dots-menu
×

Home  »  Familiar Quotations  »  Page 143

John Bartlett (1820–1905). Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. 1919.

Page 143

 
 
William Shakespeare. (1564–1616) (continued)
 
1666
    One woe doth tread upon another’s heel,
So fast they follow. 1
          Hamlet. Act iv. Sc. 7.
1667
    Nature her custom holds,
Let shame say what it will.
          Hamlet. Act iv. Sc. 7.
1668
    1 Clo. Argal, he that is not guilty of his own death shortens not his own life.
2 Clo. But is this law?
1 Clo. Ay, marry, is ’t; crowner’s quest law.
          Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 1.
1669
    There is no ancient gentlemen but gardeners.
          Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 1.
1670
    Cudgel thy brains no more about it.
          Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 1.
1671
    Has this fellow no feeling of his business?
          Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 1.
1672
    Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness.
          Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 1.
1673
    The hand of little employment hath the daintier sense.
          Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 1.
1674
    A politician,… one that would circumvent God.
          Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 1.
1675
    Why may not that be the skull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddities now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks?
          Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 1.
1676
    One that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she ’s dead.
          Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 1.
1677
    How absolute the knave is! we must speak by the card, or equivocation will undo us.
          Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 1.
1678
    The age is grown so picked that the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, he galls his kibe.
          Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 1.
 
Note 1.
Thus woe succeeds a woe, as wave a wave.—Robert Herrick: Sorrows Succeed.

Woes cluster; rare are solitary woes;
They love a train, they tread each other’s heel.
Edward Young: Night Thoughts, night iii. line 63.

And woe succeeds to woe.—Alexander Pope: The Iliad, book xvi. line 139. [back]