The quality of mercy is not strained

I pray you, in your letters, When you shall these unlucky deeds relate, Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate, Nor set down aught in malice. Then must you speak Of one that loved not wisely but too well; Of one not easily jealous, but being wrought, Perplexed in the extreme. . .

Things may serve long, but not serve ever.

If you would persuade, you must appeal to interest rather than intellect. We are advertis'd by our loving friends.

Now is the winter of our discontent Made glorious summer by this sun of York; And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, doth glance from heaven to Earth, from Earth to heaven; and as imagination bodies forth the forms of things unknown, the poet's pen turns them to shape, and gives to airy nothing a local habitation and a name; such tricks hath strong imagination.

Time is the nurse and breeder of all good.