{"quotes":[{"text":"There's meaning in thy snores.","author":"William Shakespeare","tags":["humour","shakespeare","the-tempest","william-shakespeare"],"id":6781,"author_id":"William+Shakespeare"},{"text":"Othello is about many different kinds of love: it’s about the light, beautiful side of love, and it’s about the twisted, darker side of love, and it’s about how, if you flip the emotional coin, love can make you do terrible things. (James Earl Jones).","author":"Susannah Carson","tags":["james-earl-jones","shakespeare","william-shakespeare"],"id":12052,"author_id":"Susannah+Carson"},{"text":"The love that follows us sometime is our trouble, which still we thank as love.","author":"William Shakespeare","tags":["love","macbeth","play","tragedy","william-shakespeare"],"id":12336,"author_id":"William+Shakespeare"},{"text":"Alas, my lord, your wisdom is consumed in confidence.","author":"William Shakespeare","tags":["caesar","calpurnia","confidence","julius-caesar","shakespeare","william-shakespeare","wisdom"],"id":17328,"author_id":"William+Shakespeare"},{"text":"This goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world! The paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?","author":"William Shakespeare","tags":["hamlet","piece-of-work","quintessence-of-dust","shakespeare","soliloquy","william-shakespeare"],"id":28538,"author_id":"William+Shakespeare"},{"text":"When we set about accounting for a Napoleon or a Shakespeare or a Raphael or a Wagner or an Edison or other extraordinary person, we understand that the measure of his talent will not explain the whole result, nor even the largest part of it; no, it is the atmosphere in which the talent was cradled that explains; it is the training it received while it grew, the nurture it got from reading, study, example, the encouragement it gathered from self-recognition and recognition from the outside at each stage of its development: when we know all these details, then we know why the man was ready when his opportunity came.","author":"Mark Twain","tags":["encouragement","extraordinary","genius","learning","napoleon-bonaparte","nurture","raphael","richard-wagner","study","talent","thomas-edison","training","william-shakespeare"],"id":57948,"author_id":"Mark+Twain"},{"text":"We read the pagan sacred books with profit and delight. With myth and fable we are ever charmed, and find a pleasure in the endless repetition of the beautiful, poetic, and absurd. We find, in all these records of the past, philosophies and dreams, and efforts stained with tears, of great and tender souls who tried to pierce the mystery of life and death, to answer the eternal questions of the Whence and Whither, and vainly sought to make, with bits of shattered glass, a mirror that would, in very truth, reflect the face and form of Nature's perfect self.These myths were born of hopes, and fears, and tears, and smiles, and they were touched and colored by all there is of joy and grief between the rosy dawn of birth, and death's sad night. They clothed even the stars with passion, and gave to gods the faults and frailties of the sons of men. In them, the winds and waves were music, and all the lakes, and streams, and springs,—the mountains, woods and perfumed dells were haunted by a thousand fairy forms. They thrilled the veins of Spring with tremulous desire; made tawny Summer's billowed breast the throne and home of love; filled Autumns arms with sun-kissed grapes, and gathered sheaves; and pictured Winter as a weak old king who felt, like Lear upon his withered face, Cordelia's tears. These myths, though false, are beautiful, and have for many ages and in countless ways, enriched the heart and kindled thought. But if the world were taught that all these things are true and all inspired of God, and that eternal punishment will be the lot of him who dares deny or doubt, the sweetest myth of all the Fable World would lose its beauty, and become a scorned and hateful thing to every brave and thoughtful man.","author":"Robert G. Ingersoll","tags":["absurd","autumn","beautiful","birth","brave","death","delight","deny","doubt","dreams","effort","eternity","fable","fairy","fear","gods","grief","hateful","haunted","hope","joy","king-lear","lake","life","love","mountains","music","mystery","nature","pagan","passion","past","perfection","philosophies","pleasure","poetic","punishment","questions","religion-myths","sacred-books","scorn","shakespeare","smiles","spring","summer","tears","tender","thought","throne","true","truth","william-shakespeare","winter","woods"],"id":64681,"author_id":"Robert+G.+Ingersoll"},{"text":"Seven Ages: first puking and mewlingThen very pissed-off with your schoolingThen fucks, and then fightsNext judging chaps' rightsThen sitting in slippers: then drooling.","author":"Robert Conquest","tags":["ageing","limerick","middle-age","old-age","seven-ages-of-man","william-shakespeare","youth"],"id":71173,"author_id":"Robert+Conquest"},{"text":"How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!Here will we sit and let the sounds of musicCreep in our ears: soft stillness and the nightBecome the touches of sweet harmony.Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heavenIs thick inlaid with patines of bright gold:There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'stBut in his motion like an angel sings,Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins;Such harmony is in immortal souls;But whilst this muddy vesture of decayDoth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.'- Lorenzo, Acte V, Scene 1.","author":"William Shakespeare","tags":["moon","moonlight","the-merchant-of-venice","william-shakespeare"],"id":71610,"author_id":"William+Shakespeare"},{"text":"They are near the bottom of the food chain - a meal for fish and birds - while humans eat from the top of the food chain, consuming an astonishing array of what lies on the planet. But eventually, even we become food for the worms. Shakespeare saw this connection, writing in Hamlet, 'A man may fish with a worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of a fish that hath fed of that worm.","author":"Amy Stewart","tags":["amy-stewart","animal-science","biology","earth-science","earthworms","hamlet","william-shakespeare"],"id":96625,"author_id":"Amy+Stewart"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":40,"pages":4,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}