“Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once. Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, it seems to me most strange that men should fear; seeing that death, a necessary end, will come when it will come.” – William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar 2.1
“Between the acting of a dreadful thing and the first motion, all the interim is like a phantasma or a hideous dream: the genius and the mortal instruments are then in council; and the state of man, like to a little kingdom, suffers then the nature of an insurrection.” – William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar 2.1
“’Tis a common proof that lowliness is young ambition’s ladder, whereto the climber-upward turns his face; but when he once attains the utmost round, he then unto the ladder turns his back, looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees by which he did ascend.” – William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar 2.1
“The abuse of greatness is, when it disjoins remorse from power.” – William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar 2.1
“Every bondman in his own hand bears the power to cancel his captivity.” – William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar 1.3
“Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass, nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron, can be retentive to the strength of spirit; but life, being weary of these worldly bars, never lacks power to dismiss itself.” – William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar 1.3
“Men may construe things after their fashion, clean from the purpose of the things themselves.” – William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar 1.3
“Fellows of infinite tongue, that can rhyme themselves into ladies’ favours, they do always reason themselves out again. What! a speaker is but a prater, a rhyme is but a ballad. A good leg will fall; a straight back will stoop; a black beard will turn white; a curled pate will grow bald; a fair face will wither; a full eye will wax hollow.” – William Shakespeare, King Henry V 5.2
“Old I do wax; and from my weary limbs honour is cudgell’d.” – William Shakespeare, King Henry V 5.1
“The man that did once sell the lion’s skin while the beast liv’d was kill’d with hunting him.” – William Shakespeare, King Henry V 4.3
“All things are ready if our minds be so.” – William Shakespeare, King Henry V 4.3
“There is no king, be his cause never so spotless, if it come to the arbitrement of swords, can try it out with all unspotted soldiers: some peradventure have on them the guilt of premeditated and contrived murder; some of beguiling virgins with the broken seals of perjury; some making the wars their bulwark that have before gored the gentle bosom of peace with pillage and robbery. 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.” – William Shakespeare, King Henry V 4.1
“There are few die well that die in a battle.” – William Shakespeare, King Henry V 4.1
“If the enemy is an ass, and a fool, and a prating coxcomb, is it meet, think you, that we should also, look you, be an ass, and a fool, and a prating coxcomb?” – William Shakespeare, King Henry V 4.1
“’Tis good for men to love their present pains upon example; so the spirit is eas’d.” – William Shakespeare, King Henry V 4.1
“There is some soul of good in things evil, would men observingly distil it out.” – William Shakespeare, King Henry V 4.1
“That’s a valiant flea that dare eat his breakfast on the lip of a lion.” – William Shakespeare, King Henry V 3.6
“The particular phraseology of the constitution of the United States confirms and strengthens the principle, supposed to be essential to all written constitutions, that a law repugnant to the constitution is void.” – Chief Justice Marshall, United States Supreme Court, Marbury v. Madison (1803)
“It cannot be presumed that any clause in the constitution is intended to be without effect; and, therefore, such a construction is inadmissible, unless the words require it.” – Chief Justice Marshall, United States Supreme Court, Marbury v. Madison (1803)
“When the legislature proceeds to impose on that officer [i.e., the President] other duties; when he is directed peremptorily to perform certain acts; when the rights of individuals are dependent on the performance of those acts; he is so far the officer of the law; is amenable to the laws for his conduct; and cannot at his discretion sport away the vested rights of others.” – Chief Justice Marshall, United States Supreme Court, Marbury v. Madison (1803)
“The very essence of civil liberty certainly consists in the right of every individual to claim the protection of the laws, whenever he receives an injury. One of the first duties of government is to afford that protection. [The] government of the United States has been emphatically termed a government of laws, and not of men. It will certainly cease to deserve this high appellation, if the laws furnish no remedy for the violation of a vested legal right.” – Chief Justice Marshall, United States Supreme Court, Marbury v. Madison (1803)
“The character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done. The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic. It does not even protect a man from an injunction against uttering words that may have all the effect of force. The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent. It is a question of proximity and degree. When a nation is at war, many things that might be said in time of peace are such a hindrance to its effort that their utterance will not be endured so long as men fight, and that no Court could regard them as protected by any constitutional right.” – Justice Holmes, United States Supreme Court, Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47 (1919)(internal citations omitted)
“When lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom the gentler gamester is the soonest winner.” – William Shakespeare, King Henry V 3.5
“The Danes made themselves too acceptable to English women by their elegant manners and their care of their person. They combed their hair every day, bathed every Saturday, and even changed their garments often. They set off their persons by many such frivolous devices. In this manner, they laid siege to the virtue of the married women, and persuaded the daughters, even of the nobles to be their concubines.” – John of Wallingford, Chronicle
“In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man as modest stillness and humility: but when the blast of war blows in our ears, then imitate the action of the tiger; stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood. Disguise fair nature with hard-favour’d rage; then lend the eye a terrible aspèct; let it pry through the portage of the head like the brass cannon; let the brow o’erwhelm as fearfully as doth a galled rock o’erhang and jutty his confounded base, swill’d with the wild and wasteful ocean. Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide; hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit to his full height!” – William Shakespeare, King Henry V 3.1
“With the greater part of rich people, the chief enjoyment of riches consists in the parade of riches, which in their eye is never so complete as when they appear to possess those decisive marks of opulence which nobody can possess but themselves. In their eyes the merit of an object which is in any degree either useful or beautiful, is greatly enhance by its scarcity, or by the great labour which it requires to collect any considerable quantity of it, a labour which nobody can afford to pay but themselves. Such objects they are willing to purchase at a higher price than things much more beautiful and useful, but more common.”– Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. One
“Human food seems to be the only produce of land which always and necessarily affords some rent to the landlord.” – Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. One
“A good rice field is a bog at all seasons, and at one season a bog covered with water.” – Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. One
“The vine is more affected by the difference of soils than any other fruit tree. From some it derives a flavour which no culture or management can equal, it is supposed, upon any other. This flavour, real or imaginary, is sometimes peculiar to the produce of a few vineyards; sometimes it extends through the greater part of a small district, and sometimes through a considerable part of a large province.” – Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. One
“Good roads, canals, and navigable rivers, by diminishing the expence of carriage, put the remote parts of the county more nearly upon a level with those in the neighbourhood of the town. They are upon that account the greatest of all improvements.” – Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. One