At Christmas play and make good cheer,

For Christmas comes but once a year.

Thomas Tusser (Circa 1515-1580): Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry. The Farmer's Daily Diet.

'T is not for gravity to play at cherry-pit with Satan.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Twelfth Night. Act iii. Sc. 4.

Good at a fight, but better at a play;

Godlike in giving, but the devil to pay.

Thomas Moore (1779-1852): On a Cast of Sheridan's Hand.

What thou wouldst highly,

That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false,

And yet wouldst wrongly win.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 5.

In books, or work, or healthful play.

Isaac Watts (1674-1748): Divine Songs. Song xx.

Why, let the stricken deer go weep,

The hart ungalled play;

For some must watch, while some must sleep:

So runs the world away.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 2.

I took it for a faery vision

Of some gay creatures of the element,

That in the colours of the rainbow live,

And play i' th' plighted clouds.

John Milton (1608-1674): Comus. Line 298.

The play's the thing

Wherein I 'll catch the conscience of the king.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act ii. Sc. 2.

Hope travels through, nor quits us when we die.

Behold the child, by Nature's kindly law,

Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw;

Some livelier plaything gives his youth delight,

A little louder, but as empty quite;

Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage,

And beads and prayer-books are the toys of age.

Pleased with this bauble still, as that before,

Till tired he sleeps, and life's poor play is o'er.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Essay on Man. Epistle ii. Line 274.

If music be the food of love, play on;

Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,

The appetite may sicken, and so die.

That strain again! it had a dying fall:

O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound

That breathes upon a bank of violets,

Stealing and giving odour!

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Twelfth Night. Act i. Sc. 1.

Play out the play.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry IV. Part I. Act ii. Sc. 4.

Fain would I, but I dare not; I dare, and yet I may not;

I may, although I care not, for pleasure when I play not.

Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618): Fain Would I.

And thus I clothe my naked villany

With old odd ends stolen out of holy writ,

And seem a saint when most I play the devil.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Richard III. Act i. Sc. 3.

O, I could play the woman with mine eyes

And braggart with my tongue.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act iv. Sc. 3.

Though this may be play to you,

'T is death to us.

Roger L. Estrange (1616-1704): Fables from Several Authors. Fable 398.

Oft on the dappled turf at ease

I sit, and play with similes,

Loose type of things through all degrees.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): To the same Flower.

In books, or work, or healthful play.

Isaac Watts (1674-1748): Divine Songs. Song xx.

If thou would'st have me sing and play

As once I play'd and sung,

First take this time-worn lute away,

And bring one freshly strung.

Thomas Moore (1779-1852): If Thou would'st have Me sing and play.