Saturday, August 27, 2016

WS on Hot States and Cold States (IV)

If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches and poor men's cottages princes' palaces. It is a good divine that follows his own instructions: I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching. The brain may devise laws for the blood, but a hot temper leaps o'er a cold decree: such a hare is madness the youth, to skip o'er the meshes of good counsel the cripple.

(Merchant of Venice, Act 1, Scene 2, lines 206-213)

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Look thou be true; do not give dalliance
Too much the rein. The strongest oaths are straw
To th’ fire i’ th’ blood. Be more abstemious,
Or else goodnight your vow.

(The Tempest, Act 4, Scene 1, lines 56-59, Folger Shakespeare edition)

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