When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced The rich proud cost of outworn buried age; When sometime lofty towers I see down-razed And brass eternal slave to mortal rage; When I have seen the hungry ocean gain Advantage on the kingdom of the shore, And the firm soil win of the watery main, Increasing store with loss and loss with store; When I have seen such interchange of state, Or state itself confounded to decay; Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate, That Time will come and take my love away. This thought is as a death which cannot choose But weep to have that which it fears to lose.

Though age from folly could not give me freedom, It does from childishness.

There is plenty of time to sleep in the grave

What valor were it, when a cur doth grin, for one to thrust his hand between his teeth, when he might spurn him with his foot away?

O! Let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven; keep me in temper; I would not be mad!

Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds.

Where souls do couch on flowers we'll hand in hand.