76 Quotes Tagged: shakespeare

In order that a new world may step in, this world must for a time disappear. The murderers and the murder must be insulated — cut off by an immeasurable gulf from the ordinary tide and succession of human affairs locked up and sequestered in some deep recess; we must be made sensible that the world of ordinary life is suddenly arrested — laid asleep — tranced — racked into a dread armistice; time must be annihilated; relation to things without abolished; and all must pass self-withdrawn into a deep syncope and suspension of earthly passion. Hence it is, that, when the deed is done, when the work of darkness is perfect, then the world of darkness passes away like a pageantry in the clouds: the knocking at the gate is heard; and it makes known audibly that the reaction has commenced: the human has made its reflux upon the fiendish; the pulses of life are beginning to beat again...

IN ENGLISH, words of Latin origin tend to carry overtones of intellectual, moral and aesthetic "classiness" — overtones which are not carried, as a rule, by their Anglo-Saxon equivalents. "Maternal," for instance, means the same as "motherly," "intoxicated" as "drunk" — but with what subtly important shades of difference! And when Shakespeare needed a name for a comic character, it was Sir Toby Belch that he chose, not Cavalier Tobias Eructation.

"And it's what you never will write," said the Controller. "Because, if it were really like Othello nobody could understand it, however new it might be. And if were new, it couldn't possibly be like Othello."

The very stone one kicks with one's boot will outlast Shakespeare.

Shakespeare was not a genius. He was, without the distant shadow of doubt, the most wonderful writer who ever breathed. But not a genius. No angels handed him his lines, no fairies proofread for him. Instead, he learnt techniques, he learnt tricks, and he learnt them well.

حتی در ترانه های شکسپیر هم اثری از اُمّید نیست، چون در آن زمان سیفیلیس بیداد می کرد. اندوه عمیق نهفته در ترانه های شکسپیر از آنجاست که در آن روزها «عشق» همیشه با سیفیلیس متداعی بود. هفتاد درصد مردم به آن مبتلا بودند. زنگ عمیق اشعار عاشقانه به همین دلیل بود. چون عاقبتش دیوانگی بود یا کوری و هیچ علاجی هم نداشت. «عشق» چیزی بود فوق العاده «مهم»، درست مثل «مرگ» و «زندگی». امروز «عشق» اهمیت تراژیک خود را از دست داده است چون حسابش از «کوفت» جدا شده است

But there stands the sword of my ancestor Sir Richard Vernon, slain at Shrewsbury, and sorely slandered by a sad fellow called Will Shakspeare, whose Lancastrian partialities, and a certain knack at embodying them, has turned history upside down, or rather inside out.

Shakespeare opens a mine which contains gold and diamonds in unexhaustible plenty, though clouded by incrustations, debased by impurities, and mingled with a mass of meaner minerales.

I have never thought that the man of Stratford-on-Avon wrote the plays of Shakespeare.

If Jupiter was in the ascendant when you were born, you are of a jovial disposition; and if you're not jovial but miserable and saturnine that's a disaster, because a disaster is a dis-astro, or misplaced planet. Disaster is Latin for ill-starred.

The fault, as Shakespeare put it, is not in our stars; but the language is.

We read the pagan sacred books with profit and delight. With myth and fable we are ever charmed, and find a pleasure in the endless repetition of the beautiful, poetic, and absurd. We find, in all these records of the past, philosophies and dreams, and efforts stained with tears, of great and tender souls who tried to pierce the mystery of life and death, to answer the eternal questions of the Whence and Whither, and vainly sought to make, with bits of shattered glass, a mirror that would, in very truth, reflect the face and form of Nature's perfect self.

These myths were born of hopes, and fears, and tears, and smiles, and they were touched and colored by all there is of joy and grief between the rosy dawn of birth, and death's sad night. They clothed even the stars with passion, and gave to gods the faults and frailties of the sons of men. In them, the winds and waves were music, and all the lakes, and streams, and springs, — the mountains, woods and perfumed dells were haunted by a thousand fairy forms. They thrilled the veins of Spring with tremulous desire; made tawny Summer's billowed breast the throne and home of love; filled Autumns arms with sun-kissed grapes, and gathered sheaves; and pictured Winter as a weak old king who felt, like Lear upon his withered face, Cordelia's tears. These myths, though false, are beautiful, and have for many ages and in countless ways, enriched the heart and kindled thought. But if the world were taught that all these things are true and all inspired of God, and that eternal punishment will be the lot of him who dares deny or doubt, the sweetest myth of all the Fable World would lose its beauty, and become a scorned and hateful thing to every brave and thoughtful man.

He was a philosopher, if you know what that was.’
‘A man who dreams of fewer things than there are in heaven and earth,’ said the Savage promptly.
‘Quite so…

That's the price we have to pay for stability. You've got to choose between happiness and what people used to call high art. We've sacrificed high art. We have the feelies and the scent organ instead.

There's nothing wicked in Shakespeare, and if there is I don't want to know it.

I believe it was Shakespeare, or possibly Howard Cosell, who first observed that marriage is very much like a birthday candle, in that 'the flames of passion burn brightest when the wick of intimacy is first ignited by the disposable butane lighter of physical attraction, but sooner or later the heat of familiarity causes the wax of boredom to drip all over the vanilla frosting of novelty and the shredded coconut of romance.' I could not have phrased it better myself.