Assume a virtue, if you have it not. That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat, Of habits devil, is angel yet in this, That to the use of actions fair and good He likewise gives a frock or livery That aptly is put on. Refrain tonight, And that shall lend a kind of easiness To the next abstinence; the next more easy; For use almost can change the stamp of nature.
O sir, you are old; nature in you stands on the very verge of her confine; you should be ruled and led by some discretion, that discerns your fate better than you yourself.
Dreams, indeed, are ambition; for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream. And I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality that it is but a shadow's shadow.
There are a sort of men, whose visages
Do cream and mantle, like a standing pond;
And do a willful stillness entertain,
With purpose to be dressed 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!