William Shakespeare Quotes on Sense & Perception (36 Quotes)


    Thy pyramids built up with newer might
    To me are nothing novel, nothing strange;
    They are but dressings of a former sight.

    Hath not a Jew eyes hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions.

    But what might you think,
    When I had seen this hot love on the wing
    (As I perceiv'd it, I must tell you that,
    Before my daughter told me), what might you,
    Or my dear Majesty your queen here, think,
    If I had play'd the desk or table book,
    Or given my heart a winking, mute and dumb,
    Or look'd upon this love with idle sight?

    Did my heart love till now Forswear it, sight, For I never saw true beauty till this night.

    Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
    For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
    And weep afresh love's long since cancelled woe,
    And moan th' expense of many a vanished sight.



    The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was.

    Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken
    While shadows like to thee do mock my sight?

    Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,
    Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste;
    These vacant leaves thy mind's imprint will bear,
    And of this book, this learning mayst thou taste.

    From Scotland am I stol'n, even of pure love,
    To greet mine own land with my wishful sight.

    God's is the quarrel; for God's substitute,
    His deputy anointed in His sight,
    Hath caus'd his death; the which if wrongfully,
    Let heaven revenge; for I may never lift
    An angry arm against His minister.


    Nor are mine cars with thy tongue's tune delighted,
    Nor tender feeling to base touches prone,
    Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited
    To any sensual feast with thee alone;
    But my five wits, nor my five senses can
    Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,
    Who leaves unswayed the likeness of a man,
    Thy proud heart's slave and vassal wretch to be.

    There is no man hath a virtue that he hath not a
    glimpse of, nor any man an attaint but he carries some stain of
    it; he is melancholy without cause and merry against the hair; he
    hath the joints of every thing; but everything so out of joint
    that he is a gouty Briareus, many hands and no use, or purblind
    Argus, all eyes and no sight.

    Your daughter, whom she bore in hand to love
    With such integrity, she did confess
    Was as a scorpion to her sight; whose life,
    But that her flight prevented it, she had
    Ta'en off by poison.

    Think with thyself
    How more unfortunate than all living women
    Are we come hither; since that thy sight, which should
    Make our eyes flow with joy, hearts dance with comforts,
    Constrains them weep and shake with fear and sorrow,
    Making the mother, wife, and child, to see
    The son, the husband, and the father, tearing
    His country's bowels out.

    By mine honesty,
    If she be mad, as I believe no other,
    Her madness hath the oddest frame of sense,
    Such a dependency of thing on thing,
    As e'er I heard in madness.

    BRUTUS Be patient till the last. Romans, countrymen, and lovers hear me for my cause, and be silent, that you may hear believe me for mine honour, and have respect to mine honour, that you may believe censure me in your wisdom, and awake your senses,

    what eyes hath love put in my head,
    Which have no correspondence with true sight!

    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.


    It is as easy to count atomies as to resolve the
    propositions of a lover; but take a taste of my finding him, and
    relish it with good observance.

    Being daily swallowed by mens eyes, They surfeited with honey and began To loathe the taste of sweetness, whereof a little More than a little is by much too much. So, when he had occasion to be seen, He was but as the cuckoo is in June. Heard, not regarded.


    Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern]
    And, England, if my love thou hold'st at aught,-
    As my great power thereof may give thee sense,
    Since yet thy cicatrice looks raw and red
    After the Danish sword, and thy free awe
    Pays homage to us,- thou mayst not coldly set
    Our sovereign process, which imports at full,
    By letters congruing to that effect,
    The present death of Hamlet.

    Coming to look on you, thinking you dead-
    And dead almost, my liege, to think you were-
    I spake unto this crown as having sense,
    And thus upbraided it: 'The care on thee depending
    Hath fed upon the body of my father;
    Therefore thou best of gold art worst of gold.

    Dead life, blind sight, poor mortal living ghost,
    Woe's scene, world's shame, grave's due by life usurp'd,
    Brief abstract and record of tedious days,
    Rest thy unrest on England's lawful earth, [Sitting down]
    Unlawfully made drunk with innocent blood.

    She speaks much of her father; says she hears
    There's tricks i' th' world, and hems, and beats her heart;
    Spurns enviously at straws; speaks things in doubt,
    That carry but half sense.

    O, give thyself the thanks, if aught in me
    Worthy perusal stand against thy sight,
    For who's so dumb that cannot write to thee,
    When thou thyself dost give invention light?

    I am giddy, expectation whirls me round. The imaginary relish is so sweet; That it enchants my sense.

    Die for adultery No The wren goes to't, and the small gilded fly does lecher in my sight.


    Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections,
    passions, fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons,
    subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed
    and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is?

    Here I kneel:
    If e'er my will did trespass 'gainst his love
    Either in discourse of thought or actual deed,
    Or that mine eyes, mine ears, or any sense,
    Delighted them in any other form,
    Or that I do not yet, and ever did,
    And ever will, though he do shake me off
    To beggarly divorcement, love him dearly,
    Comfort forswear me!

    All dear Nature's children sweet
    Lie 'fore bride and bridegroom's feet,
    Blessing their sense!

    A man whose blood; Is very snow-broth one who never feels; The wanton stings and motions of the sense.


    More William Shakespeare Quotations (Based on Topics)


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    More William Shakespeare Quotations (By Book Titles)


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    - King Lear
    - Much Ado About Nothing
    - Othello
    - The Merchant of Venice
    - The Taming of the Shrew
    - Twelfth Night

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