth bind.

The statute of thy beauty thou wilt take,

Thou usurer, that putt'st forth all to use,

And sue a friend came debtor for my sake;

So him I lose through my unkind abuse.

  Him have I lost; thou hast both him and me:

  He pays the whole, and yet am I not free.

 	--William Shakespeare

VI



Then let not winter's ragged hand deface,

In thee thy summer, ere thou be distill'd:

Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place

With beauty's treasure ere it be self-kill'd.

That use is not forbidden usury,

Which happies those that pay the willing loan;

That's for thy self to breed another thee,

Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;

Ten times thy self were happier than thou art,

If ten of thine ten times refigur'd thee:

Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart,

Leaving thee living in posterity?

  Be not self-will'd, for thou art much too fair

  To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir.

 	--William Shakespeare

XIII



O! that you were your self; but, love you are

No longer yours, than you your self here live:

Against this coming end you should prepare,

And your sweet semblance to some other give:

So should that beauty which you hold in lease

Find no determination; then you were

Yourself again, after yourself's decease,

When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear. 

Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,

Which husbandry in honour might uphold,

Against the stormy gusts of winter's day

And barren rage of death's eternal cold?

  O! none but unthrifts. Dear my love, you know,

  You had a father: let your son say so.

 	--William Shakespeare

XXII



My glass shall not persuade me I am old,

So long as youth and thou are of one date;

But when in thee time's furrows I behold,

Then look I death my days should expiate. 

For all that beauty that doth cover thee,

Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,

Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me:

How can I then be elder than thou art?

O! therefore love, be of thyself so wary

As I, not for myself, but for thee will;

Bearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary

As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.

  Presume not on th;heart when mine is slain,

  Thou gav'st me thine not to give back again.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXXIV



If my dear love were but the child of state,

It might for Fortune's bastard be unfather'd,

As subject to Time's love or to Time's hate,

Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gather'd.

No, it was builded far from accident;

It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls

Under the blow of thralled discontent,

Whereto th' inviting time our fashion calls:

It fears not policy, that heretic,

Which works on leases of short-number'd hours,

But all alone stands hugely politic, 

That it nor grows with heat, nor drowns with showers.

  To this I witness call the fools of time,

  Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime.

 	--William Shakespeare

IV



Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend

Upon thy self thy beauty's legacy?

Nature's bequest gives nothing, but doth lend,

And being frank she lends to those are free:

Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse

The bounteous largess given thee to give?

Profitless usurer, why dost thou use

So great a sum of sums, yet canst not live?

For having traffic with thy self alone,

Thou of thy self thy sweet self dost deceive:

Then how when nature calls thee to be gone,

What acceptable audit canst thou leave?

  Thy unused beauty must be tombed with thee,

  Which, used, lives th' executor to be.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXXXIII



I never saw that you did painting need,

And therefore to your fair no painting set;

I found, or thought I found, you did exceed

That barren tender of a poet's debt:

And therefore have I slept in your report,

That you yourself, being extant, well might show

How far a modern quill doth come too short,

Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow. 

This silence for my sin you did impute,

Which shall be most my glory being dumb;

For I impair not beauty being mute,

When others would give life, and bring a tomb.

  There lives more life in one of your fair eyes

  Than both your poets can in praise devise.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXI



O! for my sake do you with Fortune chide,

The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,

That did not better for my life provide

Than public means which public manners breeds.

Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,

And almost thence my nature is subdu'd

To what it works in, like the dyer's hand:

Pity me, then, and wish I were renew'd;

Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink,

Potions of eisel 'gainst my strong infection;

No bitterness that I will bitter think,

Nor double penance, to correct correction.

  Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye,

  Even that your pity is enough to cure me.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXL



Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press

My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain;

Lest sorrow lend me words, and words express

The manner of my pity-wanting pain.

If I might teach thee wit, better it were,

Though not to love, yet, love to tell me so;--

As testy sick men, when their deaths be near,

No news but health from their physicians know;--

For, if I should despair, I should grow mad,

And in my madness might speak ill of thee;

Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,

Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be.

  That I may not be so, nor thou belied,

  Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXVIII



Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn,

When beauty lived and died as flowers do now,

Before these bastard signs of fair were born,

Or durst inhabit on a living brow;

Before the golden tresses of the dead,

The right of sepulchres, were shorn away,

To live a second life on second head;

Ere beauty's dead fleece made another gay: 

In him those holy antique hours are seen,

Without all ornament, itself and true,

Making no summer of another's green,

Robbing no old to dress his beauty new;

  And him as for a map doth Nature store,

  To show false Art what beauty was of yore.

 	--William Shakespeare

LVI



Sweet love, renew thy force; be it not said

Thy edge should blunter be than appetite,

Which but to-day by feeding is allay'd,

To-morrow sharpened in his former might:

So, love, be thou, although to-day thou fill

Thy hungry eyes, even till they wink with fulness,

To-morrow see again, and do not kill

The spirit of love, with a perpetual dulness.

Let this sad interim like the ocean be

Which parts the shore, where two contracted new

Come daily to the banks, that when they see

Return of love, more blest may be the view;

  Or call it winter, which being full of care,

  Makes summer's welcome, thrice more wished, more rare.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXXVI



O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power

Dost hold Time's fickle glass, his fickle hour;

Who hast by waning grown, and therein show'st

Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self grow'st.

If Nature, sovereign mistress over wrack,

As thou goest onwards, still will pluck thee back,

She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill

May time disgrace and wretched minutes kill.

Yet fear her, O thou minion of her pleasure!

She may detain, but not still keep, her treasure:

  Her audit (though delayed) answered must be,

  And her quietus is to render thee.

 	--William Shakespeare

XLVIII



How careful was I when I took my way,

Each trifle under truest bars to thrust,

That to my use it might unused stay

From hands of falsehood, in sure wards of trust!

But thou, to whom my jewels trifles are,

Most worthy comfort, now my greatest grief,

Thou best of dearest, and mine only care,

Art left the prey of every vulgar thief. 

Thee have I not lock'd up in any chest,

Save where thou art not, though I feel thou art,

Within the gentle closure of my breast,

From whence at pleasure thou mayst come and part;

  And even thence thou wilt be stol'n I fear,

  For truth proves thievish for a prize so dear.

 	--William Shakespeare

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CXLVIII



O me! what eyes hath Love put in my head,

Which have no correspondence with true sight;

Or, if they have, where is my judgment fled,

That censures falsely what they see aright?

If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,

What means the world to say it is not so?

If it be not, then love doth well denote

Love\'s eye is not so true as all men\'s: no,

How can it? O! how can Love\'s eye be true, 

That is so vexed with watching and with tears?

No marvel then, though I mistake my view;

The sun itself sees not, till heaven clears.

  O cunning Love! with tears thou keep\'st me blind,

  Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find.

 	--William Shakespeare

XXX



When to the sessions of sweet silent thought

I summon up remembrance of things past,

I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,

And with old woes new wail my dear time\'s waste:

Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,

For precious friends hid in death\'s dateless night,

And weep afresh love\'s long since cancell\'d woe,

And moan the expense of many a vanish\'d sight:

Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,

And heavily from woe to woe tell o\'er

The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,

Which I new pay as if not paid before.

  But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,

  All losses are restor\'d and sorrows end.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXXXI



Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art, 

As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel;

For well thou know\'st to my dear doting heart

Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel.

Yet, in good faith, some say that thee behold,

Thy face hath not the power to make love groan;

To say they err I dare not be so bold,

Although I swear it to myself alone.

And to be sure that is not false I swear,

A thousand groans, but thinking on thy face,

One on another\'s neck, do witness bear

Thy black is fairest in my judgment\'s place.

  In nothing art thou black save in thy deeds,

  And thence this slander, as I think, proceeds.

 	--William Shakespeare

XXI



So is it not with me as with that Muse,

Stirr'd by a painted beauty to his verse,

Who heaven itself for ornament doth use

And every fair with his fair doth rehearse,

Making a couplement of proud compare'

With sun and moon, with earth and sea's rich gems,

With April's first-born flowers, and all things rare,

That heaven's air in this huge rondure hems.

O! let me, true in love, but truly write,

And then believe me, my love is as fair

As any mother's child, though not so bright

As those gold candles fix'd in heaven's air:

  Let them say more that like of hearsay well;

  I will not praise that purpose not to sell.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXXXVI



Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,

Bound for the prize of all too precious you,

That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse,

Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?

Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write,

Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?

No, neither he, nor his compeers by night

Giving him aid, my verse astonished.

He, nor that affable familiar ghost

Which nightly gulls him with intelligence,

As victors of my silence cannot boast;

I was not sick of any fear from thence:

  But when your countenance fill'd up his line,

  Then lacked I matter; that enfeebled mine.

 	--William Shakespeare

XXX



When to the sessions of sweet silent thought

I summon up remembrance of things past,

I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,

And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:

Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,

For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,

And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,

And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight:

Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,

And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er

The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,

Which I new pay as if not paid before.

  But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,

  All losses are restor'd and sorrows end.

 	--William Shakespeare

III



Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest

Now is the time that face should form another;

Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,

Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.

For where is she so fair whose unear'd womb

Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?

Or who is he so fond will be the tomb,

Of his self-love to stop posterity? 

Thou art thy mother's glass and she in thee

Calls back the lovely April of her prime;

So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,

Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time.

  But if thou live, remember'd not to be,

  Die single and thine image dies with thee.

 	--William Shakespeare

XLVI



Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war,

How to divide the conquest of thy sight;

Mine eye my heart thy picture's sight would bar,

My heart mine eye the freedom of that right.

My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie,--

A closet never pierc'd with crystal eyes--

But the defendant doth that plea deny,

And says in him thy fair appearance lies.

To side this title is impannelled

A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart;

And by their verdict is determined

The clear eye's moiety, and the dear heart's part:

  As thus; mine eye's due is thy outward part,

  And my heart's right, thy inward love of heart.

 	--William Shakespeare

XXX



When to the sessions of sweet silent thought

I summon up remembrance of things past,

I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,

And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:

Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,

For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,

And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,

And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight:

Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,

And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er

The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,

Which I new pay as if not paid before.

  But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,

  All losses are restor'd and sorrows end.

 	--William Shakespeare

XIX



Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws,

And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;

Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,

And burn the long-liv'd phoenix, in her blood;

Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets,

And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,

To the wide world and all her fading sweets;

But I forbid thee one most heinous crime:

O! carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow,

Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen;

Him in thy course untainted do allow

For beauty's pattern to succeeding men. 

  Yet, do thy worst old Time: despite thy wrong,

  My love shall in my verse ever live young.

 	--William Shakespeare

XC



Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now;

Now, while the world is bent my deeds to cross,

Join with the spite of fortune, make me bow,

And do not drop in for an after-loss:

Ah! do not, when my heart hath 'scap'd this sorrow,

Come in the rearward of a conquer'd woe;

Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,

To linger out a purpos'd overthrow.

If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,

When other petty griefs have done their spite,

But in the onset come: so shall I taste

At first the very worst of fortune's might;

  And other strains of woe, which now seem woe,

  Compar'd with loss of thee, will not seem so.

 	--William Shakespeare

CVI



When in the chronicle of wasted time

I see descriptions of the fairest wights,

And beauty making beautiful old rime,

In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,

Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best,

Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,

I see their antique pen would have express'd

Even such a beauty as you master now.

So all their praises are but prophecies

Of this our time, all you prefiguring;

And for they looked but with divining eyes,

They had not skill enough your worth to sing:

  For we, which now behold these present days,

  Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.

 	--William Shakespeare

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Life without industry is guilt, and industry without art is
brutality.
John Ruskin


Founding Fathers Quotes

An honorable Peace is and always was my first wish! I can take no delight in the effusion of human Blood; but, if this War
should continue, I wish to have the most active part in it.
John Paul Jones, letter to Gouverneur Morris, Sept 2, 1782

The genius of architecture seems to have shed its maledictions over this land. -Thomas Jefferson, Notes
on the State of Virginia, 1784-1785

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
T. S. Eliot

LXXX



O! how I faint when I of you do write,

Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,

And in the praise thereof spends all his might,

To make me tongue-tied speaking of your fame!

But since your worth--wide as the ocean is,--

The humble as the proudest sail doth bear,

My saucy bark, inferior far to his,

On your broad main doth wilfully appear.

Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat,

Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride;

Or, being wrack'd, I am a worthless boat,

He of tall building, and of goodly pride:

  Then if he thrive and I be cast away,

  The worst was this,--my love was my decay.

 	--William Shakespeare

I



From fairest creatures we desire increase,

That thereby beauty's rose might never die,

But as the riper should by time decease,

His tender heir might bear his memory:

But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes,

Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel,

Making a famine where abundance lies,

Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel:

Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament,

And only herald to the gaudy spring,

Within thine own bud buriest thy content,

And tender churl mak'st waste in niggarding:

  Pity the world, or else this glutton be,

  To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.

 	--William Shakespeare

XVII



Who will believe my verse in time to come,

If it were fill'd with your most high deserts?

Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb

Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts. 

If I could write the beauty of your eyes,

And in fresh numbers number all your graces,

The age to come would say 'This poet lies;

Such heavenly touches ne'er touch'd earthly faces.'

So should my papers, yellow'd with their age,

Be scorn'd, like old men of less truth than tongue,

And your true rights be term'd a poet's rage

And stretched metre of an antique song:

  But were some child of yours alive that time,

  You should live twice,--in it, and in my rhyme.

 	--William Shakespeare

XXXII



If thou survive my well-contented day,

When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover

And shalt by fortune once more re-survey

These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover,

Compare them with the bett'ring of the time,

And though they be outstripp'd by every pen,

Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme,

Exceeded by the height of happier men.

O! then vouchsafe me but this loving thought:

'Had my friend's Muse grown with this growing age,

A dearer birth than this his love had brought,

To march in ranks of better equipage:

  But since he died and poets better prove,

  Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love'.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXL



Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press

My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain;

Lest sorrow lend me words, and words express

The manner of my pity-wanting pain.

If I might teach thee wit, better it were,

Though not to love, yet, love to tell me so;--

As testy sick men, when their deaths be near,

No news but health from their physicians know;--

For, if I should despair, I should grow mad,

And in my madness might speak ill of thee;

Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,

Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be.

  That I may not be so, nor thou belied,

  Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.

 	--William Shakespeare

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The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. --Albert
EinsteinI have measured out my life with coffee spoons.
T. S. Eliot

What we have found in this country, and maybe we\'re more aware of it now,
is one problem that we\'ve had, even in the best of times, and that is the
people who are sleeping on the grates, the homeless, you might say, by
choice.
Ronald Reagan

The United Sates has much to offer the third world war.
Ronald Reagan

XXV



Let those who are in favour with their stars

Of public honour and proud titles boast,

Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars

Unlook'd for joy in that I honour most.

Great princes' favourites their fair leaves spread

But as the marigold at the sun's eye,

And in themselves their pride lies buried,

For at a frown they in their glory die.

The painful warrior famoused for fight,

After a thousand victories once foil'd,

Is from the book of honour razed quite,

And all the rest forgot for which he toil'd:

Then happy I, that love and am belov'd,

Where I may not remove nor be remov'd.

 	--William Shakespeare

XIII



O! that you were your self; but, love you are

No longer yours, than you your self here live:

Against this coming end you should prepare,

And your sweet semblance to some other give:

So should that beauty which you hold in lease

Find no determination; then you were

Yourself again, after yourself's decease,

When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear. 

Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,

Which husbandry in honour might uphold,

Against the stormy gusts of winter's day

And barren rage of death's eternal cold?

  O! none but unthrifts. Dear my love, you know,

  You had a father: let your son say so.

 	--William Shakespeare

XVIII



Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd,

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature's changing course untrimm'd: 

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,

Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,

  So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

  So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

 	--William Shakespeare

XXXII



If thou survive my well-contented day,

When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover

And shalt by fortune once more re-survey

These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover,

Compare them with the bett'ring of the time,

And though they be outstripp'd by every pen,

Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme,

Exceeded by the height of happier men.

O! then vouchsafe me but this loving thought:

'Had my friend's Muse grown with this growing age,

A dearer birth than this his love had brought,

To march in ranks of better equipage:

  But since he died and poets better prove,

  Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love'.

 	--William Shakespeare

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Too many of us look upon Americans as dollar chasers. This is a cruel
libel, even if it is reiterated thoughtlessly by the Americans
themselves. --Albert Einstein

Politics I supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to
realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.
Ronald Reagan

Hitch your wagon to a star. --Ralph Waldo Emerson

Yes, we have to divide up our time like that, between our politics and
our equations. But to me our equations are far more important, for
politics are only a matter of present concern. A mathematical equation
stands forever. --Albert Einstein

CXL



Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press

My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain;

Lest sorrow lend me words, and words express

The manner of my pity-wanting pain.

If I might teach thee wit, better it were,

Though not to love, yet, love to tell me so;--

As testy sick men, when their deaths be near,

No news but health from their physicians know;--

For, if I should despair, I should grow mad,

And in my madness might speak ill of thee;

Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,

Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be.

  That I may not be so, nor thou belied,

  Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.

 	--William Shakespeare

XLIII



When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see,

For all the day they view things unrespected;

But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,

And darkly bright, are bright in dark directed.

Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright,

How would thy shadow's form form happy show

To the clear day with thy much clearer light,

When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so! 

How would, I say, mine eyes be blessed made

By looking on thee in the living day,

When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade

Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay!

  All days are nights to see till I see thee,

  And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.

 	--William Shakespeare

XCI



Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,

Some in their wealth, some in their body's force,

Some in their garments though new-fangled ill;

Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse;

And every humour hath his adjunct pleasure,

Wherein it finds a joy above the rest:

But these particulars are not my measure,

All these I better in one general best.

Thy love is better than high birth to me,

Richer than wealth, prouder than garments' costs,

Of more delight than hawks and horses be;

And having thee, of all men's pride I boast:

  Wretched in this alone, that thou mayst take

  All this away, and me most wretchcd make.

 	--William Shakespeare

CLI



Love is too young to know what conscience is, 

Yet who knows not conscience is born of love?

Then, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss,

Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove:

For, thou betraying me, I do betray

My nobler part to my gross body's treason;

My soul doth tell my body that he may

Triumph in love; flesh stays no farther reason,

But rising at thy name doth point out thee,

As his triumphant prize. Proud of this pride,

He is contented thy poor drudge to be,

To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.

  No want of conscience hold it that I call

  Her 'love,' for whose dear love I rise and fall.

 	--William Shakespeare

CIII



Alack! what poverty my Muse brings forth,

That having such a scope to show her pride,

The argument, all bare, is of more worth

Than when it hath my added praise beside!

O! blame me not, if I no more can write!

Look in your glass, and there appears a face

That over-goes my blunt invention quite, 

Dulling my lines, and doing me disgrace.

Were it not sinful then, striving to mend,

To mar the subject that before was well?

For to no other pass my verses tend

Than of your graces and your gifts to tell;

  And more, much more, than in my verse can sit,

  Your own glass shows you when you look in it.

 	--William Shakespeare

XXXV



No more be griev'd at that which thou hast done:

Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud:

Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,

And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.

All men make faults, and even I in this,

Authorizing thy trespass with compare,

Myself corrupting, salving thy amiss,

Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are;

For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense,--

Thy adverse party is thy advocate,--

And 'gainst myself a lawful plea commence:

Such civil war is in my love and hate,

  That I an accessary needs must be,

  To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXXV



So are you to my thoughts as food to life,

Or as sweet-season'd showers are to the ground;

And for the peace of you I hold such strife

As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found.

Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon

Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure;

Now counting best to be with you alone,

Then better'd that the world may see my pleasure:

Sometime all full with feasting on your sight,

And by and by clean starved for a look;

Possessing or pursuing no delight,

Save what is had, or must from you be took.

  Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,

  Or gluttoning on all, or all away.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXXXV



My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still,

While comments of your praise richly compil'd,

Reserve their character with golden quill,

And precious phrase by all the Muses fil'd.

I think good thoughts, whilst others write good words,

And like unlettered clerk still cry 'Amen'

To every hymn that able spirit affords,

In polish'd form of well-refined pen.

Hearing you praised, I say ''tis so, 'tis true,'

And to the most of praise add something more;

But that is in my thought, whose love to you,

Though words come hindmost, holds his rank before.

  Then others, for the breath of words respect,

  Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXXX



O! how I faint when I of you do write,

Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,

And in the praise thereof spends all his might,

To make me tongue-tied speaking of your fame!

But since your worth--wide as the ocean is,--

The humble as the proudest sail doth bear,

My saucy bark, inferior far to his,

On your broad main doth wilfully appear.

Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat,

Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride;

Or, being wrack'd, I am a worthless boat,

He of tall building, and of goodly pride:

  Then if he thrive and I be cast away,

  The worst was this,--my love was my decay.

 	--William Shakespeare

XXX



When to the sessions of sweet silent thought

I summon up remembrance of things past,

I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,

And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:

Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,

For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,

And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,

And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight:

Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,

And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er

The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,

Which I new pay as if not paid before.

  But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,

  All losses are restor'd and sorrows end.

 	--William Shakespeare

XIII



O! that you were your self; but, love you are

No longer yours, than you your self here live:

Against this coming end you should prepare,

And your sweet semblance to some other give:

So should that beauty which you hold in lease

Find no determination; then you were

Yourself again, after yourself's decease,

When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear. 

Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,

Which husbandry in honour might uphold,

Against the stormy gusts of winter's day

And barren rage of death's eternal cold?

  O! none but unthrifts. Dear my love, you know,

  You had a father: let your son say so.

 	--William Shakespeare

LXXIX



Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid,

My verse alone had all thy gentle grace;

But now my gracious numbers are decay'd,

And my sick Muse doth give an other place.

I grant, sweet love, thy lovely argument

Deserves the travail of a worthier pen;

Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent

He robs thee of, and pays it thee again.

He lends thee virtue, and he stole that word

From thy behaviour; beauty doth he give,

And found it in thy cheek: he can afford

No praise to thee, but what in thee doth live. 

  Then thank him not for that which he doth say,

  Since what he owes thee, thou thyself dost pay.

 	--William Shakespeare

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CII



My love is strengthen\'d, though more weak in seeming;

I love not less, though less the show appear;

That love is merchandiz\'d, whose rich esteeming,

The owner\'s tongue doth publish every where.

Our love was new, and then but in the spring,

When I was wont to greet it with my lays;

As Philomel in summer\'s front doth sing,

And stops her pipe in growth of riper days:

Not that the summer is less pleasant now

Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night,

But that wild music burthens every bough,

And sweets grown common lose their dear delight.

  Therefore like her, I sometime hold my tongue:

  Because I would not dull you with my song.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXLII



Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate,

Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving:

O! but with mine compare thou thine own state,

And thou shalt find it merits not reproving;

Or, if it do, not from those lips of thine, 

That have profan\'d their scarlet ornaments

And seal\'d false bonds of love as oft as mine,

Robb\'d others\' beds\' revenues of their rents.

Be it lawful I love thee, as thou lov\'st those

Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee:

Root pity in thy heart, that, when it grows,

Thy pity may deserve to pitied be.

  If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide,

  By self-example mayst thou be denied!



CXLIII



Lo, as a careful housewife runs to catch

One of her feather\'d creatures broke away,

Sets down her babe, and makes all swift dispatch

In pursuit of the thing she would have stay;

Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase,

Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent

To follow that which flies before her face,

Not prizing her poor infant\'s discontent;

So runn\'st thou after that which flies from thee, 

Whilst I thy babe chase thee afar behind;

But if thou catch thy hope, turn back to me,

And play the mother\'s part, kiss me, be kind;

  So will I pray that thou mayst have thy \'Will,\'

  If thou turn back and my loud crying still.

 	--William Shakespeare

XVI



But wherefore do not you a mightier way

Make war upon this bloody tyrant, Time?

And fortify your self in your decay

With means more blessed than my barren rhyme?

Now stand you on the top of happy hours,

And many maiden gardens, yet unset,

With virtuous wish would bear you living flowers,

Much liker than your painted counterfeit:

So should the lines of life that life repair,

Which this, Time's pencil, or my pupil pen,

Neither in inward worth nor outward fair,

Can make you live your self in eyes of men.

  To give away yourself, keeps yourself still,

  And you must live, drawn by your own sweet skill.

 	--William Shakespeare

XX



A woman's face with nature's own hand painted,

Hast thou, the master mistress of my passion;

A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted

With shifting change, as is false women's fashion:

An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,

Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;

A man in hue all 'hues' in his controlling,

Which steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.

And for a woman wert thou first created;

Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting,

And by addition me of thee defeated,

By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.

  But since she prick'd thee out for women's pleasure,

  Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure.

 	--William Shakespeare

V



Those hours, that with gentle work did frame

The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell,

Will play the tyrants to the very same

And that unfair which fairly doth excel;

For never-resting time leads summer on

To hideous winter, and confounds him there;

Sap checked with frost, and lusty leaves quite gone,

Beauty o'er-snowed and bareness every where:

Then were not summer's distillation left,

A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,

Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,

Nor it, nor no remembrance what it was:

  But flowers distill'd, though they with winter meet,

  Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet.

 	--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

XLVI



Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war,

How to divide the conquest of thy sight;

Mine eye my heart thy picture's sight would bar,

My heart mine eye the freedom of that right.

My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie,--

A closet never pierc'd with crystal eyes--

But the defendant doth that plea deny,

And says in him thy fair appearance lies.

To side this title is impannelled

A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart;

And by their verdict is determined

The clear eye's moiety, and the dear heart's part:

  As thus; mine eye's due is thy outward part,

  And my heart's right, thy inward love of heart.

 	--William Shakespeare

VI



Then let not winter's ragged hand deface,

In thee thy summer, ere thou be distill'd:

Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place

With beauty's treasure ere it be self-kill'd.

That use is not forbidden usury,

Which happies those that pay the willing loan;

That's for thy self to breed another thee,

Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;

Ten times thy self were happier than thou art,

If ten of thine ten times refigur'd thee:

Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart,

Leaving thee living in posterity?

  Be not self-will'd, for thou art much too fair

  To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir.

 	--William Shakespeare

CXXXV



Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy 'Will,'

And 'Will' to boot, and 'Will' in over-plus;

More than enough am I that vex'd thee still,

To thy sweet will making addition thus.

Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious,

Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine?

Shall will in others seem right gracious,

And in my will no fair acceptance shine?

The sea, all water, yet receives rain still,

And in abundance addeth to his store;

So thou, being rich in 'Will,' add to thy 'Will'

One will of mine, to make thy large will more.

  Let no unkind 'No' fair beseechers kill;

  Think all but one, and me in that one 'Will.'



CXXXVI



If thy soul check thee that I come so near, 

Swear to thy blind soul that I was thy 'Will',

And will, thy soul knows, is admitted there;

Thus far for love, my love-suit, sweet, fulfil.

'Will', will fulfil the treasure of thy love,

Ay, fill it full with wills, and my will one.

In things of great receipt with ease we prove

Among a number one is reckon'd none:

Then in the number let me pass untold,

Though in thy store's account I one must be;

For nothing hold me, so it please thee hold

That nothing me, a something sweet to thee:

  Make but my name thy love, and love that still,

  And then thou lov'st me for my name is 'Will.'



CXXXVII



Thou blind fool, Love, what dost thou to mine eyes,

That they behold, and see not what they see?

They know what beauty is, see where it lies,

Yet what the best is take the worst to be.

If eyes, corrupt by over-partial looks, 

Be anchor'd in the bay where all men ride,

Why of eyes' falsehood hast thou forged hooks,

Whereto the judgment of my heart is tied?

Why should my heart think that a several plot,

Which my heart knows the wide world's common place?

Or mine eyes, seeing this, say this is not,

To put fair truth upon so foul a face?

  In things right true my heart and eyes have err'd,

  And to this false plague are they now transferr'd.

 	--William Shakespeare

XLVII



Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took,

And each doth good turns now unto the other:

When that mine eye is famish'd for a look,

Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother,

With my love's picture then my eye doth feast,

And to the painted banquet bids my heart;

Another time mine eye is my heart's guest,

And in his thoughts of love doth share a part:

So, either by thy picture or my love,

Thy self away, art present still with me;

For thou not farther than my thoughts canst move,

And I am still with them, and they with thee;

  Or, if they sleep, thy picture in my sight

  Awakes my heart, to heart's and eye's delight.

 	--William Shakespeare

CI



O truant Muse what shall be thy amends

For thy neglect of truth in beauty dy'd?

Both truth and beauty on my love depends;

So dost thou too, and therein dignified.

Make answer Muse: wilt thou not haply say,

'Truth needs no colour, with his colour fix'd;

Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay;

But best is best, if never intermix'd'?

Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb?

Excuse not silence so, for't lies in thee

To make him much outlive a gilded tomb

And to be prais'd of ages yet to be.

  Then do thy office, Muse; I teach thee how

  To make him seem long hence as he shows now.

 	--William Shakespeare

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I hate quotations. Tell me what you know. --Ralph Waldo EmersonThis is the way the world ends: not with a bang, but a whimper.
T. S. Eliot

II



When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,

And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,

Thy youth's proud livery so gazed on now,

Will be a tatter'd weed of small worth held: 

Then being asked, where all thy beauty lies,

Where all the treasure of thy lusty days; 

To say, within thine own deep sunken eyes,

Were an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise.

How much more praise deserv'd thy beauty's use,

If thou couldst answer 'This fair child of mine

Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse,'

Proving his beauty by succession thine!

  This were to be new made when thou art old,

  And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold.

 	--William Shakespeare

VIII



Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?

Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy:

Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly,

Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy?

If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,

By unions married, do offend thine ear,

They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds

In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear. 

Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,

Strikes each in each by mutual ordering;

Resembling sire and child and happy mother,

Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing:

  Whose speechless song being many, seeming one,

  Sings this to thee: 'Thou single wilt prove none.'



IX



Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye,

That thou consum'st thy self in single life?

Ah! if thou issueless shalt hap to die,

The world will wail thee like a makeless wife;

The world will be thy widow and still weep

That thou no form of thee hast left behind,

When every private widow well may keep

By children's eyes, her husband's shape in mind:

Look! what an unthrift in the world doth spend

Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;

But beauty's waste hath in the world an end,

And kept unused the user so destroys it.

  No love toward others in that bosom sits

  That on himself such murd'rous shame commits.

 	--William Shakespeare

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Conversation in real life is full of half-finished sentences and
overlapping talk. Why shouldn\'t painting be too?
Edgar Degas
Nothing lasts except beauty--and I shall create that.
-Thomas Wolfe, Letters to His Mother (1943)

C



Where art thou Muse that thou forget\'st so long,

To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?

Spend\'st thou thy fury on some worthless song,

Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light?

Return forgetful Muse, and straight redeem,

In gentle numbers time so idly spent;

Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem

And gives thy pen both skill and argument.

Rise, resty Muse, my love\'s sweet face survey,

If Time have any wrinkle graven there;

If any, be a satire to decay,

And make time\'s spoils despised every where.

  Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life,

  So thou prevent\'st his scythe and crooked knife.

 	--William Shakespeare

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Our passions are not too strong, they are too weak. We are far too easily pleased.

- C.S. Lewis, In Humanity

Double, no triple, our troubles and we\'d still be better off than any
other people on earth. It is time that we recognized that ours was, in
truth, a noble cause.
Ronald Reagan

It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.
-Tolstoy, Leo

No matter what time it is, wake me, even if it\'s in the middle of a
Cabinet meeting.
Ronald Reagan

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XXVI



Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage

Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit,

To thee I send this written embassage,

To witness duty, not to show my wit:

Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine

May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it,

But that I hope some good conceit of thine

In thy soul\'s thought, all naked, will bestow it:

Till whatsoever star that guides my moving,

Points on me graciously with fair aspect,

And puts apparel on my tatter\'d loving,

To show me worthy of thy sweet respect:

  Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee;

  Till then, not show my head where thou mayst prove me.

 	--William Shakespeare

If the federal government had been around when the Creator was putting His
hand to this state, Indiana wouldn\'t be here. It\'d still be waiting for an
environmental impact statement.
Ronald Reagan

Founding Fathers Quotes

Every person seems to acknowledge his greatness. He blends together the profound politician with the scholar.
William Pierce, on James Madison, 1787

LXXX



O! how I faint when I of you do write,

Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,

And in the praise thereof spends all his might,

To make me tongue-tied speaking of your fame!

But since your worth--wide as the ocean is,--

The humble as the proudest sail doth bear,

My saucy bark, inferior far to his,

On your broad main doth wilfully appear.

Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat,

Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride;

Or, being wrack'd, I am a worthless boat,

He of tall building, and of goodly pride:

  Then if he thrive and I be cast away,

  The worst was this,--my love was my decay.

 	--William Shakespeare

XIV



Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck;

And yet methinks I have astronomy,

But not to tell of good or evil luck,

Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality;

Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell,

Pointing to each his thunder, rain and wind,

Or say with princes if it shall go well

By oft predict that I in heaven find:

But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,

And constant stars in them I read such art

As 'Truth and beauty shall together thrive,

If from thyself, to store thou wouldst convert'; 

  Or else of thee this I prognosticate:

  'Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date.'



XV



When I consider every thing that grows

Holds in perfection but a little moment,

That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows

Whereon the stars in secret influence comment;

When I perceive that men as plants increase,

Cheered and checked even by the self-same sky,

Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,

And wear their brave state out of memory;

Then the conceit of this inconstant stay

Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,

Where wasteful Time debateth with decay

To change your day of youth to sullied night,

  And all in war with Time for love of you,

  As he takes from you, I engraft you new.

 	--William Shakespeare

VII



Lo! in the orient when the gracious light

Lifts up his burning head, each under eye

Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,

Serving with looks his sacred majesty; 

And having climb'd the steep-up heavenly hill,

Resembling strong youth in his middle age,

Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,

Attending on his golden pilgrimage:

But when from highmost pitch, with weary car,

Like feeble age, he reeleth from the day,

The eyes, 'fore duteous, now converted are

From his low tract, and look another way:

  So thou, thyself outgoing in thy noon:

  Unlook'd, on diest unless thou get a son.

 	--William Shakespeare

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