23 Quotes About Sonnet

A sonnet, also known as a sonnet sequence, is a form of poetry composed of 14 lines. It is generally written in iambic pentameter, rhyming or alliterating couplets. Sonnet 150 is the first English-language sonnet published in the 1590s. Sonnets are typically about one person’s experiences and feelings Read more

This article contains an assortment of famous sonnets covering all the types of relationships that exist between people, including love, friendship, family, and more.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways....
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How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of being and ideal grace. I love thee to the level of every day's Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for right. I love thee purely, as they turn from praise. I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death. Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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Just let me wait a little while longer, Under your window in the quite snow. Let me stand here and shiver, I’ll be stronger If I can see your light before I go. All through the weeks I’ve tried to keep my balance. Leaves fell, then rain, then shadows, I fell too. Easy restraint is not among my talents, Fall turned to Winter and I came to you. Kissed by the snow I contemplate your face. Oh, do not hide it in your pillow yet! Warm rooms would never lure me from this place, If only I could see your silhouette. Turn on your light, my sun, my summer love. Zero degrees down here, July above. Polly Shulman
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I don’t think that I’ve been in love as such Although I liked a few folk pretty well Love must be vaster than my smiles or touchfor brave men died and empires rose and fell For love, girls follow boys to foreign landsand men have followed women into hell In plays and poems someone understandsthere’s something makes us more than blood and boneand more than biological demands For me love’s like the wind, unseen, unknown I see the trees are bending where it’s been I know that it leaves wreckage where it’s blown I really don’t know what "I love you" means I think it means "don’t leave me here alone . Neil Gaiman
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Men call you fayre, and you doe credit it, For that your self ye daily such doe see: But the trew fayre, that is the gentle wit, And vertuous mind, is much more praysd of me. For all the rest, how ever fayre it be, Shall turne to nought and loose that glorious hew: But onely that is permanent and free From frayle corruption, that doth flesh ensew. That is true beautie: that doth argue you To be divine and borne of heavenly seed: Deriv'd from that fayre Spirit, from whom al true And perfect beauty did at first proceed. He onely fayre, and what he fayre hath made, All other fayre lyke flowres untymely fade. . Edmund Spenser
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When I do count the clock that tells the time, And see the brave day sunk in hideous night; When I behold the violet past prime, And sable curls all silver'd o'er with white; When lofty trees I see barren of leaves Which erst from heat did canopy the herd, And summer's green all girded up in sheaves Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard, Then of thy beauty do I question make, That thou among the wastes of time must go, Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake And die as fast as they see others grow; And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence. William Shakespeare
I can’t pray or weigh my words right; doomsday is...
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I can’t pray or weigh my words right; doomsday is here my friend, but you’re immune. We sufferfor you. I’m weaving crowns of sonnets, dreads;a souvenir so you’ll never forget your friends. Jalina Mhyana
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I am, and that is all I know at times, My being shaped by forces known and not. But whereas words are made to bend to rhymes, My feet are bound to steps that I have wrought. I feel myself expanding into this Beautiful niche I could not see before But I always sensed-and now I cannot miss Myself: I am unlimited and more Is opening to me, the more I open To this sweet fear, like falling from a cloud, My heart's inertia clear and calm, unspoken But heard. It says to me: "You are allowed." And I am free at last to feel this way To take this step: to wonder, love and stray. . David Griswold
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Ere long this golden light shall pass and fade Except all cherish'd mem'ries ye have made. Timothy Salter
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I'd Drown For YouI opened my heart to you A complete immersion I offered my soul to you A heavenly diversion Muse
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Alas, I have grieved so I am hard to love. Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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I knew your plan before you made it, ” Eldora proclaimed, tossing her Wert from hand to hand… “You are somewhat of a mystery, one of Shakespeare’s cryptic sonnets, I reckon, but some lines are rather…obvious. You would be a terrible king. MaryJean Harris
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Mark but this flea, and mark in this, How little that which thou deniest me is; Me it sucked first, and now sucks thee, And in this flea our two bloods mingled be; Thou know’st that this cannot be said A sin, or shame, or loss of maidenhead, Yet this enjoys before it woo, And pampered swells with one blood made of two, And this, alas, is more than we would do. Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare, Where we almost, nay more than married are. This flea is you and I, and this Our mariage bed and mariage temple is; Though parents grudge, and you, we are met, And cloisterd in these living walls of jet. Though use make you apt to kill me, Let not to that, self-murder added be, And sacrilege, three sins in killing three. Cruel and sudden, hast thou since Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence? Wherein could this flea guilty be, Except in that drop which it sucked from thee? Yet thou triumph’st, and say'st that thou Find’st not thy self, nor me the weaker now; ’Tis true; then learn how false, fears be: Just so much honor, when thou yield’st to me, Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee. John Donne
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Disquite SonnetI wish that I could find the words to tell You were it hurts; nothing breaking my skin Slices whispering in my brain like hell Leaking suggestions of a morose grin Cannot collect my thoughts long enough to Share them in an understandable way So I lock my lips firmly and walk through Life, searching for the perfect words to say Trapped in my head, I seek to be let out Grasping connections with those who might know What it feels like, alone in a crowd, doubt Filling my body with reasons to go Face to face, I might not find the right phrase But I hope someone hears me anyway . Kathy Trithardt
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Yet this thou art alive, but if ye soar, My poor frail heart will have beat out its cry And sadly miss thy sweet form all the more While helplessly I stand and watch you die. Timothy Salter
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The sonnet, a lyrical poem, the beauty and magic... convey with our hearts the truth of the universe in a single moment briefly. R.M. Engelhardt (TALON)
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O God bid my poor body to arise On that bright day triumphant through the skies! Timothy Salter
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LXXVSo are you to my thoughts as food to life, Or as sweet-season'd showers are to the ground; And for the peace of you I hold such strife As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found. Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure; Now counting best to be with you alone, Then better'd that the world may see my pleasure: Sometime all full with feasting on your sight, And by and by clean starved for a look; Possessing or pursuing no delight Save what is had, or must from you be took. Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day, Or gluttoning on all, or all away. William Shakespeare
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Thou of thyself thy sweet self dost deceive. William Shakespeare
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Be not self-willed, for thou art much too fair To be death’s conquest and make worms thine heir. William Shakespeare
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My love is as a fever, longing still For that which longer nurseth the disease; Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill, The uncertain sickly appetite to please. My reason, the physician to my love, Angry that his prescriptions are not kept, Hath left me, and I desperate now approve, Desire his death, which physic did except. Past cure I am, now reason is past care, And frantic-mad with evermore unrest; My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are, At random from the truth vainly express'd; For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright, Who art as black as hell, as dark as night. William Shakespeare
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No longer mourn for me when I am deadthan you shall hear the surly sullen bell give warning to the world that I am fled from this vile world with vilest worms to dwell: nay, if you read this line, remember not the hand that writ it, for I love you so, that I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot, if thinking on me then should make you woe. O! if, I say, you look upon this verse when I perhaps compounded am with clay, do not so much as my poor name rehearse; but let your love even with my life decay; lest the wise world should look into your moan, and mock you with me after I am gone. William Shakespeare