What are your favorite lines, passages, phrases, works, etc?
What are your favorite lines, passages, phrases, works, etc?
Titus Andronicus. Powerful. Underappreciated (which I can hardly believe I'm saying for anything by Shakespeare).
Henry V; kind of an amalgam play. I also liked Hamlet.
Coriolanus, The Tempest, and Richard II are mine. I also like teaching Macbeth, because it's fun and usually well known from GCSE (I teach A-level).
My favorite quote actually comes from the play I maybe like the least, from King Lear 'Like flies to wanton boys are we to the Gods'.
'So - this is where we stand. Win all, lose all,
we have come to this: the crisis of our lives'
What! How do you like King Lear the least?
I'm just not it's biggest fan. It's not that I don't like it, I just prefer other plays over it.Originally Posted by Lykren
I first saw it very young, and found it fantastically depressing at the time - and the scene where Gloucester's eyes were gouged out honestly made me very angry. Since then I've not been able to completely shake that associated feeling off.
Last edited by Poetaster; 04-23-2014 at 05:38 PM.
'So - this is where we stand. Win all, lose all,
we have come to this: the crisis of our lives'
I like the usual suspects, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet. He said so many things-how to decide which I liked best? Well, barring that, I do like the following:
A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse.-Richard III
Screw your courage to the sticking-place.-Mcbeth
(http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-scr3.htm-explains some possible meanings of this)
Last, but not least:
She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
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, lines 17-28)
No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a
church-door; but 'tis enough,'twill serve: ask for
me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man. I
am peppered, I warrant, for this world. A plague o'
both your houses!-Mercutio, Romeo and Juliet
Last edited by qimissung; 04-23-2014 at 04:30 PM.
"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its' own reason for existing." ~ Albert Einstein
"Remember, no matter where you go, there you are." Buckaroo Bonzai "Some people say I done alright for a girl." Melanie Safka
I actually didn't care for Macbeth that much. Don't get me wrong, I thought it was good, but not up to the standard of Hamlet, not by a long shot. I've only read these two plays so far, but plan to read several a year until I have read them all, and at this point, I am pretty much going to personally rate his plays based on how much I enjoyed them AND how they compare to Hamlet. For me, Macbeth fell quite away's short of Hamlet.
Macbeth is of course brilliant and I like all the king plays, Richard II is great. I also love his comedies most of them. there are of course many great lines and passages in his plays but for some reason I have always loved the last lines in sonnet 18:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
It makes me think how authors can live forever.
I hope death is joyful, and I hope I'll never return -Frida Khalo
If I seem insensitive to what you are going through, understand it's the way I am- Mr. Spock
Personally, I think that the unique and supreme delight lies in the certainty of doing 'evil'–and men and women know from birth that all pleasure lies in evil. - Baudelaire
Those are beautiful lines, Helga.
Well, Vota, I always go with my visceral reaction. And I always have one to Macbeth. That's just the way it is, for some reason.
"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its' own reason for existing." ~ Albert Einstein
"Remember, no matter where you go, there you are." Buckaroo Bonzai "Some people say I done alright for a girl." Melanie Safka
There are so many great lines from the bard that resonate. Favorite play is Hamlet but hard to narrow that down. King Lear, R and J, 12th Night, MacBeth.
Favorite sonnet "that time thou mayest in me behold..."
Favorite misquoted line "I am but mad north by northwest; when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw" ( or something like that) from Hamlet.
Or "there are more thing on heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy"
Damn autocorrect butchered my post.
Happy unbirthday, Shakespeare.
Good ol' Shakey - how do I love thee? Let me count the ways...
Picking a favourite work is impossible, though I'm minded to view Hamlet, King Lear, and Richard III as probably his greatest works.
As for a favourite quotation, how about this little wonder of Hal's from Henry IV, Part I:
I know you all, and will awhile uphold
The unyoked humour of your idleness:
Yet herein will I imitate the sun,
Who doth permit the base contagious clouds
To smother up his beauty from the world,
That, when he please again to be himself,
Being wanted, he may be more wonder'd at,
By breaking through the foul and ugly mists
Of vapours that did seem to strangle him.
If all the year were playing holidays,
To sport would be as tedious as to work;
But when they seldom come, they wish'd for come,
And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.
So, when this loose behavior I throw off
And pay the debt I never promised,
By how much better than my word I am,
By so much shall I falsify men's hopes;
And like bright metal on a sullen ground,
My reformation, glittering o'er my fault,
Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes
Than that which hath no foil to set it off.
I'll so offend, to make offence a skill;
Redeeming time when men think least I will.
"I should only believe in a God that would know how to dance. And when I saw my devil, I found him serious, thorough, profound, solemn: he was the spirit of gravity- through him all things fall. Not by wrath, but by laughter, do we slay. Come, let us slay the spirit of gravity!" - Nietzsche
Difficult to choose a favourite work amongst such riches. "The Tempest" would be on my short list, with Prospero's speech on the evanescence of life being a favourite passage of mine:
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air,
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
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