Shakespeare on Straight Talk, Sincerity and No Beating Around the Bush

what I think I utter and spend my malice in my breath“What I think I utter and spend my malice in my breath.”
(Coriolanus, act 2, sc. 1)

Tips for use.  A good way to declare both your sincerity, particularly if there is a hint or innuendo that you may be hiding something. A characteristic or quality that would be ideal with many a politician. Or at least, it would be already wonderful if they were to cut out the essentially meaningless generalizations with which they embroider their orations. A good answer during an interview or a presentation. Especially if the question is, Continue reading

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Shakespeare on Dreams and Love beyond Dreams

all this is but a dream, too flattering sweet to be substantial… all this is but a dream,
Too flattering sweet to be substantial.”

(Romeo and Juliet, act 2, sc.2)

Tips for use.  When the outcome of your action or hope went well beyond your expectations. Or when you meet with an extraordinary unexpected pleasant surprise. The surprise may not have to be limited to the realm of romance. Once upon a time there was for example the American Dream. The expression was coined by coined in 1931 by James Truslow Adams (1878-1949), a writer and historian, not related to the historical line of the Adams and here it is, Continue reading

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Shakespeare on bagpipe and bagpipes, musical taste, likes and dislikes

bagpipe and bagpipes, likes and dislikes and musical taste“Some men there are love not a gaping pig;

And others, when the bagpipe sings i’ the nose
Cannot contain their urine.”

(Merchant Of Venice, act 4, sc. 1)

Tips for use.  Perfect repartee should you dislike the subject instrument and be asked about your related opinion. With some artistic license you can apply the same caustic aspersion to any dis-likeable music – e.g. “…there are some, when the hard-rock band begins to play, cannot contain their urine.” Hard-rock lovers, be not dismayed – it was just an example. Continue reading

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Shakespeare on Health-Care, Natural Medicine, Alternative Medicine, Natural Remedy

 “Our foster-nurse of nature is repose,
The which he lacks, that to provoke in him,
Are many simples operative, whose power
Will close the eye of anguish”
(King Lear act 4, sc. 4)

Tips for use.  A good line to recommend rest to a fatigued colleague or friend. The idea of rest as a medicine is almost as old as medicine. But whenever repeated or rediscovered it carries a ring of novelty. Here is an extract from one of many health-care sites, “When many people are sick, they rush to the doctor Continue reading

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Shakespeare on Boredom, Boring Speaker, Lengthy Event and Polite Insults

this will last out a night in Russia when nights are longest there“This will last out a night in Russia,
When nights are longest there“

(Measure For Measure, act 2, sc. 1)

Tips for use.  A sentiment that, no doubt, many of us have felt or acquired when exposed to interminable presentations by a particularly boring speaker. Or when we have been obliged by politeness to attend an interminable ceremony or a tedious theatrical performance. Talking of which, on the advent of the Restoration, after the years of Cromwell’s Commonwealth, Shakespeare’s plays were re-introduced Continue reading

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Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra and Answering a Request from a Woman

romantic ideas on how to say yes to a lady's request“…our courteous Antony,
Whom ne’er the word of ‘No’ woman heard speak”

(Antony and Cleopatra, act 2, sc. 2)

Tips for Use. Whether you may mean it literally or figuratively, whether it is actually true or whether it represents your general inclination on the matter, the line makes an elegant answer to a request for a favor from a woman. E.G. “Never the word of ‘No’ woman heard me speak.” Either way to have an effect the line relies on the mode of delivery. Says Khalil Gibran, “the reality of the other person is not in what he reveals to you, but Continue reading

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Shakespeare, on Hair Loss, Baldness and Positive Thinking

Hair is a blessing that time bestows on beastsANTIPHOLUS of Syracuse. Why is Time such a niggard of hair, being, as it is, so plentiful an excrement?
DROMIO of Syracuse.
Because it is a blessing that time bestows on beasts; and what he has scanted men in hair, he hath given them in wit.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Why, but there’s many a man hath more hair than wit.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
Not a man of those but he hath the wit to lose his hair.
(
Comedy Of Errors, act 2, sc. 2)

Tips for Use. Depending on your hair condition use Dromio’s comment as a statement Continue reading

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Exception to Shakespeare by Way of Alexander Pope

True wit is nature to advantage drest“True Wit is Nature to Advantage drest,
What oft was thought, bit ne’er so well Exprest”

(A. Pope, Essay on Criticism)

In today’s blog we take a brief excursion outside of the Shakespeare realm. A bit like the Tour de France, that, being such, takes the occasional leap into one of the neighboring countries. I will start by thanking the participants to the workshop “Put Shakespeare in Your Writings” held on the occasion the Willamette Writers’ Annual Conference at the Sheraton Airport Hotel in Portland, Oregon. During the Continue reading

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Shakespeare on Hypocrisy, Deception and False Appearances

what may man within him hide Though angel on the outward side“O, what may man within him hide,
Though angel on the outward side!” (
Measure For Measure, act 3, sc. 2)

Tips for use.  A pointed comment on hypocrisy and hypocrites and generally on deceptive or false appearances. The word hypocrisy is of Greek derivation, hypokrisis, “acting on the stage, pretense”. Describing a European country in 1938 a French writer wrote, “Hypocrisy is the art of affecting qualities for the purpose of pretending to an undeserved virtue. Because individuals and institutions and societies most often live down to the suspicions about them, hypocrisy and its accompanying equivocations underpin the conduct of life. Continue reading

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Shakespeare on Reply to “I love you” and to Express Surprise

Manad you have bereft me of all words“Madam, you have bereft me of all words,
Only my blood speaks to you in my veins…
(Merchant Of Venice, act 3., sc. 2)

Tips for use. Words of love hang on a very thin thread from which it is easy to fall from the poetic to the rhetorical, the exaggerated and the ridiculous. The general rule is, thread carefully. The first line “you have bereft me of all words” is a time-gainer when, after being told something pleasant, you don’t know or you are looking for what to say. This could happen in any encounter or during a Continue reading

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