Sonnet xlii Quotes

“Then, were not summer's distillation leftA liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,Nor it nor no remembrance what it was.But flowers distilled, though they with winter meet,Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet.”

“Then of thy beauty do I question make,That thou among the wastes of time must go,Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake,And die as fast as they see others grow.”

“But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,And, constant stars, in them I read such art,As truth and beauty shall together thriveIf from thyself to store thou wouldst convert;Or else of thee I prognosticate,Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date.”

“Love is not love which alters when it alterations finds. Sonnet 116”

“To give yourself away keep yourself still,And you must live drawn by your own sweet skill.”

“I am, and that is all I know at times,My being shaped by forces known and not.But whereas words are made to bend to rhymes,My feet are bound to steps that I have wrought.I feel myself expanding into thisBeautiful niche I could not see beforeBut I always sensed-and now I cannot missMyself: I am unlimited and moreIs opening to me, the more I open To this sweet fear, like falling from a cloud,My heart's inertia clear and calm, unspokenBut heard. It says to me: "You are allowed."And I am free at last to feel this wayTo take this step: to wonder, love and stray.”

“Alas, I have grieved so I am hard to love.”

“Then the conceit of this inconstant staySets you rich in youth before my sight,Where wasteful Time debateth with Decay,To change your day of youth to sullied night;And all in war with Time for love of you,As he takes from you I engraft you new.”

“If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,When other petty griefs have done their spite,But in the onset come: so shall I tasteAt first the very worst of fortune’s might;And other strains of woe, which now seem woe,Compar’d with loss of thee will not seem so.”

“All days are nights to see till I see thee, And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.”