Religious and Moral Sentences Culled from the Works of Shakespeare

Shakespeare.

A hell-hound, that doth hunt us all to death :-

God witness with me, I have wept for thine!

RICHARD III. iv. 4.

God (if Thy will be so),

Enrich the time to come with smooth-fac'd peace,
With smiling plenty, and fair prosperous days!

RICHARD III. v. 4.

God forbid,

That you

should fashion, wrest, or bow your reading,

Or nicely charge your understanding soul
With opening titles miscreate, whose right

Suits not in native colours with the truth.

HENRY V. i. 2.

O God! O God! that e'er this tongue of mine,
That laid the sentence of dread banishment
On yon proud man, should take it off again
With words of sooth!

Now God in Heaven forbid!

RICHARD II. iii. 3.

RICHARD II. ii. 2.

O God, what mischiefs work the wicked ones;
Heaping confusion on their own heads thereby!

2 HENRY VI. ii. 1.

Shakespeare.

O God! forgive my sins, and pardon thee!

3 HENRY VI. v. 6.

If he do fear God, he must necessarily keep peace.

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, ii. 3.

Nor God, nor I, delight in perjur'd men.

LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST, v. 2.

O, forbid it, God,

That in a Christian climate, souls refined

Should shew so heinous, black, obscene a deed!

RICHARD II. iv. 1.

God hath blessed you with a good name.

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, iii. 3.

O Warwick, I do bend my knee with thine,
And, in this vow, do chain my soul to thine ;-
And, ere my knee rise from the earth's cold face,
I throw my hands, mine eyes, my heart to Thee,
Thou setter-up and plucker-down of kings!
Beseeching Thee,-if with Thy will it stands,
That to my foes this body must be prey,—
Yet that Thy brazen gates of Heaven may ope,
And give sweet passage to my sinful soul !—
Now, lords, take leave, until we meet again,
Where e'er it be, in Heaven, or on earth.

3 HENRY VI. ii. 3.

Shakespeare.

Great God, how just art Thou!

2 HENRY VI. v. 1.

Let us be back'd with God, and with the seas,
Which He hath given for fence impregnable;
And with their helps only defend ourselves.

3 HENRY VI. iv. 1.

I say no more than truth, so help me God!

Who hath not heard it spoken,

How deep you were within the books of God?

2 HENRY IV. iv. 2.

O God! O God!

How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable,

Seem to me all the uses of this world!

HAMLET, i. 2.

In God's name,

lead your king's name be obey'd:

And what God will, that let your king perform.

3 HENRY VI. iii. 1.

Shakespeare.

HEAVEN.

O let me not be mad, not mad, sweet Heaven!
Keep me in temper: I would not be mad!

KING LEAR, i. 5.

Heaven! be Thou gracious to none alive,
If Salisbury wants mercy at Thy hands.

1 HENRY VI. i. 4.

Tarry, dear cousin,

My soul shall thine keep company to Heaven:
Tarry, sweet soul, for mine; then fly a-breast:
As, in this glorious and well-foughten field,
We kept together in our chivalry!

HENRY V. iv. 6.

His actions shew much like to madness: pray Heaven, his wisdom be not tainted.