William Shakespeare Eye Quotations

Children wish fathers looked but with their eyes; fathers that children with their judgment looked; and either may be wrong.

Let every eye negotiate for itself and trust no agent.

But O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes.

Unthread the bold eye of rebellion,And welcome home again discarded faith.

Even through the hollow eyes of death I spy life peering.

Let not the world see fear and sad distrust govern the motion of a kingly eye.

To have seen much and to have nothing is to have rich eyes and poor hands.

My heart suspects more than mine eye can see.

The fool multitude, that choose by show, not learning more than the fond eye doth teach.

The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, From earth to heaven.

O no, thy love though much, is not so great, It is my love that keeps mine eye awake, Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat, To play the watchman ever for thy sake. For thee watch I, whilst thou dost wake elsewhere, From me far off, with others all too near.

O call not me to justify the wrong, That thy unkindness lays upon my heart, Wound me not with thine eye but with thy tongue, Use power with power, and slay me not by art,...

Love's mind of judgment rarely hath a taste: Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste.

Slanders, sir, for the satirical rogue says here that old men have grey beards, that their faces are wrinkled, their eyes purging think amber and plum-tree gum, and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams.

Vice repeated is like the wandering wind, blows dust in others' eyes to spread itself.

Lords, knights and gentlemen, what I should say My tears gainsay; for every word I speak, Ye see I drink the water of my eye.

How many a holy and obsequious tear hath dear religious love stolen from mine eye, as interest of the dead!

Suspicion shall be all stuck full of eyes.

See, what a ready tongue suspicion hath! He that but fears the thing he would not know, Hath, by instinct, knowledge from others' eyes, That what he feared is chanced.

The sun with one eye vieweth all the world.

To bed, to bed; sleep kill those pretty eyes, And give as soft attachment to thy senses, As infants empty of all thought.

Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast! Would I were sleep and peace, so sweet to rest.

Sleep, that sometimes shuts up sorrow's eye.

Tear-falling pity dwells not in this eye.

Why, headstrong liberty is lashed with woe. There's nothing situate under heaven's eye But hath his bound, in earth, in sea, in sky.

The present eye praises the present object.

The error of our eye directs our mind. What error leads must err.

O Prosperina, For the flowers now that, frighted, thou let'st fall From Dis's wagon; daffodils, That come before the swallow dares, and take The winds of March with beauty; violets dim, But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses, That die unmarried, ere they can behold Bright Phoebus in his strength--a malady Most incident to maids; bold oxlips and The crown imperial; lilies of all kinds, The flower-de-luce being one.

If little faults proceeding on distemper Shall not be winked at, how shall we stretch our eye When capital crimes, chewed, swallowed, and digested, Appear before us?

Foul deeds will rise, Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes.

Milk-livered man, That bear'st a cheek for blows, a head for wrongs; Who hast not in thy brows an eye discerning Thine honor from thy suffering; [that not know'st Fools do those villains pity who are punished Ere they have done their mischief. Where's thy drum? France spreads his banners in our noiseless land, With plumed helm thy state begins to threat, Whilst thou, a moral fool, sits still and cries 'Alack, why does he so?']

The fringed curtains of thine eye advance, And say what thou seest yond.

And it is very much lamented,... That you have no such mirrors as will turn Your hidden worthiness into your eye That you might see your shadow.

Our very eyes Are sometimes, like our judgments, blind.

Mine eyes are full of tears, my heart of grief.

Mine eyes smell onions: I shall weep anon.

When Fortune means to men most good, She looks upon them with a threatening eye.

A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind.

My will enkindled by mine eyes and ears, Two traded pilots 'twixt the dangerous shores Of will and judgment.

It is a basilisk unto mine eye, Kills me to look on't.

Promising is the very air o' the time; it opens the eyes of expectation.

Who has a book of all that monarchs do, He's more secure to keep it shut than shown; For vice repeated is like the wand'ring wind, Blows dust in others' eye, to spread itself; And yet the end of all is bought thus dear, The breath is gone, and the sore eyes see clear To stop the air would hurt them.

Supposition all our lives shall be stuck full of eyes; For treason is but trusted like the fox, Who, ne'er so tame, so cherished and locked up, Will have a wild trick of his ancestors.

What many men desire--that 'many' may be meant By the fool multitude that choose by show, Not learning more than the fond eye doth teach, Which pries not to th' interior, but like the martlet Builds in the weather on the outward wall, Even in the force and road of casualty.

Tell me where is fancy bred, Or in the heart, or in the head? How begot, how nourished? Reply, reply. It is engend'red in the eyes, With gazing fed, and fancy dies In the cradle where it lies.

Shakespeare scholars just sigh and consign the book to the great pantheon of revelations .. I am accustomed to fanatics who get a funny look in the eye when they come to speak to me how about the Earl of Oxford or Marlowe really wrote the plays. She spoke rationally, and it's an intelligently readable book, but it floats way above the facts, as I told her.

Promising is the very air o' th' time; it opens the eyes of expectation. Performance is ever duller for his act; and, but in the plainer and simpler kind of people, the deed of saying is quite out of use. To promise is most courtly and fashionable; performance is a kind of will or testament which argues a great sickness in his judgment that makes it.

Come, seeling night, Scarf 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. Light thickens, and the crow Makes wing to th' rooky wood. Good things of day begin to droop and drowse, While night's black agents to their prey do rouse.

Fie, fie upon her! There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip, Nay, her foot speaks; her wanton spirits look out At every joint and motive of her body.

Young men's love then lies not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.

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.

Full fathom five thy father lies; Of his bones are coral made; Those are pearls that were his eyes: Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange. Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell: Ding-dong Hark! now I hear them,—Ding-dong, bell.

I could a tale unfold whose lightest word Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood, Make thy two eyes like stars start from their spheres, Thy knotted and combined locks to part, And each particular hair to stand on end Like quills upon the fretful porpentine. But this eternal blazon must not be To ears of flesh and blood. List, list, O list!

A lean cheek, - a blue eye, and sunken, - an unquestionable spirit, - a beard neglected:- Then your hose should be ungartered, your bonnet unhanded, your sleeve unbuttoned, your shoe untied, and every thing about you demonstrating a careless desolation.

Get thee glass eyes, and like a scurvy politician, seem to see the things thou dost not.

And all my mother came into mine eyes And gave me up to tears.

She told her, while she kept it, 'Twould make her amiable and subdue my father Entirely to her love, but if she lost it Or made a gift of it, my father's eye Should hold her loathed and his spirits should hunt After new fancies.

Un-thread the rude eye of rebellion, and welcome home again discarded faith.

They whose guilt within their bosom lies, imagine every eye beholds their blame.

Beauty itself doth of itself persuade the eyes of men without an orator.

Tis the eye of childhood that fears a painted devil.

Flower of this purple dye, Hit with Cupid's archery, Sink in apple of his eye.

But love, first learned in a lady's eyes, Lives not alone immured in the brain; But, with the motion of all elements, Courses as swift as thought in every power, And gives to every power a double power, Above their functions and their offices.

Eternity was in our lips and eyes, Bliss in our brows' bent; none our parts so poor But was a race of heaven.

As love is full of unbefitting strains, All wanton as a child, skipping and vain, Form'd by the eye and therefore, like the eye, Full of strange shapes, of habits and of forms, Varying in subjects as the eye doth roll To every varied object in his glance

To me, fair friend, you never can be old, For as you were when first your eye I eyed, Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold Have from the forests shook three summers' pride, Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn'd In process of the seasons have I seen, Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd, Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.

Things in motion sooner catch the eye than what not stirs.

Alas, that love, whose view is muffled still, Should without eyes see pathways to his will!

What? do I love her, that I desire to hear her speak again, and feast upon her eyes

I love you more than word can wield the matter, Dearer than eye-sight, space and liberty

He capers, he dances, he has eyes of youth, he writes verses, he speaks holiday, he smells April and May.

As in a theatre, the eyes of men, after a well-graced actor leaves the stage, are idly bent on him that enters next.

Their savage eyes turned to a modest gaze by the sweet power of music.

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye Than twenty of their swords: look thou but sweet, And I am proof against their enmity.

Eternity was in our lips and eyes.

Fortune is painted blind, with a muffler afore her eyes, to signify to you that Fortune is blind.

Things base and vile, holding no quantity, Love can transpose to form and dignity. Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind. Nor hath Love's mind of any judgment taste; Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste.

Beauty is bought by judgement of the eye.

For we, which now behold these present days, Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.

Be stirring as the time; be fire with fire. Threaten the threat'ner, and outface the brow Of bragging horror. So shall inferior eyes, That borrow their behaviors from the great, Grow great by your example and put on The dauntless spirit of resolution.

Therefore, to be possessed with double pomp,To guard a title that was rich before,To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,To throw a perfume on the violet,To smooth the ice, or add another hueUnto the rainbow, or with taper lightTo seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.

Have you not a moist eye, a dry hand, a yellow cheek, a white beard, a decreasing leg, an increasing belly? Is not your voice broken, your wind short, your chin double, your wit single, and every part about you blasted with antiquity?

And, looking on it with lack-lustre eye, Says very wisely, "It is ten o'clock: Thus we may see," quoth he, "how the world wags."

I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thy eyes—and moreover, I will go with thee to thy uncle’s.

What, all so soon asleep! I wish mine eyes Would, with themselves, shut up my thoughts...

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; for beauty is a witch Against whose charms faith melteth into blood.

Look to her, Moor, if thou has eyes to see. She has deceived her father, and may thee.

Stars hide your fires; let not light see my black and deep desires: The eyes wink at the hand; yet let that be which the eye fears, when it is done, to see

Tam: What begg’st thou then? fond woman, let me go. Lav: ’Tis present death I beg; and one thing more That womanhood denies my tongue to tell. O! keep me from their worse than killing lust, And tumble me into some loathsome pit, Where never man’s eye may behold my body: Do this, and be a charitable murderer. Tam: So should I rob my sweet sons of their fee: No, let them satisfy their lust on thee. Dem: Away! for thou hast stay’d us here too long. Lav: No grace! no womanhood! Ah, beastly creature, The blot and enemy to our general name. Confusion fall—

What hands are here? ha! they pluck out mine eyes! Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red.” “My hands are of your colour; but I shame to wear a heart so white. A little water clears us of this deed: How easy it is then! Your constancy hath left you unattended.

Then must you speak Of one that loved not wisely but too well, Of one not easily jealous but, being wrought, Perplexed in the extreme; of one whose hand, Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away Richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdued eyes, Albeit unused to the melting mood, Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees Their medicinable gum. Set you down this, And say besides that in Aleppo once, Where a malignant and a turbaned Turk Beat a Venetian and traduced the state, I took by th' throat the circumcised dog And smote him thus.

The eye sees all, but the mind shows us what we want to see.

Seems," madam? Nay, it is; I know not "seems." 'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, Nor customary suits of solemn black, Nor windy suspiration of forced breath, No, nor the fruitful river in the eye, Nor the dejected 'havior of the visage, Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief, That can denote me truly: these indeed seem, For they are actions that a man might play: But I have that within which passeth show; These but the trappings and the suits of woe.

And then he drew a dial from his poke, And looking with lack-lustre eye, Says very wisely, 'It is ten o'clock: Thus we may see', Quoth he, 'how the world wags: 'Tis but an hour ago since it was nine, And after one hour more 'twill be eleven; And so from hour to hour we ripe and ripe, And then from hour to hour we rot and rot.

Love is a smoke rais'd with the fume of sighs; being purg'd, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes; being vex'd, a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears; what is it else? A madness most discreet, a choking gall, and a preserving sweet.

But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes, Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel, Making a famine where abundance lies, Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.

I have no way and therefore want no eyes I stumbled when I saw. Full oft 'tis seen our means secure us, and our mere defects prove our commodities.

one pain is cured by another. catch some new infection in your eye and the poison of the old one would die.

Wherefore was I to this keen mockery born? When at your hands did I deserve this scorn? Is't not enough, is't not enough, young man, That I did never, no, nor never can, Deserve a sweet look from Demetrius' eye, But you must flout my insufficiency?