William Shakespeare 1564-1616 A Midsummer Nights Dream John Bartlett 1919 Familiar Quotations


1
But earthlier happy is the rose distill’d Than that which withering on the virgin thorn 1 Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act i. Sc. 1.
2
For aught that I could ever read, 2 Could ever hear by tale or history, The course of true love never did run smooth.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act i. Sc. 1.
3
O, hell! to choose love by another’s eyes.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act i. Sc. 1.
4
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream; Brief as the lightning in the collied night, That in a spleen unfolds both heaven and earth, And ere a man hath power to say, “Behold!” The jaws of darkness do devour it up: So quick bright things come to confusion.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act i. Sc. 1.
5
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act i. Sc. 1.
6
Masters, spread yourselves.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act i. Sc. 2.
7
This is Ercles’ vein.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act i. Sc. 2.
8
I ’ll speak in a monstrous little voice.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act i. Sc. 2.
9
I am slow of study.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act i. Sc. 2.
10
That would hang us, every mother’s son.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act i. Sc. 2.



11
I will roar you as gently as any sucking dove; I will roar you, an ’t were any nightingale.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act i. Sc. 2.
12
A proper man, as one shall see in a summer’s day.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act i. Sc. 2.
13
The human mortals.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act ii. Sc. 1. 3
14
The rude sea grew civil at her song, And certain stars shot madly from their spheres To hear the sea-maid’s music.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act ii. Sc. 1.
15
And the imperial votaress passed on, In maiden meditation, fancy-free. Yet mark’d I where the bolt of Cupid fell: It fell upon a little western flower, Before milk-white, now purple with love’s wound, And maidens call it love-in-idleness.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act ii. Sc. 1. 4
16
I ’ll put a girdle round about the earth In forty minutes. 5
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act ii. Sc. 1.
17
My heart Is true as steel. 6
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act ii. Sc. 1. 7
18
I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act ii. Sc. 1.
19
A lion among ladies is a most dreadful thing.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act iii. Sc. 1.
20
Bless thee, Bottom! bless thee! thou art translated.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act iii. Sc. 1.
21
Lord, what fools these mortals be!
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act iii. Sc. 2.
22
So we grew together, Like to a double cherry, seeming parted, But yet an union in partition.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act iii. Sc. 2.
23
Two lovely berries moulded on one stem.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act iii. Sc. 2.
24
I have an exposition of sleep come upon me.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act iv. Sc. 1.
25
I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act iv. Sc. 1.
26
The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, 8 man’s hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act iv. Sc. 1.
27
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet Are of imagination all compact: One sees more devils than vast hell can hold, That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic, Sees Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt: The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven; And as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name. Such tricks hath strong imagination, That if it would but apprehend some joy, It comprehends some bringer of that joy; Or in the night, imagining some fear, How easy is a bush supposed a bear!
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act v. Sc. 1.
28
For never anything can be amiss, When simpleness and duty tender it.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act v. Sc. 1.
29
The true beginning of our end. 9
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act v. Sc. 1.
30
The best in this kind are but shadows.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act v. Sc. 1.
31
A very gentle beast, and of a good conscience.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act v. Sc. 1.
32
This passion, and the death of a dear friend, would go near to make a man look sad.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act v. Sc. 1.
33
The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act v. Sc. 1.

Note 1.
Maidens withering on the stalk.—William Wordsworth: Personal Talk, stanza 1. [back]

Note 2.
”Ever I could read,”—Dyce, Knight, Singer, and White. [back]

Note 3.
Act ii. sc. 2 in Singer and Knight. [back]

Note 4.
Act ii. sc. 2 in Singer and Knight. [back]

Note 5.
See Chapman, Quotation 12. [back]

Note 6.
Trew as steele.—Geoffrey Chaucer: Troilus and Cresseide, book v. line 831. [back]

Note 7.
Act ii. sc. 2 in Singer and Knight. [back]

Note 8.
Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard.—1 Corinthians, ii. 9. [back]

Note 9.
I see the beginning of my end.—Philip Massinger: The Virgin Martyr. act iii. sc. 3. [back]

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