Date: w. 1592-3 or 1595?, 1623

"I cannot weep, for all my body's moisture / Scarce serves to quench my furnace-burning heart; / Nor can my tongue unload my heart's great burden, / For selfsame wind that I should speak withal / Is kindling coals that fires all my breast, / And burns me up with flames that tears would quench."

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: w. 1592-3 or 1595?, 1623

"Then, Clifford, were thy heart as hard as steel, / As thou hast shown it flinty by thy deeds, / I come to pierce it or to give thee mine."

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: w. 1592-3 or 1595?, 1623

"Weep, wretched man, I'll aid thee tear for tear; / And let our hearts and eyes, like civil war, / Be blind with tears, and break, o'ercharged with grief."

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: w. 1592-3 or 1595?, 1623

"See, see, what showers arise, / Blown with the windy tempest of my heart, / Upon thy wounds, that kills mine eye and heart!"

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: w. 1592-3 or 1595?, 1623

"My heart, sweet boy, shall be thy sepulchre, / For from my heart thine image ne'er shall go."

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: w. 1592-3 or 1595?, 1623

"Her sighs will make a batt'ry in his breast, / Her tears will pierce into a marble heart."

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: w. 1592-3 or 1595?, 1623

"My crown is in my heart, not on my head; / Not decked with diamonds and Indian stones, / Nor to be seen. My crown is called content."

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: w. 1592-3 or 1595?, 1623

"From such a cause as fills mine eyes with tears / And stops my tongue, while heart is drowned in cares"

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: w. 1592-3 or 1595?, 1623

"Now join your hands, and with your hands your hearts"

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: 1704

"Erect your schemes with as much method and skill as you please; yet, if the materials be nothing but dirt, spun out of your own entrails (the guts of modern brains), the edifice will conclude at last in a cobweb; the duration of which, like that of other spiders’ webs, may be imputed to their be...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)