Henry IV, Part Two

Presume not that I am the thing I was; For God doth know, so shall the world perceive, That I have turn'd away my former self; So will I those that kept me company.

O sleep, O gentle sleep, Nature's soft nurse, how have I frightened thee. That thou no more will weigh my eyelids down, And steep my senses in forgetfulness?

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

Rumour is a pipe Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures And of so easy and so plain a stop That the blunt monster with uncounted heads, The still-discordant wavering multitude, Can play upon it.

By my troth, I care not; a man can die but once; we owe God a death: I'll ne'er bear a base mind: an 't be my destiny, so; an't be not, so: no man's too good to serve's prince; and let it go which way it will, he that dies this year is quit for the next.

I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men.

Upon my tongues continual slanders ride, The which in every language I pronounce, Stuffing the ears of men with false reports.

We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow.

Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude; And in the calmest and most stillest night, With all appliances and means to boot, Deny it to a king? Then, happy low, lie down! Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

Virtue is chok'd with foul ambition

Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought

Know the grave doth gape for thee thrice wider than for other men.

Have you a ruffian that will swear, drink, dance, Revel the night, rob, murder, and commit The oldest sins the newest kind of ways?

Against ill chances men are ever merry, But heaviness foreruns the good event. ... Therefore be merry, coz; since sudden sorrow Serves to say thus: "Some good thing comes tomorrow.

Strike up our drums! Pursue the scatter'd stray. God, and not we, hath safely fought to day.

Good faith, this same young sober-blooded boy doth not love me; nor a man cannot make him laugh—but that's no marvel; he drinks no wine. There's never none of these demure boys come to any proof; for thin drink doth so over-cool their blood, and making many fish-meals, that they fall into a kind of male green-sickness; and then, when they marry, they get wenches. They are generally fools and cowards-which some of us should be too, but for inflammation. A good sherris-sack hath a two-fold operation in it. It ascends me into the brain; dries me there all the foolish and dull and crudy vapours which environ it; makes it apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble, fiery, and delectable shapes; which delivered o'er to the voice, the tongue, which is the birth, becomes excellent wit. The second property of your excellent sherris is the warming of the blood; which before, cold and settled, left the liver white and pale, which is the badge of pusillanimity and cowardice; but the sherris warms it, and makes it course from the inwards to the parts extremes. It illumineth the face, which, as a beacon, gives warning to all the rest of this little kingdom, man, to arm; and then the vital commoners and inland petty spirits muster me all to their captain, the heart, who, great and puff'd up with this retinue, doth any deed of courage—and this valour comes of sherris. So that skill in the weapon is nothing without sack, for that sets it a-work; and learning, a mere hoard of gold kept by a devil till sack commences it and sets it in act and use. Hereof comes it that Prince Harry is valiant; for the cold blood he did naturally inherit of his father, he hath, like lean, sterile, and bare land, manured, husbanded, and till'd, with excellent endeavour of drinking good and good store of fertile sherris, that he is become very hot and valiant. If I had a thousand sons, the first humane principle I would teach them should be to forswear thin potations and to addict themselves to sack.

The commonwealth is sick of their own choice; Their over-greedy love has surfeited. An habitation giddy and unsure Hath he that buildeth on the vulgar heart.

O God! that one might read the book of fate, And see the revolution of the times Make mountains level, and the continent, Weary of solid firmness, melt itself Into the sea! and, other times, to see The beachy girdle of the ocean Too wide for Neptune's hips; how chances mock, And changes fill the cup of alteration With divers liquors!

Away, you scullion! you rampallian! you fustilarian! I'll tickle your catastrophe.

O thoughts of men accursed! Past and to come seems best; things present, worst.

Where's Bardolph? Page He's gone into Smithfield to buy your worship a horse. FALSTAFF I bought him in Paul's, and he'll buy me a horse in Smithfield: an' I could get me but a wife in the stews, I were manned, horsed, and wived.

Reply not to me with a fool-born jest.

We are time's subjects, and time bids begone.

Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.

Sound drum and trumpets, and to London all; And more such days and these to us befall!

You are as a candle, the better burnt out.

O thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile In loathsome beds, and leavest the kingly couch A watch-case or a common 'larum-bell?