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John Bartlett (1820–1905). Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. 1919.

Page 60

 
 
William Shakespeare. (1564–1616) (continued)
 
625
    I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano,—
A stage, where every man must play a part;
And mine a sad one.
          The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 1.
626
    Why should a man whose blood is warm within,
Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster?
          The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 1.
627
    There are a sort of men whose visages
Do cream and mantle like a standing pond.
          The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 1.
628
    I am Sir Oracle,
And when I ope my lips, let no dog bark!
          The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 1.
629
    I do know of these
That therefore only are reputed wise
For saying nothing.
          The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 1.
630
    Fish not, with this melancholy bait,
For this fool gudgeon, this opinion.
          The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 1.
631
    Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in all Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day ere you find them, and when you have them, they are not worth the search.
          The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 1.
632
    In my school-days, when I had lost one shaft,
I shot his fellow of the selfsame flight
The selfsame way, with more advised watch,
To find the other forth; and by adventuring both,
I oft found both.
          The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 1.
633
    They are as sick that surfeit with too much, as they that starve with nothing.
          The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 2.
634
    Superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer.
          The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 2.
635
    If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottages princes’ palaces. 1
          The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 2.
 
Note 1.
For the good that I would I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do.—Romans vii. 19. [back]