Quotes About Imagination

For nimble thought can jump both sea and land.

I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was.

Since once I sat upon a promontory,And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's backUttering such dulcet and harmonious breath,That the rude sea grew civil at her song,And certain stars shot madly from their spheresTo hear the sea-maid's music.

I could a tale unfold whose lightest wordWould harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,Thy knotted and combined locks to part,And each particular hair to stand an end,Like quills upon the fretful porpentine.

I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows,Where oxlips and the nodding violet growsQuite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine:There sleeps Titania some time of the night,Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight;And there the snake throws her enamell'd skin,Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in.

I am giddy, expectation whirls me round.The imaginary relish is so sweetThat it enchants my sense.

Is this a dagger which I see before me,The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee:I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.Art thou not, fatal vision, sensibleTo feeling as to sight? or art thou butA dagger of the mind, a false creation,Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?

I'll put a girdle round about the earthIn forty minutes.

O! for a horse with wings!

All days are nights to see till I see thee, And nights bright days when dreams do show thee to me.

Chewing the food of sweet and bitter fancy.

Truly, I would the gods had made thee poetical.

The isle is full of noises,Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not.Sometimes a thousand twangling instrumentsWill hum about mine ears; and sometimes voices,That, if I then had wak'd after long sleep,Will make me sleep again.

To what base uses we may return, Horatio! Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander, till he find it stopping a bung-hole?

Devise, wit; write, pen; for I am for whole volumes in folio.

If we shadows have offended,Think but this, and all is mended,That you have but slumber'd hereWhile these visions did appear.

The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was.

Be thou the tenth Muse.

I am Thane of Cawdor:If good, why do I yield to that suggestionWhose horrid image doth unfix my hairAnd make my seated heart knock at my ribs,Against the use of nature? Present fearsAre less than horrible imaginings.

In my mind's eye, Horatio.

O! then, I see, Queen Mab hath been with you!…She is the fairies' midwife, and she comesIn shape no bigger than an agate-stoneOn the forefinger of an alderman,Drawn with a team of little atomiesAthwart men's noses as they lie asleep.

Hamlet Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel Polonius By the mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed. Hamlet Methinks it is like a weasel. Polonius It is backed like a weasel. Hamlet Or like a whale Polonius Very like a whale.

O for a muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention.

The Possible's slow fuse is lit By the Imagination.