William Shakespeare Quotes on Night (59 Quotes)


    Let me have men about me that are fat,
    Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights:
    Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
    He thinks too much; such men are dangerous.

    O, I have pass'd a miserable night,
    So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights,
    That, as I am a Christian faithful man,
    I would not spend another such a night
    Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days-
    So full of dismal terror was the time!

    How silver sweet sound lovers' tongues by night, like softest music to attending ears.

    So help me God, as I have watch'd the night-
    Ay, night by night- in studying good for England!



    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.

    I am known to be a humorous patrician, and one that loves
    a cup of hot wine with not a drop of allaying Tiber in't; said to
    be something imperfect in favouring the first complaint, hasty
    and tinder-like upon too trivial motion; one that converses more
    with the buttock of the night than with the forehead of the
    morning.



    To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.

    Our love was new, and then but in the spring
    When I was wont to greet it with my lays,
    As Philomel in summer's front doth sing,
    And stops her pipe in growth of riper days-
    Not that the summer is less pleasant now
    Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night,
    But that wild music burthens every bough,
    And sweets grown common lose their dear delight.

    Forbear to sleep the nights, and fast the days Compare dead happiness with living woe Think that thy babes were fairer than they were, And he that slew them fouler than he is Bettering thy loss makes the bad causer worse Revolving this will teach


    This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath, May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet. Good night, good night as sweet repose and rest Come to thy heart as that within my breast.

    Tis now the very witching time of night, When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out Contagion to this world

    Some say that ever 'gainst the season comes Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, The bird of dawning singeth all night long And then, they say, no spirit can walk abroad The nights are wholesome then no planets strike, No fairy takes, nor wi

    I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows Quite canopied over with luscious woodbine With sweet muskroses and with eglantine. There sleeps Titania sometime of the night Lulled in these flowers with dances and delights.

    Is it thy will thy image should keep open
    My heavy eyelids to the weary night?

    Hast any philosophy in thee shepherd . ... He that wants money, means and content, is without three good friends that the property of rain is to wet and fire to burn that good pasture makes fat sheep, and a great cause of the night is lack of the sun that he that hath learned no wit by nature nor art may complain of good breeding or comes of a very dull kindred.

    Lovers can see to do their amorous rites
    By their own beauties; or, if love be blind,
    It best agrees with night.

    These earthly godfathers of Heaven's lights, That give a name to every fixed star, Have no more profit of their shining nights; Than those that walk and wot not what they are.



    Come, I know thou lovest me; and at night, when you come into
    your closet, you'll question this gentlewoman about me; and I
    know, Kate, you will to her dispraise those parts in me that you
    love with your heart.

    I thank my liege that in regard of me
    He shortens four years of my son's exile;
    But little vantage shall I reap thereby,
    For ere the six years that he hath to spend
    Can change their moons and bring their times about,
    My oil-dried lamp and time-bewasted light
    Shall be extinct with age and endless night;
    My inch of taper will be burnt and done,
    And blindfold death not let me see my son.


    When clouds are seen, wise men put on
    their cloaks;
    When great leaves fall, then winter is at hand;
    When the sun sets, who doth not look for night?

    Ay me for aught that I could ever read, Could ever hear by tale or history, The course of true love never did run smooth. But, either it was different in blood, Or else it stood upon the choice of friends, Or, if there were a sympathy in choice, War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it, Making it momentany as a sound, Swift as a shadow, short as any dream Brief as the lightning in the collied night, That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth, And ere a man hath power to say 'Behold' The jaws of darkness do devour it up So quick bright things come to confusion.




    When day's oppression is not eased by night,
    But day by night, and night by day oppressed?


    An't please your Majesty, a rascal that swagger'd with me
    last night; who, if 'a live and ever dare to challenge this
    glove, I have sworn to take him a box o' th' ear; or if I can see
    my glove in his cap- which he swore, as he was a soldier, he
    would wear if alive- I will strike it out soundly.


    Or in the night, imagining some fear, How easy is a bush supposed a bear.

    Come, let's have one other gaudy night. Call to me. All my sad captains. Fill our bowls once more. Let's mock the midnight bell.

    Hang there, my verse, in witness of my love;
    And thou, thrice-crowned Queen of Night, survey
    With thy chaste eye, from thy pale sphere above,
    Thy huntress' name that my full life doth sway.

    For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,
    Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.



    To be in love- where scorn is bought with groans,
    Coy looks with heart-sore sighs, one fading moment's mirth
    With twenty watchful, weary, tedious nights;
    If haply won, perhaps a hapless gain;
    If lost, why then a grievous labour won;
    However, but a folly bought with wit,
    Or else a wit by folly vanquished.

    Faith, stay here this night; they will
    surely do us no harm; you saw they speak us fair, give us
    gold; methinks they are such a gentle nation that, but for
    the mountain of mad flesh that claims marriage of me,
    could find in my heart to stay here still and turn witch.

    Sorrow breaks seasons and reposing hours,
    Makes the night morning and the noontide night.

    Day, night, late, early,
    At home, abroad, alone, in company,
    Waking or sleeping, still my care hath been
    To have her match'd; and having now provided
    A gentleman of princely parentage,
    Of fair demesnes, youthful, and nobly train'd,
    Stuff'd, as they say, with honourable parts,
    Proportion'd as one's thought would wish a man-
    And then to have a wretched puling fool,
    A whining mammet, in her fortune's tender,
    To answer 'I'll not wed, I cannot love;
    I am too young, I pray you pardon me'!


    Except I be by Silvia in the night, There is no music in the nightingale; Unless I look on Silvia in the day, There is no day for me to look upon.

    Meantime, in signal of my love to thee,
    Against proud Somerset and William Pole,
    Will I upon thy party wear this rose;
    And here I prophesy: this brawl to-day,
    Grown to this faction in the Temple Garden,
    Shall send between the Red Rose and the White
    A thousand souls to death and deadly night.



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