What can be happier than for a man, conscious of virtuous acts, and content with liberty, to despise all human affairs?

Macbeth to Witches: What are these So wither'd and so wild in their attire, That look not like th' inhabitants o' th' earth, And yet are on 't?

O comfort-killing night, image of hell, Dim register and notary of shame, Black stage for tragedies and murders fell, Vast sin-concealing chaos, nurse of blame!

Why, who cries out on pride that can therein tax any private party? Doth it not flow as hugely as the sea till the weary very means do ebb?

Some kinds of baseness are nobly undergone.

He hath disgrac'd me and hind'red me half a million; laugh'd at my losses, mock'd at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated my enemies. And what's his reason? I am a Jew.

Wooing, wedding, and repenting is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinque-pace: the first suit is hot and hasty like a Scotch jig--and full as fantastical; the wedding, mannerly modest, as a measure, full of state and ancientry; and then comes repentance and with his bad legs falls into the cinque-pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave.