I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him.
Farewell, a long farewell to all my greatness! This is the state of man: today he puts forth The tender leaves of hope, tomorrow blossoms, And bears his blushing honours thick upon him: The third day comes a frost, a killing frost, And - when he thinks, good easy man, full surely His greatness is a-ripening - nips his root, And then he falls, as I do.
SORCERY, n. The ancient prototype and forerunner of political influence. It was, however, deemed less respectable and sometimes was punished by torture and death.
A man dies not for the many wounds that pierce his breast, unless it be that life's end keep pace with death, nor by sitting on his hearth at home doth he the more escape his appointed doom.
We poets would die of loneliness but for women, and we choose our men friends that we may have somebody to talk about women with. Letter to Olivia Shakespeare, 1936
Fear no more the heat o' th' sun Nor the furious winters' rages; Thou thy worldly task hast done, Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages. Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
We are dying, we are dying, we are all of us dying
and nothing will stay the death-flood rising within us
and soon it will rise on the world, on the outside world.
My life closed twice before its close;
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me,
So huge, so hopeless to conceive,
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.