Happy Birthday From Us Old Lit Freaks

[Madeline]

"With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come."

~ William Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice

Loved him? Hated him? Have a favorite quote?

It's April 23...wish Bill a happy birthday!

 

[George Costanza]

"A black day will it be - for someone." Richard III

This particular quote will always have a special meaning for me. It is uttered by Richard III himself, as he is ushering the children into the tower, where not nice things are gong to happen to them. He turns, looks at the audience and says, ominously, "A black day will it be - for someone." We all know who he means . . .

Anyway, I was taking a class in Shakespeare in college. A very important midterm exam was set for a Saturday morning. We all walked into the classroom where the test was to be given. Some wag had written this quote on the blackboard.

 

[Big Black Dog]

Was he the guy who coined the phrase, "Fuck 'em and feed 'em hot dogs?"

 

[George Costanza]

Was he the guy who coined the phrase, "Fuck 'em and feed 'em hot dogs?"

Yes, he was. How astute of you to catch that.

 

[random3434]

Love all, trust a few. Do wrong to none.


The fourth/fifth grade class in my building do a different Shakespeare play every year. All the students love it, and they really get into it while the kids are performing, even the little ones!

 

[random3434]

Was he the guy who coined the phrase, "Fuck 'em and feed 'em hot dogs?"

Do you really have to be an ass in every thread?

 

[Madeline]

I admit it. I am a low brow kinda gal. I never did wade all the way through any of his plays, but I have seen a few performed live and they do positively zing me in the heart. Sometimes in a few other places too, he he he.

Iago: "I am one, sir, that comes to tell you your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs."

~Othello

 

[George Costanza]

“And oftentimes excusing of a fault doth make the fault the worse by the excuse.”

(Something Richard Nixon and a number of other politicians should have read . . . )

 

[Barb]

Love all, trust a few. Do wrong to none.


The fourth/fifth grade class in my building do a different Shakespeare play every year. All the students love it, and they really get into it while the kids are performing, even the little ones!

That's my favorite too
and the rest of the quote:

Love all, trust a few,
Do wrong to none: be able for thine enemy
Rather in power than use, and keep thy friend
Under thy own life's key: be cheque'd for silence,
But never tax'd for speech.

But I like this as well, on darker days:

The villany you
teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I
will better the instruction.
Shylock, Act III, Scene I

 

[LuckyDan]

Of Cleopatra,

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety: other women cloy
The appetites they feed: but she makes hungry
Where most she satisfies; for vilest things
Become themselves in her: that the holy priests
Bless her when she is riggish

 

[JW Frogen]

A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.

'As You Like It.'

 

[American Horse]

"With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come."

~ William Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice

Loved him? Hated him? Have a favorite quote?

It's April 23...wish Bill a happy birthday!

Caesar said to me, Dar’st thou, Cassius, now leap in with me into this angry flood, and swim to yonder point?
JULIUS CAESAR


Who could refrain that had a heart to love and in that heart courage to make love known?
MACBETH, Act 2, Scene 3

 

[hjmick]

William Shakespeare was not born on April 23, he died on April 23, 1616. He was baptised on April 26, 1564, age unkown. No one knows on wht day he was born.

As for favorite quote, how can you pick just one?

 

[Madeline]

It's been almost 500 years. If we're wrong by a day or two, I don't think he'll mind.

"It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear" . - (Act I, Scene V).

~Romeo and Juliet

 

[George Costanza]

Shakespeare's way of describing a sunrise . . .

"But look, the morn, in russet mantle clad, peeps softly o'er the dew of yon eastern hill."

Hamlet

 

[George Costanza]

And, of course . . .

"Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer'd it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest--
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men--
Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me."

Mark Antony - "Julius Ceaser"

 

[Skull Pilot]

I hate Shakespeare.

 

[strollingbones]

THIRD WITCH:
Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witch's mummy, maw and gulf
Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark,
Root of hemlock digg'd i’ the dark,(25)
Liver of blaspheming Jew,
Gall of goat and slips of yew
Sliver'd in the moon's eclipse,
Nose of Turk and Tartar's lips,
Finger of birth-strangled babe(30)
Ditch-deliver'd by a drab,
Make the gruel thick and slab.
Add thereto a tiger's chaudron,
For the ingredients of our cauldron


how can you not love the liver of the blaspheming jew....

i love macbeth....

Lady Macbeth:
Out, damn'd spot! out, I say!—One; two: why, then
'tis time to do't.—Hell is murky.—Fie, my lord, fie, a soldier, and
afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our
pow'r to accompt?—Yet who would have thought the old man to
have had so much blood in him?


you can hear her madness....

PUCK:
If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber'd here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend.
If you pardon, we will mend.
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to scape the serpent's tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call.
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be...

midsummer's nights dream


all of the above quotes are from

eNotes - Literature Study Guides, Lesson Plans, and More.

 

[strollingbones]

Macbeth:
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.


Macbeth Act 5, scene 5, 19–28

my favorite

again enotes.com

 

[JW Frogen]

"A man cannot make him laugh; but that’s no marvel; he drinks no wine."

Falstaff, Henry IV