Precept and Practice
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 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 bare is madness, the youth, to skip o’er the meshes of good counsel, the cripple.
The Merchant of Venice—I. 2.
Out of this silence, yet I picked a welcome;And in the modesty of fearful dutyI read as much, as from the rattling tongueOf saucy and audacious eloquence.
Midsummer Night’s Dream—V. 1.
The silence often of pure innocencePersuades, when speaking fails.
Winter’s Tale—II. 2.
Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were but little happy, if I could say how much.
Much Ado About Nothing—II. 1.
Though those, that are betrayed,Do feel the treason sharply, yet the traitorStands in worse case of woe.
Cymbeline—III. 4.