Hath wisdom's warrant and the help of school,
And wit's own grace to grace a learned fool.

Folly in fools bears not so strong a note
As foolery in the wise, when wit doth dote;
Since all the power thereof it doth apply
To prove, by wit, worth in simplicity.

Love's Labour's Lost. Act V, Sc. 2.

HERE are a sort of men whose visages
Dream and mantle like a standing

ΤΗ

Do

pond,

And do a wilful stillness entertain,
With purpose to be dress'd in an opinion
Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit,
As who should say, "I am Sir Oracle,
And when I ope my lips let no dog bark!"
I do know of those

That therefore only are reputed wise
For saying nothing, when, I am very sure,
If they should speak, would almost damn
those ears

Which, hearing them, would call their broth-
ers fools.

The Merchant of Venice. Act I, Sc. 1.

The

Unreal Wise

Wordplay

Naughtiness

Woman's Wit

Silence

HO

OW every fool can play upon the word! I think the best grace of wit will shortly turn into silence, and discourse grow commendable in none only but parrots.

The Merchant of Venice. Act III, Sc. 5.

SENTENCE is but a cheveril glove to a good wit. How quickly the wrong side may be turn'd outward! They that dally nicely with words may quickly make them Twelfth Night. Act III, Sc. 1.

wanton.

MA

AKE the doors upon a woman's wit and it will out at the casement; shut that and 'twill out at the key-hole; stop that, 'twill fly with the smoke out at the chimney.

As You Like It. Act IV, Sc. 1.

OR silence only is commendable

FOR

In a neat's tongue dri'd, and a maid not vendible.

Merchant of Venice. Act I, Sc. 1.

OW ill white hairs become a fool and

HRjester!

King Henry IV. Part II, Act V, Sc. 5.

ETTER a witty fool, than a foolish wit.
Twelfth Night. Act I, Sc. 5.

BETTER

And gives the crutch the cradle's infancy.
Love's Labour's Lost. Act IV, Sc. 3.

OOK, what an unthrift in the world doth

L spend

Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;
But beauty's waste hath in the world an end,
And kept unus'd, the user so destroys it.

Sonnet IX.

EAUTY within itself should not be
AUTY

BE wasted.

Venus and Adonis. Line 130.

Age

Wit in
Folly

Beauty and Age

Beauty
Unused

Beauty

ROM fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty's rose might never

die,

But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory.

EVIL

Sonnet I.

Unkindness Piled on Injury

Temptation

A Specious Plea

LL deeds are doubled with an evil word.
The Comedy of Errors. Act III, Sc. 2.

ILL dhe Comedy of Errors.

H

OW oft the sight of means to do ill deeds
Make deeds ill done!

King John. Act IV, Sc. 2.

IS needful that the most immodest word Be look'd upon and learn'd; which once attain❜d,

Your Highness knows, comes to no further

use

But to be known and hated.

King Henry IV. Part II, Act IV, Sc. 4.

WHAT authority and show of truth Can cunning sin cover itself withal! Much Ado About Nothing. Act IV, Sc. 1.

BETW

ETWEEN 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.

Julius Cæsar. Act II, Sc. 1.

OUL deeds will rise,

Fo

I

Though all the earth o'erwhelm them,
to men's eyes.

NE'ER yet heard

Hamlet. Act I, Sc. 2.

That any of these bolder vices wanted Less impudence to gainsay what they did, Than to perform it first.

Winter's Tale. Act III, Sc. 2.

Masks

The
Sinner's

Agony

Discovery

Effrontery