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The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Preface

The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Preface

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promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament, this<br />

majestical ro<strong>of</strong> fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me but a foul and<br />

pestilent congregation <strong>of</strong> vapours. What a piece <strong>of</strong> work is a man! How noble in reason! how<br />

infinite in faculty! in form, in moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel!<br />

in apprehension how like a god! the beauty <strong>of</strong> the world! the paragon <strong>of</strong> animals! And yet, to me,<br />

what is this quintessence <strong>of</strong> dust? man delights not me; no, nor woman neither, though, by your<br />

smiling, you seem to say so.<br />

‘Hamlet’ (1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. [316]<br />

He that plays the king shall be welcome; his majesty shall have tribute <strong>of</strong> me.<br />

‘Hamlet’ (1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. [341]<br />

<strong>The</strong>re is something in this more than natural, if philosophy could find it out.<br />

‘Hamlet’ (1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. [392]<br />

I am but mad north-north-west; when the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw.<br />

‘Hamlet’ (1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. [405]<br />

<strong>The</strong> best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical,<br />

historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or<br />

poem unlimited. Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light.<br />

‘Hamlet’ (1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. [424]<br />

One fair daughter and no more,<br />

<strong>The</strong> which he loved passing well.<br />

‘Hamlet’ (1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. [435]<br />

Come, give us a taste <strong>of</strong> your quality.<br />

‘Hamlet’ (1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. [460]<br />

<strong>The</strong> play, I remember, pleased not the million; ’twas caviare to the general.<br />

‘Hamlet’ (1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. [465]<br />

Good my lord, will you see the players well bestowed? Do you hear, let them be well used; for<br />

they are the abstracts and brief chronicles <strong>of</strong> the time: after your death you were better have a bad<br />

epitaph than their ill report while you live.<br />

‘Hamlet’ (1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. [553]<br />

Use every man after his desert, and who should ’scape whipping?<br />

‘Hamlet’ (1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. [561]<br />

O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I:<br />

Is it not monstrous that this player here,<br />

But in a fiction, in a dream <strong>of</strong> passion,<br />

Could force his soul so to his own conceit<br />

That from her working all his visage wanned,<br />

Tears in his eyes, distraction in ’s aspect,<br />

A broken voice, and his whole function suiting<br />

With forms to his conceit? and all for nothing!<br />

For Hecuba!

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