Our revels now are ended. These our actors,

As I foretold you, were all spirits, and

Are melted into air, into thin air:

And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,

The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe itself,

Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,

And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,

Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff

As dreams are made on; and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Tempest. Act iv. Sc. 1.

That which is now a horse, even with a thought

The rack dislimns, and makes it indistinct,

As water is in water.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Antony and Cleopatra. Act iv. Sc. 14.

Stretch'd on the rack of a too easy chair,

And heard thy everlasting yawn confess

The pains and penalties of idleness.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The Dunciad. Book iv. Line 342.

Vex not his ghost: O, let him pass! he hates him much

That would upon the rack of this tough world

Stretch him out longer.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Lear. Act v. Sc. 3.

For it so falls out

That what we have we prize not to the worth

Whiles we enjoy it, but being lack'd and lost,

Why, then we rack the value; then we find

The virtue that possession would not show us

Whiles it was ours.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Much Ado about Nothing. Act iv. Sc. 1.