Date: 1603

"Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, / And thus the native hue of resolution / Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, / And enterprises of great pith and moment / With this regard their currents turn awry, / And lose the name of action."

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: 1603

"Give me that man / That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him / In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart, / As I do thee."

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: 1604, 1622

A thought may, "like a poisonous mineral," gnaw one's inwards

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: 1609

"My mind is troubled, like a fountain stirr'd;/ And I myself see not the bottom of it."

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: w. 1610-11, 1623

"A solemn air, and the best comforter / To an unsettled fancy, cure thy brains, / Now useless, boiled within thy skull."

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: w. 1610-11, 1623

"The charm dissolves apace, / And as the morning steals upon the night, / Melting the darkness, so their rising senses / Begin to chase the ignorant fumes that mantle / Their clearer reason."

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: w. 1610-11, 1623

"Their understanding / Begins to swell, and the approaching tide / Will shortly fill the reasonable shores / That now lie foul and muddy."

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: w. 1610-11, 1623

"You cram these words into mine ears against / The stomach of my sense."

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: 1611-12, 1623

"Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased; / Pluck from the memory of a rooted sorrow; / Raze out the written troubles of the brain; / And with some sweet oblivious antidote / Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff / Which weighs upon the heart?"

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: 1612-3, 1623

"The hearts of princes kiss obedience,
So much they love it; but to stubborn spirits
They swell, and grow as terrible as storms."

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)