Shakespeare Quotes (6 quotes)
A liberal education may be had at a very slight cost of time …[with] ten books which you may make close friends.
I. Old and New Testament.
II. Shakespeare.
III. Montaigne.
IV. Plutarch’s Lives.
V. Marcus Aurelius.
VI. Epictetus.
VII. Religio Medici.
VIII. Don Quixote.
IX. Emerson
X. Oliver Wendell Holmes—Breakfast-Table Series.
I. Old and New Testament.
II. Shakespeare.
III. Montaigne.
IV. Plutarch’s Lives.
V. Marcus Aurelius.
VI. Epictetus.
VII. Religio Medici.
VIII. Don Quixote.
IX. Emerson
X. Oliver Wendell Holmes—Breakfast-Table Series.
From 'Bed-Side Reading List For Medical Students', final page of Aequanimitas and Other Addresses (1904, 1906), 475.
A monument to Newton! a monument to Shakespeare! Look up to Heaven—look into the Human Heart. Till the planets and the passions–the affections and the fixed stars are extinguished—their names cannot die.
In 'Noctes Ambrosianae: XXV' (Jun 1830), The Works of Professor Wilson of the University of Edinburgh: Noctes Ambrosianae (1865), Vol. 3, 55.
He who would lead a Christ-like life is he who is perfectly and absolutely himself. He may be a great poet, or a great man of science, or a young student at the University, or one who watches sheep upon a moor, or a maker of dramas like Shakespeare, or a thinker about God, like Spinoza. or a child who plays in a garden, or a fisherman who throws his nets into the sea. It does not matter what he is as long as he realises the perfection of the soul that is within him.
In 'The Critic As Artist', Oscariana: Epigrams (1907), 27-28
Shakespeare says, we are creatures that look before and after; the more surprising that we do not look round a little, and see what is passing under our very eyes.
As quoted, without citation, in John Walker, A Fork in the Road: Answers to Daily Dilemmas from the Teachings of Jesus Christ (2005), 69.
This theme of mutually invisible life at widely differing scales bears an important implication for the ‘culture wars’ that supposedly now envelop our universities and our intellectual discourse in general ... One side of this false dichotomy features the postmodern relativists who argue that all culturally bound modes of perception must be equally valid, and that no factual truth therefore exists. The other side includes the benighted, old-fashioned realists who insist that flies truly have two wings, and that Shakespeare really did mean what he thought he was saying. The principle of scaling provides a resolution for the false parts of this silly dichotomy. Facts are facts and cannot be denied by any rational being. (Often, facts are also not at all easy to determine or specify–but this question raises different issues for another time.) Facts, however, may also be highly scale dependent–and the perceptions of one world may have no validity or expression in the domain of another. The one-page map of Maine cannot recognize the separate boulders of Acadia, but both provide equally valid representations of a factual coastline.
The World as I See It (1999)
Yes, Shakespeare foremost and forever (Darwin too). But also teach about the excellence of pygmy bushcraft and Fuegian survival in the world’s harshest climate. Dignity and inspiration come in many guises. Would anyone choose the tinhorn patriotism of George Armstrong Custer over the eloquence of Chief Joseph in defeat?
…...
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
