Love’s Labour’s Lost quotes

Too much to know is to know nought but fame; And every godfather can give a name.

How well he’s read, to reason against reading!

Proceeded well, to stop all good proceeding!

How well he’s read, to reason against reading!

Proceeded well, to stop all good proceeding!

He weeds the corn and still lets grow the weeding.

So study evermore is overshot: While it doth study to have what it would It doth forget to do the thing it should, And when it hath the thing it hunteth most,

’Tis won as towns with fire, so won, so lost.

We must of force dispense with this decree; She must lie here on mere necessity.

So to the laws at large I write my name: Subscribes. And he that breaks them in the least degree Stands in attainder of eternal shame: Suggestions are to other as to me; But I believe, although I seem so loath,

I am the last that will last keep his oath.

But is there no quick recreation granted?

A letter from the magnificent Armado.

How low soever the matter, I hope in God for high words.

A high hope for a low heaven: God grant us patience!

Sir, I will pronounce your sentence: you shall fast a week with bran and water.

I had rather pray a month with mutton and porridge.

And Don Armado shall be your keeper. My Lord Biron, see him deliver’d o’er: And go we, lords, to put in practise that Which each to other hath so strongly sworn. Exeunt King, Longaville, and Dumain.

I suffer for the truth, sir; for true it is, I was taken with Jaquenetta, and Jaquenetta is a true girl; and therefore welcome the sour cup of prosperity!

Affliction may one day smile again; and till then, sit thee down, sorrow!

Exeunt.

My love is most immaculate white and red.

Most maculate thoughts, master, are masked under such colours.

My father’s wit and my mother’s tongue, assist me!

Villain, thou shalt fast for thy offences ere thou be pardoned.

Well, sir, I hope, when I do it, I shall do it on a full stomach.

Thou shalt be heavily punished.

Thou shalt be heavily punished.

I am more bound to you than your fellows, for they are but lightly rewarded.

Take away this villain; shut him up.

Come, you transgressing slave; away!

Let me not be pent up, sir: I will fast, being loose.

No, sir; that were fast and loose: thou shalt to prison.

It is not for prisoners to be too silent in their words; and therefore I will say nothing: I thank God I have as little patience as another man; and therefore I can be quiet. Exeunt Moth and Costard.

I do affect the very ground, which is base, where her shoe, which is baser, guided by her foot, which is basest, doth tread.

I shall be forsworn, which is a great argument of falsehood, if I love. And how can that be true love which is falsely attempted? Love is a familiar; Love is a devil: there is no evil angel but Love.

I shall be forsworn, which is a great argument of falsehood, if I love. And how can that be true love which is falsely attempted?

Love is a familiar; Love is a devil: there is no evil angel but Love.

Yet was Samson so tempted, and he had an excellent strength; yet was Solomon so seduced, and he had a very good wit. Cupid’s butt-shaft is too hard for Hercules’ club; and therefore too much odds for a Spaniard’s rapier.

and therefore too much odds for a Spaniard’s rapier. The first and second cause will not serve my turn; the passado he respects not, the duello he regards not: his disgrace is to be called boy; but his glory is to subdue men.

Adieu, valour! rust rapier! be still, drum! for your manager is in love; yea, he loveth.

Assist me, some extemporal god of rhyme, for I am sure I shall turn sonnet. Devise, wit; write, pen; for I am for whole volumes in folio. Exit.

Good Lord Boyet, my beauty, though but mean, Needs not the painted flourish of your praise:

Beauty is bought by judgement of the eye,

Not utter’d by base sale of chapmen’s tongues: I am less proud to hear you tell my worth Than you much willing to be counted wise In spending your wit in the praise of mine. But now to task the tasker:

Proud of employment, willingly I go.

All pride is willing pride, and yours is so.

Exit Boyet. Who are the votaries, my loving lords, That are vow-fellows with this virtuous duke?

Fair princess, welcome to the court of Navarre.

“Fair” I give you back again; and “welcome” I have not yet: the roof of this court is too high to be yours; and welcome to the wide fields too base to be mine.

You shall be welcome, madam, to my court.

You shall be welcome, madam, to my court.

I will be welcome, then: conduct me thither.

Hear me, dear lady; I have sworn an oath.

Not for the world, fair madam, by my will.

Why, will shall break it; will and nothing else.

Your ladyship is ignorant what it is.

Did not I dance with you in Brabant once?

How needless was it then to ask the question!

You must not be so quick.

Your wit’s too hot, it speeds too fast, ’twill tire.

Not till it leave the rider in the mire.

The hour that fools should ask.

I beseech you a word: what is she in the white?

A woman sometimes, an you saw her in the light.

Perchance light in the light. I desire her name.

Fetch hither the swain: he must carry me a letter.

A message well sympathized; a horse to be ambassador for an ass.

Ha, ha! what sayest thou?

Until the goose came out of door, Staying the odds by adding four.

A good l’envoy, ending in the goose: would you desire more?

The boy hath sold him a bargain, a goose, that’s flat. Sir, your pennyworth is good, an your goose be fat. To sell a bargain well is as cunning as fast and loose: Let me see; a fat l’envoy; ay, that’s a fat goose.

We will talk no more of this matter.

Till there be more matter in the shin.

Sirrah Costard, I will enfranchise thee.

Sirrah Costard, I will enfranchise thee.

O, marry me to one Frances: I smell some l’envoy, some goose, in this.

By my sweet soul, I mean setting thee at liberty, enfreedoming thy person: thou wert immured, restrained, captivated, bound.

Gardon, O sweet gardon! better than remuneration, a ’leven-pence farthing better: most sweet gardon! I will do it, sir, in print. Gardon! Remuneration! Exit.

And I, forsooth, in love! I, that have been love’s whip;

A very beadle to a humorous sigh; A critic, nay, a night-watch constable; A domineering pedant o’er the boy; Than whom no mortal so magnificent! This whimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy; This senior-junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid;

And I to sigh for her! to watch for her! To pray for her! Go to; it is a plague That Cupid will impose for my neglect Of his almighty dreadful little might. Well, I will love, write, sigh, pray, sue and groan:

Some men must love my lady and some Joan.

Exit.

God dig-you-den all! Pray you, which is the head lady?

Thou shalt know her, fellow, by the rest that have no heads.

Which is the greatest lady, the highest?

Sir, you have done this in the fear of God, very religiously; and, as a certain father saith—

Sir tell me not of the father; I do fear colourable colours.

But to return to the verses: did they please you, Sir Nathaniel?

I am coursing myself: they have pitched a toil; I am toiling in a pitch—pitch that defiles: defile! a foul word. Well, set thee down, sorrow! for so they say the fool said, and so say I, and I the fool: well proved, wit!

By the Lord, this love is as mad as Ajax: it kills sheep; it kills me, I a sheep: well proved again o’ my side!

I will not love: if I do, hang me; i’ faith, I will not. O, but her eye—by this light, but for her eye, I would not love her; yes, for her two eyes.

Why, he comes in like a perjure, wearing papers.

In love, I hope: sweet fellowship in shame!

One drunkard loves another of the name.

In love, I hope: sweet fellowship in shame!

One drunkard loves another of the name.

Am I the first that have been perjured so?

How will he scorn! how will he spend his wit! How will he triumph, leap and laugh at it! For all the wealth that ever I did see, I would not have him know so much by me.

Now step I forth to whip hypocrisy.

Advancing. Ah, good my liege, I pray thee, pardon me! Good heart, what grace hast thou, thus to reprove These worms for loving, that art most in love? Your eyes do make no coaches; in your tears There is no certain princess that appears;

the king your mote did see; But I a beam do find in each of three. O, what a scene of foolery have I seen, Of sighs, of groans, of sorrow and of teen! O me, with what strict patience have I sat,

To see a king transformed to a gnat!

To see great Hercules whipping a gig, And profound Solomon to tune a jig, And Nestor play at push-pin with the boys, And critic Timon laugh at idle toys! Where lies thy grief, O, tell me, good Dumain? And gentle Longaville, where lies thy pain?

Walk aside the true folk, and let the traitors stay. Exeunt Costard and Jaquenetta.

Sweet lords, sweet lovers, O, let us embrace!

As true we are as flesh and blood can be: The sea will ebb and flow, heaven show his face; Young blood doth not obey an old decree: We cannot cross the cause why we were born; Therefore of all hands must we be forsworn.

Sweet lords, sweet lovers, O, let us embrace! As true we are as flesh and blood can be: The sea will ebb and flow, heaven show his face;

Young blood doth not obey an old decree:

We cannot cross the cause why we were born; Therefore of all hands must we be forsworn.

O, she needs it not: To things of sale a seller’s praise belongs, She passes praise; then praise too short doth blot. A wither’d hermit, five-score winters worn, Might shake off fifty, looking in her eye:

Beauty doth varnish age, as if new-born,

And gives the crutch the cradle’s infancy: O, ’tis the sun that maketh all things shine.

And Ethiopes of their sweet complexion crack.

Dark needs no candles now, for dark is light.

Your mistresses dare never come in rain, For fear their colours should be wash’d away.

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 ear will hear the lowest sound, When the suspicious head of theft is stopp’d: Love’s feeling is more soft and sensible Than are the tender horns of cockl’d snails; Love’s tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste:

… for love’s sake, a word that loves all men, Or for men’s sake, the authors of these women, Or women’s sake, by whom we men are men, Let us once lose our oaths to find ourselves, Or else we lose ourselves to keep our oaths.

It is religion to be thus forsworn,

For charity itself fulfils the law, And who can sever love from charity?

A most singular and choice epithet. Draws out his table-book.

He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument.

I abhor such fanatical phantasimes, such insociable and point-devise companions; such rackers of orthography, as to speak dout, fine, when he should say doubt; det, when he should pronounce debt—d, e, b, t, not d, e, t: he clepeth a calf, cauf; half, hauf;

Aside to Costard.

They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps.

O, they have lived long on the alms-basket of words. I marvel thy master hath not eaten thee for a word; for thou art not so long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus: thou art easier swallowed than a flap-dragon.

Aside to Costard. They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps.

O, they have lived long on the alms-basket of words.

I marvel thy master hath not eaten thee for a word; for thou art not so long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus: thou art easier swallowed than a flap-dragon.

Great reason; for “past cure is still past care.”

Well bandied both; a set of wit well play’d.

But Rosaline, you have a favour too: Who sent it? and what is it?

Ay, or I would these hands might never part.

We are wise girls to mock our lovers so.

They are worse fools to purchase mocking so. That same Biron I’ll torture ere I go: O that I knew he were but in by the week!

We are wise girls to mock our lovers so.

They are worse fools to purchase mocking so.

That same Biron I’ll torture ere I go: O that I knew he were but in by the week!

The effect of my intent is to cross theirs: They do it but in mocking merriment;

And mock for mock is only my intent.

Their several counsels they unbosom shall To loves mistook, and so be mock’d withal Upon the next occasion that we meet, With visages display’d, to talk and greet.

All hail, the richest beauties on the earth!—

Beauties no richer than rich taffeta.

A holy parcel of the fairest dames, The Ladies turn their backs to him. That ever turn’d their—backs—to mortal views!

Play, music, then! Nay, you must do it soon. Music plays.

Not yet! no dance! Thus change I like the moon.

Will you not dance? How come you thus estranged?

Will you not dance? How come you thus estranged?

You took the moon at full, but now she’s changed.

Yet still she is the moon, and I the man. The music plays; vouchsafe some motion to it.

White-handed mistress, one sweet word with thee.

Honey, and milk, and sugar; there is three.

Nay then, two treys, and if you grow so nice, Metheglin, wort, and malmsey: well run, dice! There’s half-a-dozen sweets.

You have a double tongue within your mask, And would afford my speechless vizard half.

Veal, quoth the Dutchman. Is not “veal” a calf?

No, a fair lord calf.

Farewell, mad wenches; you have simple wits.

Twenty adieus, my frozen Muscovits.

Exeunt King, Lords, and Blackamoors. Are these the breed of wits so wonder’d at?

Go, sickness as thou art!

Well, better wits have worn plain statute-caps.

But will you hear? the king is my love sworn.

This field shall hold me; and so hold your vow:

Nor God, nor I, delights in perjured men.

Rebuke me not for that which you provoke: The virtue of your eye must break my oath.

O, never will I trust to speeches penn’d, Nor to the motion of a schoolboy’s tongue, Nor never come in vizard to my friend, Nor woo in rhyme, like a blind harper’s song!

Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise,

Three-piled hyperboles, spruce affectation, Figures pedantical; these summer-flies Have blown me full of maggot ostentation: I do forswear them;

Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise, Three-piled hyperboles, spruce affectation, Figures pedantical; these summer-flies Have blown me full of maggot ostentation: I do forswear them; and I here protest, By this white glove—how white the hand, God knows!— Henceforth my wooing mind shall be express’d

In russet yeas and honest kersey noes:

And, to begin, wench—so God help me, la!— My love to thee is sound, sans crack or flaw.

Nay, my good lord, let me o’errule you now:

That sport best pleases that doth least know how:

Where zeal strives to content, and the contents Dies in the zeal of that which it presents: Their form confounded makes most form in mirth, When great things labouring perish in their birth.

Alas, poor Maccabaeus, how hath he been baited!

Hide thy head, Achilles: here comes Hector in arms.

Though my mocks come home by me, I will now be merry.

What reason have you for’t?

The naked truth of it is, I have no shirt; I go woolward for penance.

True, and it was enjoined him in Rome for want of linen: since when, I’ll be sworn, he wore none but a dishclout of Jaquenetta’s, and that a’ wears next his heart for a favour.

and entreat, Out of a new-sad soul, that you vouchsafe In your rich wisdom to excuse or hide The liberal opposition of our spirits, If over-boldly we have borne ourselves In the converse of breath: your gentleness Was guilty of it. Farewell, worthy lord!

A heavy heart bears not a nimble tongue:

Excuse me so, coming too short of thanks For my great suit so easily obtain’d.

I understand you not: my griefs are double.

Honest plain words best pierce the ear of grief;

And by these badges understand the king. For your fair sakes have we neglected time, Play’d foul play with our oaths: your beauty, ladies, Hath much deform’d us, fashioning our humours Even to the opposed end of our intents: