William Shakespeare on Saint Patrick's Day
1564–1616 England
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37 quotes
As dear to me as are the ruddy drops
That visit my sad heart.
Julius Cæsar (1599)
For by these
Shall I try friends: you shall perceive how you
Mistake my fortunes; I am wealthy in my friends.
I shall show the cinders of my spirits
Through the ashes of my chance.
I am not of that feather to shake off
My friend when he must need me.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade.
Call you that backing of your friends? A plague upon such backing! give me them that will face me.
When did friendship take
A breed for barren metal of his friend?
Out upon this half-fac'd fellowship!
But as the unthought-on accident is guilty
To what we wildly do, so we profess
Ourselves to be the slaves of chance, and flies
Of every wind that blows.
Friendship is constant in all other things,
Save in the office and affairs of love:
Therefore, all hearts in love use their own tongues;
Let every eye negotiate for itself,
And trust no agent.
When mine hours were nice and lucky.
Where you are liberal of your loves and counsels
Be sure you be not loose; for those you make friends
And give your hearts to, when they once perceive
The least rub in your fortunes, fall away
Like water from ye, never found again
But where they mean to sink ye.
Henry VIII (1613)
Will Fortune never come with both hands full,
But write her fair words still in foulest letters?
She either gives a stomach, and no food;
Such are the poor, in health: or else a feast,
And takes away the stomach; such are the rich,
That have abundance, and enjoy it not.
Such a house broke!
So noble a master fallen! All gone! and not
One friend to take his fortune by the arm,
And go along with him.
We still have slept together,
Rose at an instant, learn'd, play'd, eat together;
And wheresoe'er we went, like Juno's swans,
Still we went coupled and inseparable.
Know thus far forth:
By accident most strange, bountiful Fortune —
Now my dear lady — hath mine enemies
Brought to this shore; and by my prescience
I find my zenith doth depend upon
A most auspicious star, whose influence
If now I court not, but omit, my fortunes
Will ever after droop.
Words are easy, like the wind;
Faithful friends are hard to find.
Attributed