The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Preface

‘Love’s Labour’s Lost’ (1595) act 3, sc. 1, l. [189]
A wightly wanton with a velvet brow,
With two pitch balls stuck in her face for eyes;
Ay, and, by heaven, one that will do the deed
Though Argus were her eunuch and her guard:
And I to sigh for her! to watch for her!
To pray for her!
‘Love’s Labour’s Lost’ (1595) act 3, sc. 1, l. [206]
He hath not fed of the dainties that are bred in a book; he hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath
not drunk ink.
‘Love’s Labour’s Lost’ (1595) act 4, sc. 2, l. [25]
Old Mantuan! old Mantuan! Who understandeth thee not, loves thee not.
‘Love’s Labour’s Lost’ (1595) act 4, sc. 2, l. [102]
Here are only numbers ratified; but, for the elegancy, facility, and golden cadence of poesy,
caret. Ovidius Naso was the man: and why, indeed, Naso, but for smelling out the odoriferous
flowers of fancy, the jerks of invention?
‘Love’s Labour’s Lost’ (1595) act 4, sc. 2, l. [126]
Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye,
’Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument,
Persuade my heart to this false perjury?
Vows for thee broke deserve not punishment.
‘Love’s Labour’s Lost’ (1595) act 4, sc. 3, l. [60]
From women’s eyes this doctrine I derive:
They are the ground, the books, the academes,
From whence doth spring the true Promethean fire.
‘Love’s Labour’s Lost’ (1595) act 4, sc. 3, l. [302]
But love, first learnéd in a lady’s eyes,
Lives not alone immuréd in the brain,
But, with the motion of all elements,
Courses as swift as thought in every power,
And gives to every power a double power,
Above their functions and their offices.
It adds a precious seeing to the eye;
A lover’s eyes will gaze an eagle blind;
A lover’s ears will hear the lowest sound,
When the suspicious head of theft is stopped:
Love’s feeling is more soft and sensible
Than are the tender horns of cockled snails:
Love’s tongue proves dainty Baccus gross in taste.
For valour, is not love a Hercules,