For the eye sees not itself but by reflection, by some other things

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings

He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous

Seldom he smiled, and smiled in such a sort as if he mocked himself and scorned his spirit that could be moved to smile at anything. Such men as he be never at heart’s ease whiles they behold a greater than themselves, and therefore are they very dangerous

It was Greek to me

Therefore it is meet that noble minds keep ever with their likes

My answer must be made. But I am armed, and dangers are to me indifferent

Cowards may die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once

Et tu, Brute?

Why, he that cuts off twenty years of life cuts off so many years of fearing death

The evil that men do lives after them

The first tragedy to be played in the new Globe Theatre, Julius Caesar is set at a crucial turning point in Roman history, as the Republican gives way to the imperial. Safely removed in time and place from Shakespeare’s Elizabethan England, Rome makes the perfect laboratory for the playwright’s free-ranging political analysis.

philosophy

Philosophy

history

History

writing

Reading & Writing

books

Books

artsandculture

Society, Arts & Culture

William Shakespeare was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon".

William Shakespeare

Julius Caesar

There is a prodigious strength in sorrow and despair

I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die

It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done, it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known

loveandrelationships

Love & Relationships

A Tale of Two Cities

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way

A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other

No more can I turn the leaves of this dear book that I loved, and vainly hope in time to read it all. No more can I look into the depths of this unfathomable water, wherein, as momentary lights glanced into it, I have glimpses of buried treasure and other things submerged. It was appointed that the book should shut with a spring, for ever and for ever, when I had read but a page.

Death is Nature’s remedy for all things

A good opportunity for consideration, surrounded by the advantages of solitude, might influence your destiny to far greater advantage than you influence it for yourself

Repression is the only lasting philosophy

My friend, I will die, perpetuating the system under which I have lived

Better to be a rational creature and accept your natural destiny

You anticipate what I would say, though you cannot know how earnestly I say it, how earnestly I feel it, without knowing my secret heart, and the hopes and fears and anxieties with which it has long been laden

If ever there were love in the world, I love her

I shall never be better than I am. I shall sink lower, and be worse

I am like one who died young. All my life might have been

I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul

A dream, all a dream, that ends in nothing, and leaves the sleeper where he lay down, but I wish you to know that you inspired it

You kindled me, heap of ashes that I am, into fire

Nothing that we do, is done in vain

So wicked do destruction and secrecy appear to honest minds

Dust he was and to dust he must return

Desperate games are played for desperate stakes

I am not old, but my young way was never the way to age

A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Dickens' greatest historical novel, traces the private lives of a group of people caught up in the cataclysm of the French Revolution and the Terror. Dickens based his historical detail on Carlyle's great work - The French Revolution. 'The best story I have written' was Dickens' own verdict on A Tale of Two Cities, and the reader is unlikely to disagree with this judgement of a story which combines historical fact with the author's unsurpassed genius for poignant tales of human suffering, self-sacrifice, and redemption.

education

Learning & Education

Charles Dickens

My wit’s diseased

Let me be cruel, not unnatural. I will speak daggers to her, but use none. My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites: how in my words somever she be shent, to give them seals never, my soul, consent

Mad as the sea and wind when both contend which is the mightier

A knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear

Diseases desperate grown by desperate appliance are relived or not at all

How all occasions do inform against me and spur my dull revenge

When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions

Revenge should have no bounds

My words fly up, my thoughts remain below; words without thoughts never to heaven go

For there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so. To me, it is a prison

Doubt thou the stars are fire, doubt that the sun doth move, doubt truth to be a liar, but never doubt I love

If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart, absent thee from felicity awhile and in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain to tell my story

Now cracks a noble heart. Goodnight, sweet prince

Hamlet

I am too much in the sun

Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice. Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment

Neither a borrower nor a lender be, for loan oft loses both itself and friend, and borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry

This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man

That one may smile and smile and be a villain

Hic et ubique

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy

Brevity is the soul of wit

Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t

What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable; in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god: the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals—and yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me, no, nor women neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so

I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw

Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell, must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words and fall a-cursing like a very drab, a stallion!

How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience

To be or not to be—that is the question: whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and, by opposing, end them

To die, to sleep—to sleep, perchance to dream. At, there’s the rub, for in that sleep of death what dreams may come, when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause. There’s the respect that makes calamity of so long life. For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, th’ oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely, the pangs of despised love, the law’s delay, the insolence of office, and the spurns that patient merit of th’ unworthy takes, when he himself might his quietus make with a bare bodkin

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, and thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought, and enterprises of great pitch and moment with this regard their currents turn awry and lose the name of action

Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind

God hath given you one face, and you make yourself another

Madness in great ones must not unwatched go

The lady doth protest too much, methinks

Hamlet, probably composed between 1599 and 1601, takes place in Denmark and tells how Prince Hamlet carries out his revenge on his uncle Claudius who murdered Hamlet's father, the king, and holds the usurped crown as well as nuptials with Gertrude, the mother of Hamlet. The play is vividly traced around insanity (both real and feigned) and the course from deep pain to inordinate anger. It also explores the themes of betrayal, revenge, incest and moral corruption.

Julius Caesar

A Tale of Two Cities

A Tale of Two Cities

Hamlet

Hamlet

Cassandra