Youth to itself rebels, though none else near.
Virtue itself ‘scapes not calumnious strokes.
To be, or not to be, that is the question.
‘Tis too much proved—that with devotion’s visage And pious action we do sugar o’er The devil himself.
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all.
Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth.
We know what we are, but know not what we may be.
Remember thee! Yea, from the table of my memory I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records.
If you have hitherto conceal’d this sight, Let it be tenable in your silence still; And whatsoever else shall hap to-night, Give it an understanding, but no tongue.
When sorrows come, they come not single spies but in battalions.
What then? what rests? Try what repentance can: what can it not? Yet what can it when one can not repent? O wretched state! O bosom black as death! O limed soul, that, struggling to be free, Art more engaged!
Use every man after his desert, and who should ‘scape whipping?
