As flies to wanton boys are we to th' gods; / They kill us for their sport

Antony and Cleopatra: what love, what accomplishments, what repetitions of natural affections passed between them is not for vulgar minds to imagine, none but so great hearts know them.

he will equivocate at the gallows; but he will be hanged without equivocation.

Sonnet 138, which begins: "When my love swears that she is made of truth, / I do believe her though I know she lies"}.

I am a man more sinned against than sinning {Lear, 9.60}.

Albany had declared that "All friends shall taste / The wages of their virtue, and all foes / The cup of their deservings" {24.297–99}.

The weight of this sad time we must obey, Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say. The oldest have borne most. We that are young Shall never see so much, nor live so long. {24.318–21}

Sonnet 55 that "Not marble nor the gilded monuments / Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme" {1–2}}.

Lear wills his own death: Break, heart, I prithee break

And my poor fool is hanged. No, no life. / Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life, / And thou no breath at all? O, thou wilt come no more. / Never, never, never. Pray you, undo / This button....

Is his benevolent art meant to distract us from Prospero's absolutist exercise of authority over his subjects?

Genius may be a necessary precondition for creating a masterpiece but it's never a sufficient one.

you there was, or might be, such a man / As this I dreamt of?"-he can only answer like a Roman, "Gentle madam, no

How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child {Lear, 4.279–80}.

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety {Antony, 2.2.245–46}.

I am bound upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears do scald like molten lead

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more

Soothsayer's warning to Antony in Antony and Cleopatra, "If thou dost play with him at any game, / Thou art sure to lose" {2.3.26–27}

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale Her infinite variety. Other women cloy The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry

No bishop, no king"; he might have added, "No devil, no divine right.