William Shakespeare Quotes on Law & Regulation (27 Quotes)



    Now follows, that you know, young Fortinbras,
    Holding a weak supposal of our worth,
    Or thinking by our late dear brother's death
    Our state to be disjoint and out of frame,
    Colleagued with this dream of his advantage,
    He hath not fail'd to pester us with message
    Importing the surrender of those lands
    Lost by his father, with all bands of law,
    To our most valiant brother.

    All scholars, lawyers, courtiers, gentlemen,
    They call false caterpillars and intend their death.


    Help, master, help here's a fish hangs in the net, like a poor man's right in the law 'twill hardly come out.



    Do as adversaries in law, strive mightily, But eat and drink as friends.

    Why, love forswore me in my mother's womb;
    And, for I should not deal in her soft laws,
    She did corrupt frail nature with some bribe
    To shrink mine arm up like a wither'd shrub
    To make an envious mountain on my back,
    Where sits deformity to mock my body;
    To shape my legs of an unequal size;
    To disproportion me in every part,
    Like to a chaos, or an unlick'd bear-whelp
    That carries no impression like the dam.



    Under what title shall I woo for thee
    That God, the law, my honour, and her love
    Can make seem pleasing to her tender years?

    Faith, I have been a truant in the law
    And never yet could frame my will to it;
    And therefore frame the law unto my will.

    Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all.Close up his eyes and draw the curtain closeAnd let us all to meditation.

    Piety and fear,
    Religion to the gods, peace, justice, truth,
    Domestic awe, night-rest, and neighbourhood,
    Instruction, manners, mysteries, and trades,
    Degrees, observances, customs and laws,
    Decline to your confounding contraries
    And let confusion live.


    My good Lord Archbishop, I am very sorry
    To sit here at this present, and behold
    That chair stand empty; but we all are men,
    In our own natures frail and capable
    Of our flesh; few are angels; out of which frailty
    And want of wisdom, you, that best should teach us,
    Have misdemean'd yourself, and not a little,
    Toward the King first, then his laws, in filling
    The whole realm by your teaching and your chaplains-
    For so we are inform'd-with new opinions,
    Divers and dangerous; which are heresies,
    And, not reform'd, may prove pernicious.

    In following him, I follow but myself;
    Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty,
    But seeming so, for my peculiar end.


    In the corrupted currents of this word offence's gilded hand may solve by justice, and oft, tis seen the wicked prize itself buys out the law but 'tis not so above There is no shuffling, there the action lies in his true nature And we ourselves.

    I am not worthy of the wealth I owe, Nor dare I say 'tis mine, and yet it is But, like a timorous thief, most fain would steal What law does vouch mine own.

    Famine is in thy cheeks,
    Need and oppression starveth in thine eyes,
    Contempt and beggary hangs upon thy back:
    The world is not thy friend, nor the world's law;
    The world affords no law to make thee rich;
    Then be not poor, but break it and take this.

    As for your spiteful false objections,
    Prove them, and I lie open to the law;
    But God in mercy so deal with my soul
    As I in duty love my king and country!


    Now, if these men have defeated the law
    and outrun native punishment, though they can outstrip men they
    have no wings to fly from God: war is His beadle, war is His
    vengeance; so that here men are punish'd for before-breach of the
    King's laws in now the King's quarrel.


    And for mine too; when law can do no right,
    Let it be lawful that law bar no wrong;
    Law cannot give my child his kingdom here,
    For he that holds his kingdom holds the law;
    Therefore, since law itself is perfect wrong,
    How can the law forbid my tongue to curse?

    All this I know, and to the marriage
    Her nurse is privy; and if aught in this
    Miscarried by my fault, let my old life
    Be sacrific'd, some hour before his time,
    Unto the rigour of severest law.


    More William Shakespeare Quotations (Based on Topics)


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    More William Shakespeare Quotations (By Book Titles)


    - A Midsummer Night's Dream
    - As You Like It
    - Julius Caesar
    - King Lear
    - Much Ado About Nothing
    - Othello
    - The Merchant of Venice
    - The Taming of the Shrew
    - Twelfth Night

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