II.

COMPARISON.

When the moon shone, we did not see the candle.
So doth the greater glory dim the less;
A substitute shines brightly as a king,
Until a king be by; and then his state
Empties itself, as does an inland brook
Into the main of waters.

Merchant of Venice -- V. 1.

CONSCIENCE.

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

Hamlet -- III. 1.

CONTENT.

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;"
A crown it is, that seldom kings enjoy.

King Henry VI., Part 3d - III. 1.

CONTENTION.

How, in one house,
Should many people, under two commands,
Hold amity?

King Lear -- II. 4.

When two authorities are set up,
Neither supreme, how soon confusion
May enter twixt the gap of both, and take
The one by the other.

Coriolanus -- III. 1.

CONTENTMENT.

'Tis better to be lowly born,
And range with humble livers in content,
Than to be perked up in a glistering grief,
And wear a golden sorrow.

King Henry VIII. -- II. 3.

COWARDS.

Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.

Julius Caesar -- II. 2.

CUSTOM.

That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat
Of habit's devil, is angel yet in this:
That to the use of actions fair and good
He likewise gives a frock, or livery,
That aptly is put on: Refrain to-night:
And that shall lend a kind of easiness
To the next abstinence: the next more easy:
For use almost can change the stamp of nature,
And either curb the devil, or throw him out
With wondrous potency.

Hamlet -- III. 4.

A custom
More honored in the breach, then the observance.

Idem -- I. 4.

DEATH.

Kings, and mightiest potentates, must die;
For that's the end of human misery.

King Henry VI., Part 1st -- III. 2.

Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a n