William Shakespeare on Nature
1564–1616 England
← All quotes by William Shakespeare
35 quotes
How sometimes Nature will betray its folly,
Its tenderness, and make itself a pastime
To harder bosoms!
Diseased Nature oftentimes breaks forth
In strange eruptions.
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy.
Shine out, fair sun, till I have bought a glass,
That I may see my shadow as I pass.
This is the night
That either makes me or fordoes me quite.
Othello (1603)
In Nature's infinite book of secrecy
A little I can read.
It shall be what o'clock I say it is.
Why, so this gallant will command the sun.
How slow
This old moon wanes! she lingers my desires,
Like to a step-dame or a dowager
Long withering out a young man's revenue.
Yet nature is made better by no mean
But nature makes that mean: so, over that art
Which, you say, adds to nature, is an art
That nature makes.
Ill blows the wind that profits nobody.
Light thickens; and the crow
Makes wing to the rooky wood:
Good things of the day begin to droop and drowse;
Whiles night's black agents to their preys do rouse.
Macbeth (1605)
Come, seeling night,
Skarf up the tender eye of pitiful day;
And with thy bloody and invisible hand,
Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond
Which keeps me pale!
Macbeth (1605)
Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,
Pale in her anger, washes all the air,
That rheumatic diseases do abound:
And through this distemperature we see
The seasons alter.
And Nature does require
Her times of preservation, which perforce
I, her frail son, amongst my brethren mortal,
Must give my tendance to.
Henry VIII (1613)
Light seeking light doth light of light beguile:
So, ere you find where light in darkness lies,
Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes