William Shakespeare Quotes on Nature (49 Quotes)



    Flesh and blood,
    You, brother mine, that entertain'd ambition,
    Expell'd remorse and nature, who, with Sebastian-
    Whose inward pinches therefore are most strong-
    Would here have kill'd your king, I do forgive thee,
    Unnatural though thou art.

    he was too good to be
    Where ill men were, and was the best of all
    Amongst the rar'st of good ones- sitting sadly
    Hearing us praise our loves of Italy
    For beauty that made barren the swell'd boast
    Of him that best could speak; for feature, laming
    The shrine of Venus or straight-pight Minerva,
    Postures beyond brief nature; for condition,
    A shop of all the qualities that man
    Loves woman for; besides that hook of wiving,
    Fairness which strikes the eye-
    CYMBELINE.

    Nay, if the gentle spirit of moving words
    Can no way change you to a milder form,
    I'll woo you like a soldier, at arms' end,
    And love you 'gainst the nature of love- force ye.



    But if you would consider the true cause
    Why all these fires, why all these gliding ghosts,
    Why birds and beasts from quality and kind,
    Why old men, fools, and children calculate,
    Why all these things change from their ordinance,
    Their natures, and preformed faculties
    To monstrous quality, why, you shall find
    That heaven hath infused them with these spirits
    To make them instruments of fear and warning
    Unto some monstrous state.

    The King hath sent to know
    The nature of your griefs; and whereupon
    You conjure from the breast of civil peace
    Such bold hostility, teaching his duteous land
    Audacious cruelty.


    I rais'd him, and I pawn'd
    Mine honour for his truth; who being so heighten'd,
    He watered his new plants with dews of flattery,
    Seducing so my friends; and to this end
    He bow'd his nature, never known before
    But to be rough, unswayable, and free.

    A maiden never bold,
    Of spirit so still and quiet that her motion
    Blush'd at herself; and she- in spite of nature,
    Of years, of country, credit, everything-
    To fall in love with what she fear'd to look on!

    from forth a copse that neighbours by,
    A breeding jennet, lusty, young, and proud,
    Adonis' trampling courser doth espy,
    And forth she rushes, snorts and neighs aloud;
    The strong-neck'd steed, being tied unto a tree,
    Breaketh his rein, and to her straight goes he.

    A peace is of the nature of a conquest; for then both parties nobly are subdued, and neither party loser.


    This is the very ecstasy of love,
    Whose violent property fordoes itself
    And leads the will to desperate undertakings
    As oft as any passion under heaven
    That does afflict our natures.


    But music for the time doth change his nature. The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils The motions of his spirit are dull as night And his affections dark as Erebus Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music.

    A sweeter and a lovelier gentleman-
    Fram'd in the prodigality of nature,
    Young, valiant, wise, and no doubt right royal-
    The spacious world cannot again afford;
    And will she yet abase her eyes on me,
    That cropp'd the golden prime of this sweet prince
    And made her widow to a woeful bed?


    But thou art fair, and at thy birth, dear boy,
    Nature and Fortune join'd to make thee great:
    Of Nature's gifts thou mayst with lilies boast,
    And with the half-blown rose; but Fortune, O!

    Beseeching him to give her virtuous breeding-
    She is young, and of a noble modest nature;
    I hope she will deserve well-and a little
    To love her for her mother's sake, that lov'd him,
    Heaven knows how dearly.

    The weariest and most loathed worldly life, that age, ache, penury and imprisonment can lay on nature is a paradise, to what we fear of death.

    Let us sit and mock the good housewife Fortune from her wheel, that her gifts may henceforth be bestowed equally, I would we could do so for her benefits are mightily misplaced and the bountiful blind girl doth most mistake in her gifts to women. 'Tis true for those that she makes fair she scarce makes honest and those that she makes honest she makes very ill-favouredly. Nay, now thou goest from Fortunes office to Natures. Fortune reigns in gifts of the world, not in the lineaments of Nature.

    God hath blessed you with a good name to be a well-favoured man is the gift of fortune, but to write or read comes by nature.

    Appear it to your mind
    That, through the sight I bear in things to come,
    I have abandon'd Troy, left my possession,
    Incurr'd a traitor's name, expos'd myself
    From certain and possess'd conveniences
    To doubtful fortunes, sequest'ring from me all
    That time, acquaintance, custom, and condition,
    Made tame and most familiar to my nature;
    And here, to do you service, am become
    As new into the world, strange, unacquainted-
    I do beseech you, as in way of taste,
    To give me now a little benefit
    Out of those many regist'red in promise,
    Which you say live to come in my behalf.

    If Nature, sovereign mistress over wrack,
    As thou goest onwards, still will pluck thee back,
    She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill
    May Time disgrace, and wretched minutes kill.



    Sir,
    For holy offices I have a time; a time
    To think upon the part of business which
    I bear i' th' state; and nature does require
    Her times of preservation, which perforce
    I, her frail son, amongst my brethren mortal,
    Must give my tendance to.

    Suit the action to the world, the world to the action, with this special observance, that you overstep not the modesty of nature.

    Treason, felony,
    Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine,
    Would I not have; but nature should bring forth,
    Of it own kind, all foison, all abundance,
    To feed my innocent people.






    'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,
    To give these mourning duties to your father;
    But you must know, your father lost a father;
    That father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound
    In filial obligation for some term
    To do obsequious sorrow.

    And lo where George of Clarence sweeps along,
    Of force enough to bid his brother battle;
    With whom an upright zeal to right prevails
    More than the nature of a brother's love.

    And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.

    For so work the honey-bees, Creatures that by a rule in nature teach; The act of order to a peopled kingdom.


    Orpheus with his lute made trees, And the mountain tops that freeze, Bow themselves, when he did sing To his music, plants and flowers Ever sprung as sun and showers There had made a lasting spring. Every thing that heard him play, Even the billows of the sea, Hung their heads, and then lay by. In sweet music is such art, Killing care and grief of heart Fall asleep, or hearing, die.

    This is an art Which does mend nature - change it rather but The art itself is nature.



    But I-that am not shap'd for sportive tricks,
    Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass-
    I-that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty
    To strut before a wanton ambling nymph-
    I-that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,
    Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
    Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time
    Into this breathing world scarce half made up,
    And that so lamely and unfashionable
    That dogs bark at me as I halt by them-
    Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
    Have no delight to pass away the time,
    Unless to spy my shadow in the sun
    And descant on mine own deformity.

    Nature that made thee, with herself at strife, Saith that the world hath ending with thy life.


    Refrain tonight, and that shall lend a hand of easiness to the next abstinence the next more easy for use can almost change the stamp of nature, and either curb the devil, or throw him out with wondrous potency.

    When daisies pied, and violets blue,
    And lady-smocks all silver-white,
    And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue
    Do paint the meadows with delight,
    The cuckoo then, on every tree,
    Mocks married men, for thus sings he:
    'Cuckoo!


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