William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare – 23 April 1616) was an English poet, playwright, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet, and the "Bard of Avon". His extant works, including collaborations, consist of approximately 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPlaywright
Date of Birth23 April 1564
O God! methinks it were a happy life,To be no better than a homely swain;To sit upon a hill, as I do now,To carve out dials quaintly, point by point,Thereby to see the minutes how they run,How many make the hour full complete;How many hours bring about the day;How many days will finish up the year;How many years a mortal man may live.
Care keeps his watch in every old man's eye,And where care lodges, sleep will never lie.
What though care killed a cat, thou hast mettle enough in thee to kill care.
I am sure care's an enemy to life.
O polished perturbation! golden care! That keep'st the ports of slumber open wide To many a watchful night.
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, are of imagination all compact.
The weary sun hath made a golden set And by the bright tract of his fiery car Gives token of a goodly day to-morrow.
So shaken as we are, so wan with care, Find we a time for frighted peace to pant And breathe short-winded accents of new broils To be commenced in stronds afar remote.
Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth, And thus do we of wisdom and of reach, With windlasses and with assays of bias, By indirections find directions out.
Neither my place, nor aught I heard of business, Hath raised me from my bed; nor doth the general care Take hold on me; for my particular grief Is of so floodgate and o'erbearing nature That it engluts and swallows other sorrows, And it is still itself.
Be lion-mettled, proud, and take no care Who chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are!
Sleep knits up the raveled sleeve of care.
Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth.
I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me, because I have railed so long against marriage: but doth not the appetite alter? a man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humour? No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.